What Is Legacy Writing

Depth of Narrative

This type of project is a special kind of memoir writing that delves deeper, exploring emotional, psychological, and sometimes spiritual aspects of your personal experience. It’s not just about what happened, but the impact of those events on you and how you became who you are today. Think of it as an inside story, with exclusive access.

Intended Audience

While biographies and memoirs may be written with a broad audience in mind, legacy writing is crafted more intimately. The intended audience is family, close friends, or a specific community. It serves as a historical document that conveys your personal life philosophy and experiences to future generations.

Thematic Focus

Legacy writing might structure the narrative around key themes or life lessons that you want to pass on, rather than following a strictly chronological timeline. This thematic approach allows you to highlight the values and beliefs you consider most crucial to your life.

Holistic Approach

This form of writing typically provides a holistic examination of your life, including successes, failures, and moments of reflection and searching. It offers you a chance to pass on wisdom and understanding drawn from your life story.

Preservation of Heritage

You may use this document to preserve family histories, cultural heritage, or traditions. It can be a way to prevent these elements from being lost to time, thus serving as a cultural artifact. It’s the kind of resource any archaeologist would be thrilled to discover.

Therapeutic Elements

The profound nature of this writing allows for the use of targeted techniques borrowed from clinical psychology. These techniques, which may have been developed to help clients uncover and process trauma, are adapted to help you access deep-seated and previously non-verbal memories. These insights can resonate emotionally with your intended audience.

Your Wellbeing

My role will be different from that of a therapist. In many cases, I will require that you are also seeing a therapist during our work together. This allows me to focus primarily on story discovery and writing, while your therapist is available to help you manage any emotional undercurrents that may arise.