Write 500 words on this topic: “What can you do now to make your biography less disjointed than Twain’s?”
Twain’s autobiography is extremely popular for many reasons. Whether that be reading his writing, learning about him, or learning about the time he lived in. Nobody read the autobiography for the conciseness of it. Twain is a great example of what not to do when writing an autobiography. Twain himself even talked about how he was unable to forge a consistent narrative. His autobiography, when read, sounds more like a group of short stories of his life instead of a chronological order of his life.
When writing your autobiography, you should strive for it to be better than Twain’s. If you simply tell your story in a chronological order of events, you will surpass one of the greatest authors ever. Twain, throughout his book, puts emphasis on more of the small details in his life rather than big events. In some cases he ignores major historical events. Twain completely skips over the Civil War. If you had only read his book for that time period, you would know very little. Twain doesn’t mention one of the biggest events in American history. This shows that as long as you include important events and stay on a consistent timeline, you will have a better autobiography than Twain’s.
When writing your autobiography, you must find your balance. This balance should combine personal experiences, including where you lived, what you did, and the major historical events you lived through. Imagine you write an autobiography and don’t include Covid; could you imagine what that would look like? That is a major event in history that you lived through and didn’t mention. Without mentioning important details from history in your life, your autobiography will be just as disjointed as Twain’s autobiography. Twain’s autobiography is also lacking details of major events in his own life. Despite Twain being one of the best authors ever, Twain doesn’t bother to mention much about his life but rather the stories he was part of.
In order to write an autobiography that’s superior to Twain’s, you must have a clear outline of your life and the history you lived through. Without these, your autobiography will be just as bad, as Twain’s. His autobiography performs badly in this criteria. This doesn’t mean Twain’s autobiography was a waste of a read; it was still interesting, but he didn’t perform where he needed to. If you want to surpass Twain, just execute what I stated above. Your autobiography will surpass Twain’s if you follow this.
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