Meeting My Sweetheart

Tell the story of how you met your sweetheart; dated, and fell in love. How has your relationship evolved since that fateful day? Makes a wonderful gift for your Anniversary or Valentine’s Day.

Preparation

• Before you start the story, take a minute to reflect on what you remember about how you came to meet your sweetheart. Jotting some notes to yourself can aid recall.
• If possible, get out your old photo albums, year book, or access your digital photo storage account, to find photos of that time period. Perhaps you have a photo of you two from that day, or your first date?
• Remember the setting and the first words you exchanged. Think about how you felt before, during, and after meeting your sweetheart.
• Jot down key memories, emotions, and sensory details that stand out to you.
• Focus on a Single Moment: Don’t try to write a whole love story. Pick a specific moment – the lead-up, the exchange, or the aftermath – and expand on that.

Audience

Are you writing this story primarily for fun and self reflection, or will there be an audience for the story? If the story is primarily for your own consumption and reflection, don’t worry too much about structure or flow. Reminisce freely without worrying about spelling, grammar or sentence structure. Your virtual biographer will compile your memories into a coherent story for your enjoyment.

If you are writing the story as part of a memoir, or to share with your kids, grandkids and great grandkids as part of your larger life story, give some thought to what they would enjoy most about the story. Are you writing for a younger audience who can relate to the excitement of the first encounter, or for a more mature audience where the focus might be on the way you met and your initial reaction? What is the key message you want your audience to takeaway from your first meeting experience? Share this insight with your virtual biographer.

Structure and Flow

A story written for others starts with a good “hook” and unfolds with authenticity and emotion. Life stories can be told both chronologically and thematically. A chronological structure is good for a ‘coming of age’ story. It is told in the order events happened. A thematic structure is focused on a single event, and the ideas, thoughts and feelings of the characters. Your virtual biographer will weave both approaches.

One of the most important choices to make about writing the story is what point-of-view the story will take. Do you want to tell it in the “First Person” (you as narrator) or the “Third Person” (an objective narrator). Most autobiographies, memoires, and life stories are told in the first person because they are character-driven stories. They are more intimate. However, writing and telling the story in the third person offers objectivity and omniscience. Most biographies are written in the third person. So if you are telling the story of someone else’s wedding, you should use the third person point-of-view.

Answer the Important Questions; Skip Those Less Relevant

The ‘Times of My Life’ app provides you with a Virtual Biographer (VB) to interview you about how you met your sweetheart. Yes, it’s an AI bot, but a very smart and intuitive one. Your VB has instant access to similar stories written and shared by millions of other people. It can help you relive the moment, illuminate the essence of your experience, and then tell a story that is uniquely yours. If your VB asks a question that doesn’t seem relevant to your experience, just skip it and move on to the questions that assist your recall and are important to how you lived that moment.

Add Details

If your virtual biographer fails to ask you a key question about your first encounter with your sweetheart, simply tap the “Add Details” icon to add the memory when it comes to your mind. To add a detail, you can type it or use the microphone to record it. The VB will use your answers and the extra details you add to write a great story.

• Use Sensory Details: Describe the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations that you recall in that moment.
• Be Authentic: Share your true thoughts and emotions. Authenticity will resonate with readers and make your story more powerful.
• Include Dialogue: Put sentences in quotation marks to let your virtual biographer know that it is a direct quote, and who said it. What were the first words exchanged between you and your sweetheart?
• Express Your Emotions: Don’t shy away from sharing the range of emotions you felt—joy, excitement, nervousness, awkwardness, disappointment, etc.
• Reflect on the Experience: Discuss how that first encounter impacted you. Reflect on what it meant to you at the time and how you view it now. Discuss how meeting your sweetheart has changed you. How has your relationship evolved?

Don’t Just Tell; Show

Instead of just stating facts, show what happened through detailed descriptions and actions. For example, instead of saying “I was nervous about our first meeting,” describe how your heart raced and your palms sweated. Photos, narration, and music will also help you “show” the story. The ‘Times of My Life’ app is excellent at helping you visualize the story in multimedia formats.

Write the Story; Add Media

• After the interview and after you add whatever details you think are important, you will have the option of writing the story yourself, or having your virtual biographer write the story. It only cost $0.00 to have your VB write the story — and will save you hours of work writing it yourself. You can always edit what the VB writes.
• If you prefer to write the story yourself, use your answers from the interview and the details and notes the app captured, to guide your writing. Tips for writing the story yourself can be viewed by tapping the “Tips” icon in the app. Additional tips are listed below.
• After the story is written you will end up at the ‘Enhance Story’ screen. This is where the magic happens.
  • Tap “Add Media” to insert images and/or video clips into the narrative of your story.
  • Tap “Narrator” to choose a narrator. NOTE: A narrator is great if you ask your virtual biographer to write the story in the Third Person. If it is written in the First Person, then YOU are the narrator of the story.
  • Tap “Music” to add background music to your story, assuming you plan to publish it as an audiocast or a video.

Edit and Revise

After the story is written by you or your virtual biographer, you can “share” it for free with friends and loved ones. Their feedback can provide valuable perspective and help you improve your story. After you get their feedback you can go back and edit the story as desired — or ask your VB to rewrite it with the feedback!

Publish Your Story

One of the best features of the ‘Times of My Life’ app is that it will produce the story in multimedia formats.

• Tap PDF to create a nicely formatted printed version.
• Use Audiocast to download an MP3 file.
• Click Video to download a high resolution video, complete with narration (if you choose a narrator), background music, and your uploaded images and video clips.

Misc. Story Tips

Set the Scene: Describe the place (where) and date (when) of your first meeting. What was the time period in which your sweetheart came into your life? Were you young, middle aged, older? Was the timing significant?

• Provide details about the surroundings, the atmosphere, and any significant dynamics that set the stage for your first meeting.
• Was it a blind date, a happenstance meeting, or prearranged from an online dating site? Did someone introduce you two? How did that come about?
• Describing the circumstances under how and why you met will help make your story more engaging!

Talk about your first Impressions: Share your initial thoughts and feelings upon seeing your sweetheart for the first time.

• What caught your attention? Did you feel any immediate connection or attraction? Were you nervous? Outgoing? Reserved? Shy? Talkative or at a loss for words?
• Describing what you were thinking and feeling in that moment will bring an enduring human element to your story – one that everyone can relate to and will be especially  cherished by your sweetheart when reading your story.

Recount the introduction: Describe how you both started talking or interacting.

• Was it a casual encounter or a planned introduction? What was the first conversation like? In that first encounter, what adjectives best described your sweetheart? Smart? Funny? Cute? Serious? Friendly? Sexy? Looking back on that first encounter, what were you thinking to yourself?
• Describing the initial interaction can provide clues to why this is one of your more important life stories, and not just a faded memory of someone you met in passing.

Explain how you got to know each other: Share some details about the conversations, phone calls, text messages, dates and activities that allowed you to get to know each other better.

• Highlight your common interests, shared experiences, and memorable moments.
• Talk about how your relationship developed over time. Was it a quick path to committing to each other, or a long road?
• Describing how your relationship developed and how long it took to fully blossom, adds meaningful context to your story.

Describe how and why your feelings developed: What moments or qualities made you realize you were falling in love?

• Was it love at first sight, or did it take a while to realize this was the person you wanted to commit to?
• Describing the “tipping points” that spurred your relationship to a higher level is the gripping part of your story. Everyone loves to hear about the keys that unlock love.

Share any major challenges and triumphs: Discuss any obstacles or challenges you faced as a couple and how you overcame them.

• Did you ever break up and get back together again?
• Highlight moments of disillusionment, clarity, support, understanding, and growth that strengthened your bond.
• Describing the pivotal moments in a relationship makes the story real. No love is perfect. No relationship is without its challenges and setbacks. People love to hear about how you resolved, and continue to resolve, the challenges presented in your relationship.

Talk about the special occasions: Recall the specific events, dates, and experiences that were particularly meaningful in your relationship.

• These could be making new discoveries together, surprises, or shared travels and adventures.
• Describing the most memorable experiences you shared with your sweetheart during the courting period, cements the narrative of how your relationship evolved as it did.

Describe the “Proposal” (if applicable): If there was a formal proposal to “get engaged,” “get married,” “move in together,” or otherwise become “exclusive,” share the details of how and where it happened.

• Describe your emotions leading up to and during the proposal.
• Describing the proposal is the “happy ending” of a romance and the beginning of a life together. It’s the big finale of the ‘how I met my sweetheart’ story.

Share a brief afterword: Reflect on your relationship journey and provide a brief update.

• How has your love evolved?
• What plans and dreams do you have for your future together?
• How has your life changed since committing to your sweetheart?
• Describing the current state of your relationship gives your sweetheart and your readers immense satisfaction knowing the journey is still unfolding and your story together is still being written.

Express gratitude. Finally, conclude by expressing your gratitude for having met your sweetheart. Share what makes your relationship unique and how much your sweetheart means to you.