For your own story

Write the story
only you can tell

A patient interviewer draws your life story out in your own words, at your own pace – into a book to keep for ever.

Begin your story →See the book →

From £99 · one-off, no subscription · no deadline, at your own pace

Charlie’s grandad, Ken, smiling in a houndstooth armchair, in a tweed jacket and red tie
My grandad would never have written a memoir – but he’d have opened up if you’d given him the chance. Sadly, the detail behind his stories went with him.

That’s why I built Chronicle, so the detail stays. – Charlie, founder · Read the whole story →

One quick question

What would help you decide?

Just tap one – there’s nothing else to fill in.

Why it never gets done

There is never a right Tuesday morning.

Most life stories never get written. Not because the story isn’t there, but because there is never a Tuesday morning that feels like the right one to start.

Chronicle is built for this. There is no blank page to look at. There is no weekly email to ignore. There is a conversation, a chapter at a time, that produces a finished book.

You set the chapters that matter to you. You choose the tone. You move at your own pace. Chronicle holds the structure; you provide the voice.

If there is a reason not to wait

You do not have to start at the beginning.

Some people come to Chronicle because time has stopped being an abstraction – a year that has turned out differently. If that is where you are, the order is yours. Start with what matters most rather than with 1948. Take the chapters you want and leave the ones you do not. There is no schedule to keep up with and nothing waiting on you.

Everything you say is kept from the first session onwards, in your own words, whether you get to the end or not.

And if you would like a hand setting it up, write to us – someone will help you personally.

Why do it yourself

Three reasons to tell it yourself.

You decide what is in it.

Some things are easier to write than to be asked about. With Chronicle, you control which chapters are included, which moments are emphasised, which truths are told.

You move at your pace.

A chapter a week, a chapter a month, a chapter when you feel like it. The structure stays in place; the pace is yours.

The book is yours.

Your words. Your voice. Your edit. Nothing goes in the finished book that you have not approved.

Every one, unique

A shelf of lives – yours among them.

Templates to suit every taste and story – choose the colour, the title, and a photograph if you’d like one. Designed around you, printed and bound in the UK.

A printed Memoir, Ferns of Ice
Example cover drawn by Chronicle’s cover templates – "The Long Way Round" by Jean Ashworth: a full-bleed golden-hour photograph of the Yorkshire Dales, the title large in cream serif across the foot
Example cover – "The Ordinary Sunday Table" by Rose Wilkins: a burgundy printed cover with a small gold fleuron above the cream serif title
Example cover – "Hold Your Brother’s Hand" by Beverley Campbell: an old black-and-white photograph of a young sister and brother holding hands beside a suitcase on a railway platform, mounted on a deep navy cover above the title
Example cover – "Sixpence Saturdays" by Raymond Fox: a plain ivory printed cover with the title in forest-green serif, set to the left
Example cover – "Where the Tide Turned" by Tom Fenwick: a full-bleed photograph of a British pebble beach at golden hour, the title in cream serif near the foot
Example cover – "The House on Aldous Street" by Vera Nkemdirim: a leather-brown printed cover with a fine cream double border, a small gold key motif and a cream serif title
Example cover – "My Life Story" by Ken Harries: a black-and-white photograph of a smiling older man in a checked flat cap and glasses, mounted on a forest-green cover above the title
Example cover – "Salt, and a Bit of Weather" by Derek Wilkins: a warm gold printed cover with a small sun motif above a forest-green serif title
Example cover – "The Garden She Kept" by Marjorie Hale: a full-bleed photograph of an English cottage garden in bloom, the title in cream serif near the foot
Example cover – "Everything I Never Told You" by Alec Boyd: a slate-grey printed cover with a bold cream serif title set to the left

Example covers, for made-up storytellers.

How it works

Four steps. No homework.

  1. You set it up, in a few minutes

    Your name, and the day you’d like to begin. A few minutes to set up, nothing to write.

  2. You tell it, at your own pace

    A patient AI interviewer, one question at a time. Thirteen chapters, each with an ending.

  3. You make the book your own

    Read it back, change anything you’d like, then add your own photographs and design it.

  4. Share it, or have it delivered

    A full-colour e-book to share with family. With Memoir or Heirloom, a book printed in the UK.

No weekly emails, no deadline – this isn’t homework.

See the full process →

Have a go

Try it before you commit to anything

A few minutes with the same interviewer you’d have for real. Nothing is saved and you don’t need an account.

Try telling a story →
Early storytellers

From our first storytellers

Their experience telling their stories so far

I can easily tell stories for two or three hours once I get rolling. It's so easy to talk to, and the follow-up questions are great.
Mike, beta storyteller
It's very good at asking me questions — and the responses it gives me are really good.
Cath, beta storyteller
It's like your own autobiography — but instead of you having to write it, they talk you through it.
CM, beta storyteller
What you get

Pick the tier that fits the book you want.

Memoir is everything in Life Story, held in your hands as a full-colour hardback.

A laptop on an oak desk by the window showing the Life Story digital edition – chapter one of the sample book Ferns of Ice, ready to read – beside a cup of tea and old family photographs

Life Story

Your whole life story, in your own words – to read and share.

  • Thirteen guided conversations – spoken or typed, at your own pace
  • Read along as it grows – share each chapter as it is finished
  • Photos alongside the words
  • Full-colour digital edition to read and share
  • Voice transcription and custom design included
£99

one-off

Recommended
Mock-up of the Memoir edition: the burgundy "Ferns of Ice" hardback lying on an oak desk beside reading glasses and a cup of tea

Memoir

Your life story as a hardback.

  • Everything in Life Story, plus:
  • A hardback to hold – casebound, printed in the UK
  • Printed in full colour throughout
  • 130gsm white silk paper
  • A printed cover you design – colours, title and photo
£199

one-off

Mock-up of the Heirloom edition: a forest green hardback, "The Journey So Far" by James Smith, standing on an oak table, its gold ribbon marker curling from the foot, beside reading glasses and old family photographs

Heirloom

The edition made to be handed down.

  • Everything in Memoir, plus:
  • Made to be handed down – Smyth Sewn, opens easily and stays open as you read
  • 150gsm white silk paper, the heaviest we offer
  • Priority support – we answer you first
  • Ribbon marker and endpapers in a colour you choose
£399

one-off

Talk, don’t type

You can simply say it out loud.

Voice sessions are available on every tier. You speak the story rather than type it. The result is richer – more natural rhythm, more tangents, more of the texture that makes a story sound like you and not like a form.

You can still type whenever you prefer – the voice option is in addition, not instead. Life Story, Memoir and Heirloom all include it.

From the book

What a chapter sounds like.

Two sample chapter openings, to show what a finished chapter actually reads like.

Sample chapter · 1 of 13

The house I grew up in

The kitchen was the warmest room in the house, and my mother ran it like a small country. The bread bin lived up on the dresser where we couldn’t reach it, there was a clock that ticked too loud once the lights went out, and a back door that never quite shut – you soon learned which floorboard gave you away coming in late. I thought everyone lived the way we did. It’s only now I understand how little there was, and how hard she worked so that not one of us four ever felt it.

Sample chapter · 13 of 13

What I want you to know

If you remember nothing else in these pages, remember that I was here, that I loved you, and that whatever I got wrong I got wrong while trying. The proudest thing I ever made wasn’t the work or the house – it was the ordinary Sunday table, the lot of you talking over one another, and me not saying much, just watching. Keep a table like that going, if you can. The rest is only weather.

See the two approaches side by side →
Straight answers

Questions, answered.

How long does it take?

However you like to do it. Some of our storytellers get going and talk for two or three hours at a stretch; others do twenty minutes at a time and come back when it suits them. Both work – the session waits, and nothing is lost. Most take anywhere from three months to a year, but there is no deadline – and no subscription clock.

Can I share chapters with my family as I go?

Yes. Each chapter draft is yours to share, with whoever you want, at whatever stage. Nothing is published until you say so.

What if I want to come back to it in six months?

Then come back to it in six months. Chronicle holds your progress, every session is exactly as you left it.

What if my voice is hard to transcribe?

We check before you start: Chronicle tests your microphone and plays back what it heard, so you know the transcription is working before you tell a word of your story. Transcription handles accent and age, and you can correct anything that did not come through clearly.

How do I know it is in my voice and not Chronicle’s?

Because it is built from what you actually said. Chronicle drafts each chapter from your own answers and never invents or embellishes – then you read it back, change anything that does not sound like you, and approve it. Nothing reaches the finished book without your say-so.

See all questions →

The story you have been meaning to write – done properly.

Pick the tier that fits. Begin whenever you are ready.

Begin your story →