A Unique Gift for Christmas or Hanukkah

Are you looking for a special lasting gift?

Why not give the gift of your time with a close relative or friend and record his/her life story? You could make up a gift card and put it into a Christmas or Hanukkah card, offering your time to sit with someone to record his/her story. Our lives are usually so full that offering our time is in itself a gift for any season.

Too few of us value our own lives and accomplishments. Maybe you have the time to write about your own life for a younger relative or you can write for an older relative who would enjoy telling his story. Writing your story for a child who is looking at Family History at school is invaluable and special for him or her. If you keep a journal of your time spent with a family over the holiday season, a child could add her/his thought to it. It would make memorable reading later on.

I have just been recording on a digital recorder, the memories of a lady of 94 whose family want her story and her experiences written down ( as well as recorded on CD). It is a gift they can all share at Christmas and it gives the lady who is telling her story, a great deal of pleasure. Another friend wanted to record her life for her daughters so I asked questions and she told her story into the recorder. I know it is wonderful for a family to have the audio recording after someone has died because it is another link with the person. I recorded my father in law who died 20 years ago ; my grand children can now hear his voice and funny stories. That delights us.

Taking time to do this is therapeutic for the storyteller and the recorder. It reveals a keen interest in someone’s life and shows that another person cares deeply enough to take the time or spend the money to make a book our of the recording. If you have a personal digital recorder, you will find it an asset for interviewing older relatives. It is unobtrusive and it is voice activated. You can also upload to your computer to produce a CD as a gift.

There is also much fun in looking up old photos and generating talk about that experience. Meeting family members at Christmas (or any holiday)  time is another opportunity for looking at old albums and of producing more memorable pictures that can be used in a life story. I find one memory leads to another and funny stories can be incorporated in a memoir verbatim with the corresponding photograph.

I urge you to take the time to do this. If you need a short guide, there is one on my website at http://www.truestorybooks.com. I suggest methods, questions to use and give help with technical details. Having done fifteen life stories, I know they are gifts that are treasured.

4 Core Ways to Develop Good Writing Habits

Have you ever gathered all kinds of information for a life story and sat wondering how to start? Thinking a way through can be a great help.  With any kind of writing, I keep in mind the mnemonic devise, CORE. It can help writing either a short story or a longer piece of fiction like a novel.

Three years ago, I completed a historical novel. It is much like writing a biography as far as organizing one’s ideas and then writing and editing the text.  In some past blogs about story writing, I’ve given tips on how to collect useful resources but not on how to get on with the job.   For me, the CORE of writing is essentially this: each time I find that I follow  FOUR steps in producing a story. I tend to feel more confident when I have evidence to back up a historical fiction novel.

You can

1. Collect resources –  books, photos, pictures, internet resources and any useful discussions noted. It is useful to find books that give you more background information. I wanted to know about Tecumseh and read two books about his life. I found one picture that verified where my heroine was! It came as a result of talking to another teacher I knew who happened to have a picture of my Catharine at 18, in Indian dress because she was living with the Shawnee for 4 years.
2. Organise  what you find for a life story chronologically or by events. I found a journal by another relative who imagined what happened to Catharine as she had quite an adventure travelling with her family and being captured at a time when there were many conflicts. This exciting find spurred me on and it also gave me ideas for the plot.
3. Write your story, using your resources and your own imagination. If your grandparent is still alive get them to talk about times long ago and imagine what life was like for them.  Keep on writing and only Revise when you have finished it all.
4. Edit any writing begins with re-reading the story you have produced. Then you can edit it for any slight plot changes that enhance it, Afterwards edit it for correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. This  proofreading is essential to improve the quality of your writing. You can also use a professional editor.

Collecting information can involve recording interesting information of an interview with the person you admire or of a good talk you heard about the subject (if it is to be a true story). I have spent a year reading books and collecting useful resources and making cards, I can refer to. This also helps if one wants to list references in a book. You might find useful photos in your own albums but also some interesting world events on the internet. Old pictures are now more available there to give a feel for the time.  I needed a Delaware man and found the right picture on a First Nations website.

Once you’ve collected information, start to organise how you will use it in your writing. One old family group photo prompted me to write about a person’s early life.  With one professional musician, I used his ‘bio’ in a program to introduce the man and lead to the person behind it. I saw it as a way to hook my readers. A family history about someone being captured in 1780 was a wonderful way to start a novel for young adults.

Having an idea how to organize the life story or plot will help you write more fluently. When I have written my first chapter, I read it over to see if it grabs me. When I write for younger students, I try to get right into the action. Once I introduce other characters, the story develops.   I try to put myself in my reader’s place and give him or her the most interesting view of my subject  or character. If I am retelling someone’s story, I make sure that I use words, he may have used. Using conversation brings a lifestory or a novel alive too.

When I have most of my book, I ask a friend to look at it, as it is good to have another opinion. One friend told me she wished she knew more about a secondary character as she went along. We discussed it and I valued her opinion. That was a way to sort details that affected how I ended that story.

Another friend did a copy-editing job for me. I needed to improve my own writing using more appropriate punctuation even after my friend and I had revised the text. I applied my CORE method to this bit of writing. Some of the best editing can be done when you read your story OUT LOUD, especially if it a short story with a punch line. See how it comes across. I always do this writing a picture book for the youngest children.

Using certain steps like CORE makes one much more confident and produces a better result. After producing 16 books, I am still learning! Now I have to learn to make an ebook to put up on my website!

When it comes to printing your story, the CORE method still helps. You have to choose the best layout; printers often do adult books in size 6 inches by 9 inches. then you have to choose where to put relevant pictures (using insert in MS Word documents and formatting the size.)

Doing this, you are organizing your pages in the layout. You also need to plan for a dedication page and acknowledgements to those who helped you by reading the book etc. Part of your organization is listing any references at the end of a book If you recorded those  at first, it is no problem.

Be prepared to revise anything to improve the final product. When your rough print copy comes there is still room to revise it. Most printers allow for a few errors.

Bring your efforts to an end only when you are satisfied with the cover; it helps to sell your book or, if it is a gift just in the family, it is preferable to finish it well. I had several people read my book, edit mistakes and suggest improvements. It took me 10 months to produce one doctor’s life story and two years to finish a historical novel Two at the Crossroads about two women Catharine Malott Girty and Tecumapese, Tecumseh’s sister.  But it was worth it to see how much people enjoyed the story told through the eyes of two strong women who lived about 2oo years ago, during the War of 1812-14.

I hope you can use CORE to help you produce a life story or a novel you’ll always wanted to write.  I wish you well with your own work.May you be glad you wrote it.

Photographs Prompt the Memory and Develop the Story

As I write life stories, I find that one really good way to encourage thought is to use a photo album with an older person. People enjoy looking through old albums anyway especially women and at each photo there is a chance to remember the event and say something about it .

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words but , for someone who is delving into family history, it is often meaningless without the words of another family member who remembers the time and can explain the photo. Even with wedding pictures that are only black and white, it is good to hear a description of dresses and know why a particular colour (which is meaningful to the speaker) was chosen. We learn through conversations about old photos where the event took place, who was there, why certain things happened and how it all ended.

I was looking at one photo with a gentleman over 90 when he was standing by the wing of an airplane; through questions, I discovered that he was in Italy where a German plane had been brought down on a very hot day after much resistance. That picture became a real souvenir and was put into a local paper report before he came home after WWII.

My own mother had a picture of our house which showed her business in the front and shop windows. I always wondered why she did not have herself taken on the day my father and her cousins stood at the shop door. When I asked, I found out she was seven months pregnant with me and did not want to be photographed although she served others in her new shop. This told me more about my mother’s character and what was acceptable in 1935.

One old photo a friend had of a familygroup prompted him to discover more; it led to a fascinating pioneer story of a journey from Owen Sound to North Dakota and eventually into Manitoba. He had always wondered why his grandfather went west and how he made it. We discovered old photos on the web of early trains going west and added those to his story as well as the river boat used from St Cloud Minnesota to North Dakota, travelling the Mississippi in about 1882.

Mentioning the internet reminds me of the wealth of information often backed by old photographs. There are pictures of towns back in 1900 or later, there are old maps that explain previous boundaries and people dressed in period clothes that help us date the times our relatives lived. They all lead to fascinating conversations and bring up a flood of memories for older relatives.

I even found a photograph of my uncle in a football club in Wales when I could not even imagine he played! I was able to use that in my own family stories.  I am so glad to have discovered photographs that go back to 1870 as they have given me a glimpse into my family’s past.

Use photographs to talk and include them in any stories you write. It is well worth it.