Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Writing Workshop

HIS STORY, HER STORY, YOUR STORY:
A Writing Workshop
©Vera Booksh Zimmerman 2019 <verazgenealogy.blogspot.com>

It's time to STOP researching and START writing.

Grounding Exercise
Write down 5 things you can SEE.
4 things you can TOUCH
3 things you can HEAR
2 things you can SMELL
1 thing you can TASTE

STEP 1 - Define the scope of your project.
His Story, Her Story or Your Story?
One person or one family or one branch?
One place?
One theme – Childhood, College, Job? Travel?
How you researched and solved a problem?

STEP 2 - Get a 3-ring notebook.
Every time you remember something write a quick summary on one page.
Put the year in upper right hand corner. Expand on each memory. Name your book.

STEP 3 – Make an outline
After you have accumulated enough pages of written memories, read through them. Do you see a theme developing? Make a general outline of your book. Timelines or Chronologies help in putting names, dates and places into narrative form. They also help break the job into manageable bites.

STEP 4 – Start editing your stories
Remember to use all your senses, to SHOW instead of just TELLING.
Find your voice. Be true to yourself. Edit for content first, then grammar and spelling.
Good book to help is Line by Line, Claire Kehrwald Cook (1985, Houghton Miflin, Boston MA)

STEP 5 – Make a deadline and tell someone about it, then DO IT!

BOOKS TO HELP YOU
History of Brevard County, Vol. 1 and 2 – Detailed History of a Place
History of Brevard County, Vol. 3 – Brief History of a Place and Families from that place
Rick Bragg's books – All Over But the Shouting – His story
Ava's Man – Her story and His story
Mama Said: The Mostly True Story of the Begue Family – My Mother's Family
Belle's Letters, A blog - I'm currently working on a blog about my Great Grandmother who left a trunk full of letters, papers and photos. My plan is to turn it into a book when I'm done. <belletisdale.blogspot.com>

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, Jill Lepore (2013, Random House, NY )
Good example of using social history to bring a narrative to life.

Memories to Manuscript: The Five Step Method of Writing Your Life Story
Joan Neubauer (2002, Ancestry Pub., Orem UT)
1- Research
2- Organization
3 – Writing
4 – Editing
5 – Printing and Publishing
We're going to concentrate on Organization and Writing and a little on Editing today.
Terry Armstrong will address Printing and Publishing on September 9.

Patricia Charpentier of Orlando has three books that can help.
Bringing Your Ancestor to Life (2010, LifeStory Pub., Orlando, FL)
A booklet with an outline of 21 steps on Organizing and Writing your story
Eating an Elephant: Writing Your Life One Bite at a Time (2011, LifeStory Pub., Orlando FL)
200 bites or short steps to completing your story (My favorite)
I Remember: 50 Prompts to Write Your Life Story (2011, LifeStory Pub., Orlando, FL)

Old Friend From Far Away, by Natalie Goldberg, (2007, Atria Paperback, Simon & Schuster, NY)
Another book of writing prompts.

Sharon DeBrtolo Carmack, You Can Write Your Family History
(2003, Reprinted 2008, Genealogy Pub. Baltimore, MD)
Her book covers defining the scope of your project and points out the importance of breaking the job into manageable pieces.
She describes 7 types of family history books. (pages 8 – 10)
1 – Reference Genealogies - A bare bones genealogy Who, When, Where
2 – Genealogical Narratives -- One step further, includes research strategies and analysis
3 – Life Story - Historical Biography, Memoir
4 – Family History Narrative - Creative, literary nonfiction
5 – Family History Memoir - Nonfiction story about the author's search for his ancestors
6 – Edited Letters and Diaries - Weaves together documents to tell the story of people's lives
7 - Fictional Family Sagas - Historical fiction based on author's family

She mentions helpful books for each type, one of which is Writing Family Histories and Memoirs by Kirk Polking (1995, Betterway Books, Cincinnati Ohio). A good nuts-and-bolts book.

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr, (2015, Harper Collins Pub. NY)
She is an award-winning author, a poet and professor of literature at Syracuse U.

How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci: 7 Steps to Genius Every Day, by Michael Gelb (1998, Reprinted 2004. Bantam Dell, NY)
It has exercises and lessons on problem solving, creative thinking, enjoying the world around you, goal setting, life balance, and harmonizing body and mind.

Roots Magic has a program called Personal Historian which is available at:

Amy Johnson Crow's web site and her 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks program is very helpful:

No comments:

Post a Comment