Most of us start writing our family history as summary. Summary is not a bad thing, and it serves a purpose in our family history stories. However, it is only one part of the equation.
Narrative Nonfiction = Scene + Summary
Eventually, we realize that to engage our family in our story and thus their family history, summary is not enough. We must entertain as well. It’s then that we must develop our knowledge of narrative nonfiction – the writing of true stories.
One aspect of narrative nonfiction that beginning family history writers struggle to understand is the difference between scene and summary.
What is Summary?
Summary, by its very name, encompasses a significant amount of information in a condensed form.
Summary is also known as exposition, and it is condensed narrative covering perhaps many events in just a few sentences, sparse details and may transcend a considerable amount of time. Summary is useful for going over information that we need to know but is not as exciting but still may be necessary to understand the story. Most times, the beginning family history writer overuses summary, often to the point of exclusivity.
What is Scene?
A scene, however, is an event, place or action that the reader experiences first-hand. In a family history story, a scene is an event chosen from your ancestor’s life retold in the fullness of time and place. Scenes are the ultimate tool for showing and not telling. A scene is a single, specific setting that creates the event as an experience for the reader. A family history scene is constructed from the documents of an event. The details are filled in with historical context, social history, eyewitness account and or diaries and letters. (If you’re lucky enough to have them. Most of us will piece together a scene through documents and social history. While you can write a great story that is all scene and no summary the reverse is not true. All summary and no scene makes for a very boring story.
Think of the difference between scene and summary this way. It’s the difference between being told about a car accident (summary) and watching it happen before your own eyes (scene). You may be able to imagine how horrible it was if someone tells you about it, but when you see it happening first-hand, you never forget it.
The best way to write a scene that will engage and entertain your readers is to think of your writing cinematically. Like movie playing in your mind’s eye. Of course, just thinking in your mind’s eye is one thing, getting it down on paper is a whole other matter.
Here are five tips for writing a scene that will entertain your readers like a movie.
5 Tips for Writing a Scene Like a Movie
1. Slow down. Don’t cram ten years into one paragraph, pick a single moment, a single event in your story and show it happening.
2. Make sure the event you choose is important, pivotal and will reveal relevant information about your ancestor or the story.
3. Show your ancestor in action either through physical movement or with dialogue or both.
4. Set your ancestor in their surroundings using all the senses. There should sights, sounds, smells even taste and touch if relevant.
5. Give the reader insight into your ancestor’s personality and state of mind through their actions, the look on their face, their voice and the words they speak.
When we take the time to learn to write a scene as part of narrative nonfiction, to show the crash rather than tell about it, we transform our family history stories into an experience for the writer and not a summary of facts.
Learn how to take an event in your ancestor’s life and bring it to the page in the Masterclass.
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