Category: Scene Writing
5 Tips for Writing a Family History that Entertains Like a Movie5 Tips for Writing a Family History that Entertains Like a Movie
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.
How to Show Instead of Tell: A Writing LessonHow to Show Instead of Tell: A Writing Lesson
“Writing in scenes represents the difference between showing and telling. The lazy, uninspired writer will tell the reader about a subject, place or personality, but the creative non-fiction writer will show that subject, place or personality, vividly, memorably-and in action, in scenes.
Lee Gutkind, You Can’t Make Stuff Up
Writers are told all the time to show not tell. What does that exactly mean? How does that apply to narrative nonfiction and specifically family history stories?
Narrative nonfiction is comprised of summary and scenes. Simply put, summary is telling, and scenes are showing. To show in nonfiction, we must include scenes and not just summary. Your family history stories are likely boring because you are only using summary, you are only telling. To make your stories entertaining and compelling, so that they read like a good book you must embrace scenes. Scenes are the half of the nonfiction equation that brings a family history story to life.
What is a family history scene?
In the case of family history, a scene recreates an event or an experience for the reader from your ancestor’s life. For example, getting on a ship to America, voting for the first time, giving birth, getting married, proposing to a future spouse or signing documents to own their first land.
These scenes are recreated from details pulled from a document, a picture, a diary, a letter. Maybe details are derived from a newspaper article, or an interview or a recalled conversation. These scenes might rely on social, local, regional or world history to help recreate them on the page. You’ll likely require a combination of these sources to bring a scene to the page.
A scene shows the action in real time. The reader is placed immediately in the event as if it is playing out before our eyes. A scene is filled with description, detail and dialogue, necessary to bring the scene to life. The more specific you can be the more real it becomes for the reader.
Jumping into writing scenes can be overwhelming for new writers. The best place to start is by learning to show, one sentence at a time.
Examples
Telling
Tom walked every Sunday to church.
Showing
Tom strolled along the dusty road to church, adorned in his freshly pressed Sunday shirt, the starch collar scratching at his neck.
Telling
Grandma baked a pie.
Showing
The cinnamon apple pie cooled on the kitchen window sill, the golden crust glistened, and the sweet smell surrounded Grandma’s house as we ran through the front door.
See the difference. In the showing examples, above we get a vivid picture that we can imagine in our mind’s eye the setting and action. It gives us the feeling of being there and experiencing it for ourselves.
3 Steps to Start Showing in Your Ancestor’s Stories
- Use strong active verbs. I could have used “Tom walked” but the verb ‘stroll’ conjures up a more specific image. I could have used hustled, or ambled or skipped, all would have provided a clear picture of Tom and his actions.
- Use specific nouns and precise adjectives in descriptions that paint a picture for the reader. For example, Grandma’s pie on the windowsill paints a very clear picture. It’s not just a pie but a cinnamon apple pie. Be specific in your details and descriptions.
- Use Sensory Details. – Don’t just tell us how something looked, show us how it looked, smelled, sounded, tasted and felt. Use all your senses, of course not all in the same sentence. We not only see Tom in his freshly pressed shirt, but we feel it scratching. And of course, we smell Grandma’s pie as we approached the house.
Start practising showing in your family history stories by using these three steps to start transforming your sentences into showing sentence instead of telling sentences.
Want to learn how to build a scene and connect them into a story, consider workbook #4 in the Write Your Family History series. Crafting a Scene, Showing Your Ancestors in Action walks you through building scenes and connecting those scenes into a complete story. Or consider our upcoming course Writing a Family History Scene and get hands on practise building and writing scenes. This course will transform your writing.
Why Your Relatives Hate Reading Their Family HistoryWhy Your Relatives Hate Reading Their Family History
Does your family object to reading their family history? Do you get the big eye roll when you offer them a story you wrote or an opportunity to preview a book your writing? Our families are completely uninterested in reading their family history. Many of us struggle with this. I know I did. Then I learned about writing scenes and about how the right balance of scene and summary can bring an ancestor to life on the page. When you learn the skill of writing scenes your stories become entertaining and compelling all the things necessary to engage your family and hold their interest.
What is a Scene?
Scenes are action, they usually include dialogue, description, conflict, thoughts, and feelings. When we read them, they are meant to play out like a movie in our brain. When we write nonfiction stories, we intermingle scenes with summary.
What is Summary?
Summary is just as it states it is an account of an event or time. The reader is given information in a brief format to move the story along. Sometimes summary will cover a span of years to speed up a story or fill in background information to add depth to a story. As family historians, we fall into the trap of writing everything, our entire story, in a summary format. This why our stories are boring.
We need to learn the skill of writing scenes and then to find the right balance of scene and summary to lay out a story.
How do we take a document like a passenger list or a marriage certificate or the birth of a child and bring it to like on the page? How do we but our reader there and allow them to experience the event as if it is playing out before their eyes – using scene.
When we combine scene with narrative summaries, we are writing creative nonfiction. That term creative nonfiction tends to scare many. They feel they are moving away from the facts and making things up. But that is entirely wrong. Creative nonfiction is taking the facts and laying them out on the page using scene and summary – using the tools of fiction writers while writing true stories.
Regardless of whether you are writing a family history narrative in third person or a memoir in first person scenes should be a part of your writing formula. Irrespective of whether you are writing a family history in a short story format or an epic novel you need to be using scene and summary to capture and hold the attention of your readers.
What is a family history scene?
How does a scene that you read in a novel differ from a family history scene you would read in a family history story? A family history scene takes an event in your ancestor’s life, getting on a ship to America, voting for the first time, giving birth, getting married, proposing to their spouse or signing the documents to own their first acre of land and then using action, dialogue, description, conflict, and emotion bring it to life on the page.
As family historians, we collect information about this event, information that we garnered from our research, our documents, information from interviewing those who were present at the event or have heard stories of the event. With those facts in hand, we take it one step further, we put the event within a social context of the place and time –we do some social history research. We set the stage by painting a setting of where the event was held. We describe it in detail giving it life.
Next, we put the characters into that setting, our ancestors. How did they look and act? Human nature, diaries, interviews and the actions of our ancestors will give us plenty of insight into the behaviours and motivations.
As I have suggested, a family history scene is born out of the records we have acquired in our research. Research we have identified and analysed and then interpreted into a scene in our story. We make it clear to the reader the facts versus our speculation.
Sounds easy right? Well for some it does come easy and for others, it takes some practice, actually, for most, it takes some time to learn the skills and then to practice those skills. But once you have the knowledge of scene writing you’ll never turn back to strictly writing a dry narrative summary.
Do you want to learn the skill of scene writing?
It’s not enough for me just to tell you what constitutes a scene and how it will transform your boring stories into 
entertaining stories. The real learning comes in building scenes. I wanted to help writers acquire those practical skills of scene writing so I created an online workshop, Writing a Family History Scene. In this 6-week course, we work through each element building a robust scene one you will be excited to say you wrote.
Here’s what some past students have said about this course.
Kim Said:
I thoroughly enjoyed completing this course in “Writing a Family History Scene” and would recommend it to all aspiring family history writers. It is inspiring when you can see yourself and your fellow students improve so much by the end of the course. Lynn’s teachings have given us the tools to carefully craft our stories for the enjoyment by our families. I have learned so much.
Denise Said:
This course opened my eyes to scene structure. My writing improved immensely once I had the right tools and guidance to build a scene properly. This is my second Family History Writing Studio course, and it will not be my last. Between Lynn’s excellent guidance and the input from the other students, it was an interactive learning experience I highly recommend to anyone who is thinking of writing a family history narrative. In order to do any job properly, you need the right tools and, in my opinion, this is the place to build your toolbox.
If you’re ready to write a non-boring family history story, then join us for Writing a Family History Scene.
Cooking Up a Satisfying SceneCooking Up a Satisfying Scene
Like a good pot of soup on a cold’s winter’s day, every family history scene requires some essential ingredients to make them successful. Without a tasty broth, some colourful veggies, and a fat noodle the soup will just not satisfy. The same can be said for a scene, if it’s missing an essential ingredient it will likely fall flat and you may lose the interest of your reader. Today, we look at the ingredients that make a satisfying scene. Let’s identify the key ingredients in a family history scene each one closer so that you can create powerful and fulfilling scenes for your reader.
Protagonist Ancestor
The majority of your scenes should be built around your protagonist ancestor. Your protagonist ancestor is the main character of your story and through whose point of view, the story will be told. In each scene, your protag ancestor will be involved in action or dialogue. Make sure that you’ve chosen a single ancestor from which point of view that story will be told.
Action
Every scene shows some dramatic movement, large or small. It creates a sense of movement through time and space. It could be actual action or even dialogue which gives the essence of movement within a scene. Without action, you have no scene.
We want to demonstrate our ancestor’s movements, feelings, actions, and reactions. Don’t tell us about them, show them offer up the proof in the form of a scene.
Scene Goal
Every scene has a goal. We know that our story also has a goal, however, this is different from the scene goal. The scene goal begins and ends in the scene, but contributes to the overall advancement of the story.
Antagonist and Allies
Your protagonist ancestor needs someone to interact with, these will come in the form of an antagonist who opposes your ancestor’s goals or allies who will help your ancestor to achieve her goal.
New Information
Each scene builds on the previous scene providing new information that keeps moving the story forward. If it doesn’t move the story forward then perhaps it doesn’t belong in the story.
Setting and Time Period
Setting and time period is essential to grounding your scene through sensory details and description.
Theme
The overall meaning of your story is conveyed within scenes using images and sensory details.
Tension
Not only organizing your scenes within the story but by creating a feeling of conflict and uncertainty within a scene will keep the reader guessing as what is next and will keep them turning the pages.
Great Endings
Scenes can end in any number of ways. Some may end on a high-note, with a small victory for your ancestor, or in defeat. It can end with a cliff-hanger or some uncertainty. It’s important that each scene ends in such a way that it eludes to future obstacles for your ancestor and a yearning in your reader to know what happens next.
Make sure your story scenes have all the right ingredients.
Want to learn to write family history scenes. You’ll learn to incorporate all of the above elements into your scenes. Click here to learn more about our upcoming scene writing course, Writing the Family History Scene.
7 Tips to Formatting Dialogue7 Tips to Formatting Dialogue
Aside from struggling with re-creating dialogue, many family historians find formatting dialogue a little intimidating. It’s important to understand the techniques of writing your ancestor’s conversations and how to format them on the page so they serve your reader best and follow some basic elements of style.
Here are seven quick tips to formatting your dialogue that will help you overcome your hesitation.
1. Each time a new conversation or speech begins, you start a new paragraph. Additionally, every time there is a new speaker in a conversation, there is a new line. You do not include multiple speakers in one paragraph, so if one person asks a questions and another person responds, the question and the answer must be on two different lines. The use of this technique allows your reader to keep straight who is speaking.
For example:
Victoria asked, “When is Adam leaving for America?”
“On Thursday,” Grandpa replied.
2. Learn to use single and double quotation marks. Double quotation marks are used to indicate dialogue unless it is a quote within a quote, in which case single quotation marks are employed.
3. Understand the placement of quotation marks. Tradition dictates that punctuation falls inside the quotation marks. You may find some editors and professionals who are changing this practice but I would encourage you to stick with tradition.
4. Use commas before dialogue tags, for instance:
“I don’t want to go to Grandma’s house,” Helen said.
5. Dialogue Tags are the he said/she said of quotations. Don’t use these as forms of descriptions.
For example:
“I don’t want to leave,” Adam whimpered.
Instead of telling the reader he whimpered, spend your time describing the scene so we can see the image of Adam whimpering. It is perfectly acceptable to use he said/she said multiple times or not at all. The idea is your tags should be invisible and the focus should be on the dialogue.
6. With that being said use dialogue tags sparingly. You don’t want a string of he said, she said, he said, she said cluttering your story. If you know your characters and have given them a distinct voice, your reader will know from the dialogue who is saying what.
7. Capitalize only the first word of a dialogue sentence. If your dialogue is interrupted by a dialogue tag or description, you do not need to capitalize the second part of the sentence.
For example:
“I don’t want to go to Grandma’s house,” Victoria said while fidgeting in her chair, “because it brings back bad memories.”
Employ the above tips and your well on your way to writing great dialogue for your family history story.