In just 15 minutes a day over 5 days you could write a small family story scene that could be shared in some interesting ways over the holiday season. Watch to learn how than click here to download your free resource to help you.
How to Share Family Stories during the Holidays
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Make Your Scenes Pop!Make Your Scenes Pop!
Do your stories pop?
Do they engage your reader and give them a vision in their mind through the words you’ve strung together on the page. As writers, our goal is to create clear and detailed images through the use of descriptive language. If you’re not using descriptive writing in your family history stories then you are missing an opportunity to show rather than tell. Descriptive writing adds texture, colour and dimension to our stories. It is how we make reading a sensory experience for our readers.
My favourite quote that helps to illustrate showing in scenes remains:
“DON’T TELL ME THE MOON IS SHINING; SHOW ME THE GLINT OF LIGHT ON BROKEN GLASS.”
ANTON CHEKHOV
As we discussed in How to Write a Scene, detailed description, imagery and figurative language are components of a scene that we heavily rely on to make a scene vivid and in full colour for the reader. Today’s post pulls together a few tips to help you improve your use of description in writing your scenes.
Use all of your senses.
As we mentioned in How to Write a Scene using your senses is an essential ingredient of descriptive writing. Using the senses of touch, taste, hearing, seeing and smelling are all equally important in bringing your ancestor’s experience to life on the page. We often tend only to use sight, but employing a combination of senses gives your reader a much deeper experience.
Avoid Clichés
Clichés are words or expressions that have been overused. They may have been original at one time but through overuse they have become clichés. Be aware of them and find fresh and original ways to describe your story. Some examples of clichés include dead as a doornail, smart as a whip, sweet as sugar. You get the idea.
Use a Thesaurus
Try to avoid using the same words in a sentence, paragraph or, if it is an uncommon word, in the story, unless the word is used for effect. This applies to standard words and less common words. Use a thesaurus to find alternative words that convey the same meaning. (I used the word “word” eight times – did you notice?)
Use Personification, Similes, and Metaphors
Personifications, similes, and metaphors can add sensuous references vividly, explain things, express emotion and entertain your reader. They add richness to your writing and show an image in a vibrant way through example rather than tell directly. They should replace, enhance or define adjectives like, beautiful, sweet, picturesque and others. We’ve all learned about similes and metaphors in school. Perhaps, it’s time for a refresher course, and a little practice to help you see just how important it can be in writing your family history stories.
Let’s take a look at each with examples from the memoir Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.
Personification
Personification adds human personality traits to inanimate objects.
“Finally, we entered hill country, climbing higher and deeper into the Appalachian Mountains, stopping from time to time to let the Oldsmobile catch its breath.”
Simile
A simile ties two things together using the words ‘as’ or ‘like.’
“ It was like sewing meat. It was sewing meat.” Mr. Walls gets beat up and asks for Jeannette to sew up a gash on his arm.
Metaphor
Metaphors are figurative comparisons that describe one thing by directly assigning it the traits of another, so one idea is understood in terms of the other.
Rex says Maureen “is a sick puppy, the runt of the litter, who should have been drowned at birth”
This statement expresses how Rex feels Maureen is weak and dependent, and the rest of the family has to provide for her.
Don’t Over Do it!
Beginning writers tend to lack confidence in writing description in those early days, but once they gain an understanding of description, they can then go too far and overdo it. As I mentioned in writing a scene, too much detail can completely overtake a story and it bears repeating again. Once we get the handle on description and detail we tend to find a reason to think more is better. It is not. As the artist of this work you must make decisions about which descriptions and details serve the story best, the feeling you want to portray on the page. Description should enhance your characters and their world, not overwhelm it.
Window to the Physical WorldWindow to the Physical World
Writing the physical world of our ancestors may seem impossible at times. We face two concerns, how do we know what it looked like and how do we bring that world to life on the page.
Replicating that world will once again rely heavily on your family history research along with social history research. I encourage you, where possible to visit the ancestral hometowns of your ancestors. Walk the streets, visit the local historical societies and learn everything you can about their surroundings, from the house they lived in, to the street they lived on. Absorb the town that was a part of their daily life. If you can’t go in person visit through the magic of Google Earth. Reproduce your ancestor’s setting down to the most minute detail.
Once you have your research, you now must turn to painting a picture of the landscape with words so the reader can visualize being there. We want them to feel as if they are standing beside their ancestor, seeing what they are seeing.
As we have previously discussed with regards to scenes; we will rely on our senses, all of them, specific details, and figurative language to make this happen. However, before writing physical description of your ancestor’s world let’s discuss the importance setting plays in your family history story.
You learned in previous posts, setting is a component of scene, without a setting to anchor your reader, they are lost.
However, I see writers not doing justice to setting. They may include a year, maybe a town name or a place like a the kitchen, but that’s where the description often stops. More detail, particular detail is needed. When I say more, I don’t mean describe the entire house, or the whole town. Give the reader intimate details of the immediate setting. For example, if we’re in the kitchen then give the reader the colour of the tablecloth, the smell of the stew cooking on the stove, the creak of the chair and the burnt out lightbulb dangling above.
A setting can also set tone, a feeling and it can be a character in of itself. For example, the supportive small town or the thick forest holding back progress or a chaotic city that overwhelms a new resident can play a pivotal role in a story. The setting can offer far more complications or support in your story than just a pretty backdrop in which to tell your story. Keep in mind that what you choose to share in terms of details are the very tools you will use to create tone and evoke feeling. Is the kitchen warm and cozy, or cold and desolate? The description you share should be hand-picked and carefully worded to evoke the feelings you want to bring forward to the reader.
Setting can also take on a character type role. Many of you writing memoir might find this to be true when writing about a childhood home, or a grandparent’s house, a setting that conjures up immense emotion.
Consider how the environment plays into your ancestor’s emotions. Take out something you’ve written so far this month. Read it. Is the location clear? The physical setting established? Are there details, or is it very general in nature? Does it reflect a feeling an emotion, could it?
On the other side, setting shouldn’t take over your writing. Long narratives describing a family home or locations pull the reader away from the action and the story. Describing setting within a scene requires a delicate balance, just enough to to feel like we are there, not to much that it pulls us out of the story.
You, the family history writer control the window to your ancestor’s physical world, think cautiously about how you wish to portray that world to your reader and what feeling and emotion it could bring to the story.
Thank you Lynn for your terrific ideas!!! Since many of our large family of kids, grandkids and great grandkids will be together during Christmas, I am going to make place setting memories of their ancestors. So excited to share this way!! Thanks again
I love your idea of adding family history stories to holiday cards. This is so do-able.
I put in my information but I could not download the guide.
I like to make some of my mother’s traditional dishes during the holidays. I copy the recipe
and talk about it during dinner. Family story about “Mom’s Fruitcake”. Mom always made her fruitcakes after receiving whole pecans and walnuts from our Aunt Lucy, who lived in Louisiana. They were made two weeks before Thanksgiving.