Tag: description

3 Tips to Showing Instead of Telling3 Tips to Showing Instead of Telling



It’s one of the hardest things that new family history writers struggle with; how to show instead of tell. How do we turn our dry boring summary into an entertaining read. In today’s Storylines, we offer you a solution that’s not overwhelming. A solution you can apply to one sentence at a time. Grab today’s 3 tips, hear our examples and start showing instead of telling in your stories.

How to Unlock Amazing Family Stories Through Descriptive Writing TechniquesHow to Unlock Amazing Family Stories Through Descriptive Writing Techniques



You know that feeling: when the fog of genealogical facts and documents finally lifts, revealing a vivid story about one of your ancestors. It’s an amazing experience to uncover these detailed stories that can seem lost in time! Descriptive writing techniques are powerful tools for family historians looking to dig into their family’s past. They can help bring ancient events alive, capturing the sights, smells and emotions associated with bygone eras. In this post, we’ll look at some tried and true methods for unlocking incredible family history stories through descriptive writing.

5 Ways to Describe Your Ancestor in a Story5 Ways to Describe Your Ancestor in a Story



 

When we write our family history stories one of our primary goals is to bring our reader and our ancestors closer together. Our goal is to help our reader to emotionally connect with our ancestor. There are five ways we can help make this happen in our family history stories.

 

The 5 ways we are going to cover involve both interior and exterior characterization. If you try to merge all five into your story when describing an ancestor, you’ll have a three-dimensional ancestor.

 

What is a three-dimensional ancestor? This is an ancestor that comes to life on the page for your reader. It is an ancestor that appears alive and real and standing in front of us and not lifeless and flat. It is an ancestor that your reader can connect with, through physically being able to see them in their mind’s eye, but all being able to connect with them emotionally. It involves using both interior and exterior characterization to bring our ancestor to the page.

 

Exterior characterization is achieved by showing your ancestor’s behaviour towards other people, their attitude to their surroundings and their physical characteristics.

 

Interior characterization involves using their thoughts about themselves and other people to help us to understand who they are.

We can tell or show the reader about aspects of our ancestors’ personalities and lives. We want both. We do this by showing them interacting with their surroundings, their body language and with dialogue.

 

1. Telling: Tell the reader who your ancestor is and what he or she does.

Example: Henry loved to wear a cowboy hat.

 

 

2. Showing: Allow your ancestor’s actions to show the reader their character.

Example: Henry headed out the door of his 5th Avenue Manhattan apartment. He grabbed his white cowboy hat from the table by the door. Pushing his sandy brown hair from his forehead, he eased the hat on his head and checked his reflection in the mirror.

 

 

3.Thinking: You can show an ancestor by allowing the reader to see the thoughts behind their actions and words. What an ancestor thinks about can help explain a great deal about them.

Example: Pushing his sandy brown hair from his forehead, Henry eased the hat on his head and checked his reflection in the mirror. Although he had been in the city for more than a year, he just couldn’t part with his cowboy hat. Besides, the ladies loved it.

 

 

4.Others: You can show us who your ancestor is by how he or she treats other people and the way others treat him.

Example: Your ancestor may be treated with reverence, fear or even hate. She may be treated with gentleness or insignificance. His or her prejudices and beliefs will also affect the way he or she handles others. Perhaps they show hatred for others different from themselves, religion, appearance, their class in society.

 

 

5.The Outside World: We can use the way our ancestor looks at the world around them to allow us a glimpse into their state of mind.

Example: A content ancestor sees the first winter’s snowfall as beautiful. An unhappy ancestor may be depressed by the freezing cold temperatures and being confined to indoors.  The images and words you choose to create the world around your ancestor can help shape your ancestor’s mood according to his or her viewpoint.

 

 

When you incorporate showing, telling, thinking, how your ancestor treats others and how they act and react to the outside world you have a better chance of bringing your ancestor to the page.  As a result, your reader is more likely able to get to know your ancestor, seeing them in their mind’s eye but also emotionally connecting with them.

 

 

What were they thinking? 

Painting a Picture with Characterization

Authentic Ancestors Workbook – Bringing Your Ancestors to Life through Characterization

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.