Do you ever wonder which of all the storytelling techniques is most important to learn? Which one you should put at the top of your list for mastering. Today we discuss.
When writing a family history story which writing skill is the most important?
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Starting at the EndStarting at the End
All stories must end in a different place from where they began.
Family history stories are no different. They are not obligated to stop at the conclusion of a life, or with a happily ever after. They end when your ancestor has achieved something in their life that has brought about change and growth, hopefully, both internally and externally.
As we’ve discussed earlier on in this month, stories are about conflict, a complication. We’ve looked at identifying that conflict and how our ancestors have overcome obstacles on their path to their goal.
The third act of our story focuses on the climax and the resolution. The climax being that final conflict that will ultimately resolve your ancestor’s problem and bring about a resolution. The resolution is the point in your ancestor’s life when they achieve what they set out accomplish, whether that is to own land or emigrate or acquire a prominent position or be free, etc. The resolution is the prize, the reward at the end of the journey.
For some family history writers, this may be very clear and apparent at the start. However, some of you may be struggling to find that resolution, to identify your plot line from the conflict to a resolution, to identify the prize in your ancestor’s journey. This may be presenting a problem because not all conflicts in a person’s life have resolutions. Perhaps you’ve chosen a conflict with no clear resolution.Therefore, you may have better luck in developing a strong story line by identifying the resolution first and working backwards.
Identifying the Resolution
Look at your ancestor’s life as a whole, make a list of the achievements they accomplished in their life. Consider the following questions.
- How big is the success? The bigger the success, the more significant the efforts, the more powerful the story.
- Remember anything your ancestor does on purpose will most definitely have a motivation behind it, for example, your ancestor receives a diploma, acquires land, obtains a prominent position, sets sail for a new land, becomes a military officer. These are all goals that require purposeful action on their part, pressed upon by some motivation. What motivated the action to the accomplishment?
- There is often complications on the road to the accomplishment. Did the accomplishment come through way of a struggle?
- Did the resolution/accomplishment grow out of your ancestor’s own actions?
Keeping the above thoughts in mind choose an achievement/resolution that you feel meets the above criteria.
Linking the Resolution to the Conflict
Once you identify the resolution and the conflict in your ancestor’s life, linked them together. Look for the actionable steps your ancestor took working back from the resolution to the conflict. Each of these actionable events are the obstacles. These are events in which your ancestor either does something or something is done to him in pursuit of the achievement. Identify those and you’ve identified the obstacles he overcame on his path. Connect your resolution through these obstacles to the initial conflict. You’ve just identified the plot of your story from the end to the beginning.
If you’re struggling to find the end of your story perhaps it’s because your conflict doesn’t have a resolution. If your struggling to find your storyline then look to your ancestor’s achievements in their life and work backwards.
The Writer’s NotebookThe Writer’s Notebook
The writer’s notebook, it’s not a diary or a journal but a valuable tool to help you develop your writing skills. It’s a place to be a writer.
A writer’s notebook can help you develop your writing skills through a variety of ways.
- A writer’s notebook will help you to pay attention to the world around you. By recording events, ideas, dialogue, people that you come across in your day, you become more aware of your surroundings, the setting, how people interact. In your notebook capture what moves you in the day. Perhaps it was a conversation you overheard, or person you saw, or something in nature that caught your attention. Write it down, explore what it means to you. Practice transforming what you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste during your day in to words on the page.
- A writer’s notebook will help you develop ideas. Your book is a place to capture seed ideas. Whether they are ideas for stories or scenes or even if you’re not sure what you plan to do with them. It’s a place to nurture ideas, keep them safe until you’ve ready to explore them further.
- A writer’s notebook can help you develop your creative writing skills. Practice scene writing, dialogue and descriptive writing. Heard a conversation, recreate it in words on the page, what did they say, how did they say it. It can teach you to listen. It can teach you to be aware to details.
- A writer’s notebook can help you to expand your vocabulary. Record favourite words, unusual words you hear in your day, or a new word you’ve recently learned.
- A writer’s notebook is a place to explore your memories bring them out of your head and onto the page.
- A writer’s notebook is a place to map a story, draw a plot line, sketch a setting, or draw a character, maybe an ancestor?
Spend 10-15 minutes a day free writing in your writer’s notebook. Carry it with you throughout the day. It will help you to develop your voice and your sense of self as a writer.
Don’t restrict your entries to family history thoughts and ideas. Our ancestors lived in the real world. They interacted with the world around them. Observing your world today can help you add tremendous detail to your stories and help you to learn the tools of character, setting, dialogue and description enhancing your creative writing skills.
Here are a few prompts to help you get your notebook started.
- A gesture, word or phrase you found interesting
- A conversation you overheard
- An interesting person who you met or observed
- A person from your past, you want to remember
- A description of a photograph
- What you see outside the window
- Surroundings you may have passed in your daily travels
- A quote you heard today
- A dish or meal that you made or ate, note its characteristics using all your senses or just one.
One thing is certain, to become a better writer; you must be an observer of the world and you must practice writing. Starting a writer’s notebook is an opportunity to incorporate both into your daily routine.
Will you be able to write more on this. It is very important to a new person.
in my particular case I am recounting the up and downs of my late mother’s life intertwined with myself, and the siblings affected. My late mother sought a peaceful existence in a tough economic, emotional time throughout fifty years of struggles to obtain that objective. I have already drafted everything in well over 50 thousand words. and continue on with the fallout after she died at 93 years of age.
I think am now concentrating on the effects on mine as well as my siblings. (Which I think could be a series when all put together? My intentions are to leave a detailed legacy.
(narrative) for our descendants to realize the enormity of struggling that their relatives / ancestors were faced with to actualize their very existence in the present and beyond.