March 8, 2015 | The Family History Writing Studio

What Kind of Family History Should I Write?What Kind of Family History Should I Write?

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

Before you begin to write your family history stories, you have a couple of decisions to make. One of those decisions: What kind of nonfiction narrative do I wish to write?

Family History Narrative Using Third Person

In this format your ancestor is the main character of your story, he has a conflict in his life, and he overcomes obstacles towards a resolution. He has a goal, and the obstacles are keeping him from that aim. This objective may take many shapes, emigration, finding a job, surviving a war, starting a family, owning land, love, fortune, fame. The list is as plentiful as our ancestors. The story is the journey to overcome the obstacles standing in the way of the goal. The story serves as a vehicle to share your family history research in an entertaining format rather a dry summary of facts.

Family History Memoir Using First Person

You as the storyteller and your ancestor, as the main protagonist, share the story. Your ancestor struggles with a conflict towards an end goal, much like in the first-person narrative above. In addition, you, the narrator struggles to find records or understand decisions your ancestors made, uncover a family secret or dispel folklore and correct misinformation. This format provides you with the opportunity to reflect, offer an opinion, and share your theories and speculations.

The two stories, your genealogical journey, and your ancestor’s story are weaved together to create an engaging tale for your readers.

Both formats will enlist the help of narrative nonfiction to craft those stories.

You’ll often hear me refer to the tools of creative nonfiction or narrative nonfiction. Creative nonfiction is the genre closest to fiction in its structure, but unlike fiction, in that, every detail must be factually true.

Lee Gutkind, nonfiction writer, and author of You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, sums it up best.

“ The words “creative” and “non?ction” describe the form. The word “creative” refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques ?ction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present non?ction—factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner. The goal is to make non?ction stories read like ?ction so that your readers are as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy.”

Your job as a family history writer is to tell and educate the reader while at the same time entertaining them. Many may write family history using nonfiction to present their research. However, the use of creative nonfiction offers the writer the ability to use a narrative arc, with scenes, setting, characterization and description to engage the reader in the story. The goal is to help your reader make an emotional connection with your ancestor through your words.

You still need extensive research to support your story. You remain faithful to the facts, but in using the tools of creative nonfiction, you give a rich, engaging and entertaining story that will capture the interest of your family. It is no longer enough to offer a narrative summary and hope someone will read it. We must deliver a story that brings the reader along on a journey.

Identifying Your Protagonist AncestorIdentifying Your Protagonist Ancestor

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

The protagonist is the central character in a story. I’m going to assume you’ve watched enough movies and read enough books, that you understand every story has a protagonist. However, did you realize even your family history story should have a protagonist.

Your reader needs a focal character. Someone through whose eyes the story is revealed. Your reader needs someone to either approve or disapprove of and without a main ancestor as your reader’s emotional guide they will have no feeling for the story either way. Your family will begin to connect to your story when they identify with an ancestor, a protagonist in the story.

Here’s a few things you should look for when determining your protagonist ancestor.

Action

Your primary ancestor’s life needs to demonstrate action in his or her life. You need to be able to see that they acted upon the world and not merely reacted to the world. The events in their life are the action they will bring to the story. By action, I don’t mean an ancestor who was hyper and ran around in circles. Action is choice. You want the protagonist in your family history story to be an ancestor who made decisions in their life. The bigger the choice, the more significant the story, and the larger the story, the more compelling the read. Tell your family history story from the perspective of the ancestor that made the biggest choice.

Conflict/Fear

Look for the conflict in your ancestor’s life. That could be an outer conflict or an inner conflict or perhaps both. If that fear or conflict is something that your readers will identify with then, you probably have chosen a good protagonist.

Plot

Your principal ancestor must be crucial to the story’s plot. If you can write a story without them or a mere mention of them than they are not your protagonist ancestor. Their actions and choices should move the family history forward.

Relatable

Your readers should empathize with your ancestor. They should be real people, with real dreams and real problems. You want your main character at the very least to be somewhat likable. They should want to know them, maybe even become their heroes.

Flaws

A good protagonist should have a few flaws. Don’t shy away from choosing an ancestor with visible defects. It is in these blemishes that your reader relates to their ancestor.

Change

Storytelling is change. In your story, change occurs either because the protagonist changes, the world changes or the protagonist changes the world. But something must change. In your research, it’s important to identify the change both outer and inner change that your protagonist goes through.

If you would like to know more about identifying a protagonist in your family history story, we discuss this in great detail in Authentic Ancestors, Bringing Your Ancestor to Life through Characterization.

Finding the FocusFinding the Focus

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

To write a good quality family history story, one must be able to take a lot of information, research and reduce it into a focused narrative.

William Zinsser reminds us to think small.

He writes, “Decide what corner of your subject you’re going to bite off, and be content to cover it well and stop.”

This is an especially important lesson for family history writers. We often want to include it all, every morsel of research we have uncovered in our travels. We want to write about every ancestor, every event. One of the most difficult tasks we face comes in reducing the wealth of information we have uncovered down to what is essential.

Ask yourself,

“What do I want my family to remember most about their family history?” and

“What point do I really want to make?”

How do we focus our story?

Ask questions

Asking questions helps us concentrate on the big picture topic. If you’ve chosen to write about your grandfather, ask yourself, what do I want my readers to know about my grandfather? What legacy did he leave to his family, what lesson can we find in his life?

Ask what really interests you about your grandfather? What do you find fascinating about him?

It’s one thing to write about family history because it is your passion, but consider which ancestors you are most passionate about? What about their lives will readers find most interesting. We all have ancestors that intrigue us. Ask yourself why? The focus of your story may be in the answer.

Understanding Your Audience

What is the purpose of your story? Who is your reader? Are you are writing for your family, a larger audience or yourself? The purpose can directly affect your story.

Identify a Specific Event or Time Frame

There may be many aspects of your ancestor’s life that may not make it to the page because it has no bearing on the story you are writing. A difficult thing for family historians to grasp. For instance, perhaps your writing about your grandfather’s life as a railroad conductor. While his family life may garner some small part of the story, the story may not focus on his married life, and children, etc. Perhaps that was a part of his life before his family. If they don’t support the focus of your story, don’t include them.

Family history stories do not have to be entire birth to death history of an ancestor. A story may span one day, 2-years or 10 years. It could even cover a single event in a life. Regardless, narrow the scope of the story. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself pulled in any number of directions.

Sift through the abundance of information you have on any given ancestor. Find those gems that will be the focus. When you find the focus, hold on to all the supporting facts and let the rest go. If we treat all the research equally, we give every fact and detail the same importance then our story will feel diffused and unfocused.

How to Begin Your StoryHow to Begin Your Story

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

Without a great beginning, a beginning that draws the reader in and hooks them your story is dead. The beginning becomes especially important in a family history narrative. We all know how difficult it can be to get our relatives to read about their family history. They may not have a particular interest in their history; maybe you forced them into reading this story, perhaps some guilt is involved. Regardless, how they got to that first page you want to be sure they stay, and they stay because they are intrigued.

The beginning is the start of your story up until your first plot point. The first plot point being the event that causes your ancestor to take action and set them on a path to their goal. This first plot point is often referred to as the inciting incident or the first turning point.

There is no tried and true answer to where to begin. Throw out the idea that your family history must start at the beginning of a life, in chronological order. Look at your research, your ancestor’s story and find a moment, event, question or surprise that you feel will grab your reader’s attention. Your story’s beginning should set the tone and mood, establish a point of view and make the author’s voice heard (that’s you).

A Checklist for the Beginning of Your Story

A Hook – the opening lines, the first moments of your story that grabs the reader’s attention, that captures your reader’s curiosity and propels them to keep reading.

The hook can come in a variety of ways:

Start with a question – put a question in your reader’s minds. Make them wonder what does this have to do with my ancestor, my family history. How is my ancestor going to get out of this situation?
Begin at a crucial moment – Choose a critical juncture in your family history, an event that captures your reader’s attention and will encourage them to learn what happens next.
Create an interesting picture – Start your family history with description that helps your reader’s paint a picture of their ancestor’s setting. Put them in a scene, give them some action and your reader will be drawn in.
Introduce an intriguing character– A character that grabs your reader’s attention will encourage them to stay to find out more. Let your ancestor’s personality take the lead.
Start with an unusual situation – Show us your ancestor in a unique situation that makes your family take notice, and they’ll be sticking around to see what it’s all about.

With each passing sentence, you want to continue to build, coaxing the reader to stay with you. Each paragraph should build on the last, pulling them deeper until they can’t turn back. The last sentence of each paragraph should be a catalyst to the next. We all remember a book that we couldn’t put down. The authors of these books excelled at creating great beginnings that drive you forward into the story.

Besides the hook, the start of your family history story should offer the reader other elements that will help capture their attention and curiosity.

Introduce the Protagonist – Introduce us to the Protagonist Ancestor if you haven’t done so in the hook. Assist the reader in establishing a relationship with your primary character.
Establish the Setting – The reader should be able to visualize where the story takes place, area, time and even season.
Introduce the Antagonist – Introduce us to the Antagonist Ancestor ( if there is one). Keep it brief, don’t give us everything up front.
Introduce a Story Question – Present the reader with a challenge that your ancestor faces. Have your readers asking the question, How will they overcome this challenge?
Theme – Introduce, your reader to the theme of your family history story. Give them something to think about, what does your family history mean?

What Your Beginning Shouldn’t Include

Avoid backstory or flashbacks. Stay in the present story. There is plenty of time to add historical information later.
Too much description, particularly of the central character, give us just enough to paint a picture, not a long drawn out description. Stick to unique and very specific details. It’s important to remember, in this case, more is not necessarily better.
Don’t introduce too many characters.
Don’t change point of views between characters, too confusing this early on. If you are writing your family history from the point of view of two ancestors, let the reader get comfortable with one point of view before changing.
Too many locations, keep your beginning limited to one or two locations. Ancestors travelled but let’s not have them in a dozen different places in the first chapter.
Don’t spoon-feed the reader, giving everything they need to know about their family history upfront. You’re writing this story to share a family history in a compelling read. Make them hang with you until the end, don’t share everything in the first chapter.
Prologues – much debated, but personally I dislike books that start with a prologue because they are often a place to dump backstory and it often feels lazy. It’s a personal choice; prologues are best used to raise a question in the reader’s mind about the main character.

Goals, Motivations and StakesGoals, Motivations and Stakes

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

You’ve chosen your Protagonist Ancestor, and now it’s time to structure his or her story in a format that will keep your readers entertained and engaged from beginning to end.

Every main character in a story has a goal that is ultimately the heart of the story. A reader stays with a story to see if the main character reach their goal. Your ancestor’s goal is motivated by something in their life, usually in their history, an experience, or event that may of had a substantial impact on them and their actions. In addition, if they didn’t achieve their goal, they fear a loss. It could be an external loss such as in a material item, money or land, or even the loss of life, or it could be internal losses, such as respect or honour.

Before you begin to write your story, it’s important to recognize the goals, motivations and stakes of your ancestor. They are critical to not only understanding them but also in shaping their story.

I love these next three questions because by answering them you not only identify your ancestor’s goals, motivations and stakes but you understand how they relate to each other.

GOAL – WHAT DOES YOUR ANCESTOR WANT?

MOTIVATION – WHY DOES YOUR ANCESTOR WANT IT?

STAKES – WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR ANCESTOR FAILS TO GET WHAT HE WANTS? WHAT WILL HAPPEN? WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF YOUR ANCESTOR HAD FAILS TO MEET HIS GOAL?

Let’s look at each of these elements individually.

Goal – There are any number of material and or emotional desires we seek; these are our goals. Your family history story needs a goal, which means your Protagonist Ancestor needs a goal. Where do I find the goal of my ancestor? Look at the actions in their lives. Look at the events on their timeline, did they emigrate, why? Did they own a great deal of land, did they fight in a war, did they become famous, or influential in politics, did they have a large family? Our ancestor’s actions are clues to what they valued in life, their goals, the wants or desires that they put most of their effort towards.

Does your ancestor want something so badly that they are prepared to destroy or be destroyed to attain this goal? To make sacrifices? To take risks? Did they join the army because they believe in the cause? Did leave the country because they didn’t support the cause?

Of course, not all goals are created equally, the bigger the goal, the bigger the story, the bigger the story, the more compelling the read. Try to find a goal that you feel will provide a big story that will engage your family. Stop thinking of your family history as a chronological timeline of events, but rather a desire, a want, with obstacles to overcome on the path to it.

Motivations – Once you’ve determined the purpose of your story, the next step is to understand their motivation. Why did your ancestor have this particular goal? Each and every human being who walked this earth had wants, desires that were driven by a motivation. Through your research, you wish to understand what that motivation may be. For example, if your ancestor’s goal was to own land, what in their history, their past motivated that desire? Look at motivation as the back story to the want.

Stakes – What happens if your ancestor does not fulfill his goal? The stakes are why we keep reading, if there is nothing at stake, no risk then there is little reason to keep turning the page. Of course, not all stories are life-or-death. Again big stakes produce significant stories. While the risks may not necessarily be life or death, our ancestors faced some very real stakes. For example – war, poverty, deportation, inscription, jail, poorhouses are only a few of the outcomes that may have occurred if they had not taken actions towards their goals.

Identify the goals, motivations and stakes of your ancestor and you have identified the heart of their story, along with the elements on which to shape your family history story plot.

Who is the Enemy?Who is the Enemy?

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

Once you’ve identified the conflict and obstacles that your ancestor faced it shouldn’t be too hard to identify the enemy, the source of the obstacles, the antagonist.

While your antagonist may be human, another person, even another ancestor, the enemy may come in many forms. The enemy may also be a thing, a concept or your protagonist ancestor himself. The antagonist may originate from a number of sources and could be both friendly and unfriendly.

The antagonist in your family history story is going to be the person or thing that opposes your protagonist ancestor in some way and attempts to stop him from achieving his goal. Consider who your ancestor is trying to defeat in telling their story, the source of the obstacles and conflict.

The antagonist can be a person with good intentions keeping the protag ancestor from harmful choices; it may be someone trying to stand in the protags way with their own agenda.

Here are a few questions to consider when discovering the antagonist in your family history story.

Who or what is the source of the obstacles?
What type of antagonist are you dealing with? Person, thing, idea, self?
What are the antagonist’s intentions?
What is motivating the antagonist?

Finding the Enemy in a Family History

Finding the obstacles that your ancestor faced in life can come from a number of directions. While your story may have a more traditional antagonist in the form of a person or another ancestor, there may be other entities that are the source of your ancestor’s obstacles, here are a few examples.

Institutions – banks, big business, government, etc.

Social Organizations – local community organizations, schools, neighbourhood, a church, a family, a boss or co-worker.

Nature – hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, the weather, illness, mountains, jungles.

Self- what we do to ourselves knowingly or unknowingly, vices, how we feel about ourselves, or how our lives can keep us from reaching our goals.

Medical – issues that your ancestor faces or someone close to them faces. i.e. debilitating diseases, handicaps, mental health.

Your family history story is built around your ancestor’s conflict and the obstacles they overcame. There are many psychological, cultural, sociological, physiological and religious ideas that may offer challenges in your ancestor’s life from which you can structure their story and find an antagonist.

Consider your research and find the challenges your ancestor faced and what obstacles stood in their way. Give your ancestor an antagonist by discovering who or what was behind those obstacles.

Consider using the same ancestor profile we used in our workbook, Authentic Ancestors, to complete a character profile on your antagonist . It’s important to know the antagonist as well as you know your protagonist ancestor.

Finding the Conflict and the ObstaclesFinding the Conflict and the Obstacles

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

One of the fundamental components of any good family history story is recognizing a conflict your ancestor faced in their life and bringing that to the front of the story. Without conflict, there is no story. Story is built around a conflict, a challenge and the obstacles your character faces in pursuit of his goal. It’s crucial in keeping your reader engaged to the end. It creates a story question. How does my ancestor overcome this conflict, this challenge? The reader wants the answer and, for this reason, stays with the story to the end.

By the end of the beginning of your story, you want your readers to understand your ancestor’s challenge and how they intend to overcome this problem.

Let’s create an ancestor, Henry Jones, for the purposes of demonstrating conflict and obstacles, and follow him through a story plot. Of course, in your own family history, you’re going to pull this information from your research.

We start by understanding Henry’s goal.

Henry’s Goal: Henry Jones wants to own land.

Of course, in order for this story to be a story there must be some conflict, some challenge in Henry’s pursuit of that goal.

Henry’s Conflict– Henry cannot own land in his current country, land is owned by the wealthy, Henry is a peasant and will spend his life farming the land of the wealthy.

The First Turning Plot Point – this is the moment when your ancestor changes his path in pursuit of his goal. This is also often called the inciting incident.

Henry’s First turning point – Henry makes the decision to emigrate to the New World, where land is plentiful.

Obstacles

In our family history story, obstacles block our ancestor on their path to achieving their goals. In a story plot, they are often referred to as plot points.

There are three types of obstacles that your ancestor may confront:

ancestor vs. another person

ancestor vs. circumstance

ancestor vs. self

What is the difference between conflict and obstacle?

The conflict is the overall idea; Henry cannot own land. While obstacles are those roadblocks that stand between Henry resolving his desire to own land.

Keep in mind that both conflicts and obstacles may be both internal and external, they can come from within the protagonist or from external forces, friendly and not so friendly.

If we continue to follow the example above, our ancestor Henry who wished to own land may come up against many obstacles.

Henry’s Obstacles

Obstacle 1 – Henry arrives in United States, there is plenty of land but he must head west, Henry has no money to get there. He overcomes this obstacle by getting a job. ancestor vs. circumstance

Obstacle 2 – He’s saving his money and close to leaving when he meets the love of his life. But, Mary doesn’t want to leave her family behind and travel west for land; Henry must convince her this decision is in their best interest. ancestor vs. another person

Obstacle 3 – Along the way they fall on hardships, and Henry doubts his choices. Ancestor vs. self

Obstacle 4 – There journey is delayed by a violent storm. ancestor vs. circumstance

These obstacles are plot points in our story and keep our reader compelled to keep reading. The obstacles tell a story, but also show growth of your ancestor, from poor to rich, sad to happy, hate to love, weak to strong.

Look at your research, what obstacles did your ancestor’s face in pursuit of their goals?

What’s Your Message?What’s Your Message?

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

How you tell your story depends on what is important to you.

How you write it, the message you wish it to leave with your reader is your unique decision as the author of your family history story. How you frame this story compared to how I would frame the same story is what sets us apart. It’s what you as the writer; the artist brings to the story and the page.

There are three concepts you can consider when it comes to shaping the message of your family history story.

As you begin to develop your family history story plot, get to know your ancestors as characters. Consider plotting their conflict and obstacles on a story map so that you will start to see beyond just the structure of your story. You acquire some ideas, thoughts and messages that will help you to develop your story and offer a deeper meaning for your reader.

While it’s important to understand the story question, and the theme behind your story it’s also important to comprehend why you are writing this story. Why are you willing to take time away from another area of your life to develop this story? What is it you want to say and why? Where is this story coming from inside you? If you understand the answers to those questions not only will you have a stronger story, you’ll find the discipline to stay focused and complete your story.

Keep revisiting and refining the theme and the dramatic question until you know the point, the message you are trying to make. Bear in mind, you may not recognize this right away, but as you write your first draft and even through your revisions you’ll begin to see the message of your family history story.

Let’s look at each of these three important concepts.

Theme

The theme is the first concept you’ll look to in relaying a message in your family history story. We touched on it briefly when we discussed focus and the 6-word family history. The theme is what you are trying to say about your family history, a particular ancestor or family unit. It may reflect your perspective on life, humanity, the world, or whatever is important to you. It is the message you want to convey to your readers.

Story Question

The story question is the question the reader wants answered. How are you going to resolve this question for the reader? What is the dilemma, the challenge the ancestor wants to have resolved. How is the ancestor’s problem going to be resolved? The question you choose to spotlight and subsequently answer is again one of those unique choices you get to make as the author. One of those choices you make about what you want to focus on in your family history story and the larger message you are delivering to the reader. Consider the story question you have chosen and why you have chosen it.

Your Story Motivation

Your story motivation is not to be confused with your ancestor’s motivation. Rather we are considering what is motivating you, the author to write this story. Where is your story coming from? Consider why is this story important to you? What are you trying to say? Why did you choose this particular ancestor, this particular story? What was your motivation to tell this story? Why does it resonate with you? By taking a few minutes to address your motivation, you’ll help to understand both the story question and theme that you wish to convey to your reader.

By considering theme, the story question, and the motivations behind your decisions and subsequently their relationship to one another, you place yourself on the path to developing a stronger, in-depth and resonating story for your readers. You not only build a story but you deliver a message to your reader that will stay long after the last page.

How to Write a SceneHow to Write a Scene

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

We think in scenes all the time.

Take a moment, remember a childhood memory or last week’s business meeting or playing with your children last night, or the family dinner on Sunday evening. These scenes play out like little movies in your head. There are characters, and in a place, a time, and something is happening, conversations are had. As the writer, you are the director re-creating the moments of your ancestor’s life in words, like a movie, vivid, colourful, playing out for the reader on the page.

All scenes contain various elements that contribute to making the scene alive and vibrant for the reader. Let’s break a scene down to see what makes it so special.

The Elements of a Good Scene

Time – The reader should be thrust into a specific time and day, so the reader is immediately oriented with the time frame of the scene. If you don’t your reader is quickly confused and lost.

Setting – Again, much like time you also want to familiarize your reader quickly into the place of your scene. In order for the reader to see the scene play out they need to understand the surroundings and be able to place your ancestor within their surroundings.

Action – Something happens in the scene that propels the plotline forward. Your scenes must have action; they must bring about conflict.

Dialogue – Someone speaks. Dialogue can reveal plot, the conflicts but also helps us understand our ancestor’s character.

Vivid Description- In order for your reader, to see the scene play out like a movie it must have very specific and detailed description.

Imagery – To bring the scene to life, the writer must use all their senses, touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. However, don’t overload your scene. As the writer, you must decide what you want to bring through in your writing. Don’t pile up your writing with description and imagery and let the reader try to figure it out.

POV- The reader needs to have a clear understanding of who is speaking.

Figurative Language- Similes and metaphors are often used to help create visual images for the reader. It helps to create images for the reader, to make your writing more memorable.

Beginning, Middle and End – Just like our story each scene needs a beginning, middle and end. The end needs to propel us on in the story to the next scene. The beginning draws us in, the middle gives us the guts of the scene, the conflict, the end offers a resolution or not but offers up tension that propels the reader on to the next scene.

Purpose – A scene must serve the story. It must somehow be relevant to the goal of your ancestor. If it does not serve the goal of your ancestor, it has no reason to be in the story.

You want your scenes to be entertaining. This is another one of those moments when you will have to tap into the creative side of your brain. You have to breathe some spirit into a scene. How do we do that? Again this comes from practice and time and by reading the works of other great authors and learning from them, recognize how they craft scenes and practice writing scenes of your own.

Coming in September!

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Make Your Scenes Pop!Make Your Scenes Pop!

March 8, 2015 0 Comments

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.