Identify the Best Stories Hidden in Your Family History Research




 

 

Everybody has a story. That’s true. But no question some stories are better than others. Why? Because they are built around great conflict. The bigger the battle, the bigger the story. When it comes to writing stories that will entertain and engage your family you want to seek out stories that provide conflict to the reader. Give your readers a story filled with struggle, and they will want to learn more.

Sometimes, as writers, we struggle to identify this conflict in our ancestor’s life. On the surface, our ancestor’s life seems boring and mundane. However, if you take a few minutes before you begin to write you might be surprized at what you will find.  Once you find a little conflict your job of writing an engaging and entertaining family history just got easier.

Here are some tips on how to help you find the conflict in your ancestor’s life that you can in turn structure your story around.

 

  1. Look for Major Change

When human beings go through change, there is generally conflict. That conflict might come in the way of people who don’t want to change or refuse to change. Others might change reluctantly and find it very stressful. What kinds of change can we see in our family history research? Look for ancestors who are forced to change jobs, or must leave their country, or are sent away to school or forced into a marriage. Perhaps a woman who has had a father or husband to lean on all her life, only to lose them and must provide for herself and children. Where there is change, there is generally both inner and outer conflict as our ancestors attempt to deal with the change.

 

  1. Look for Major Accomplishments

Another excellent method of looking for conflict in an ancestor’s life is to seek out any significant accomplishments your ancestor had in their life. For example, purchasing land particularly if they were locked in a social status that prevented it. Another example may be acquiring an education, or having children, or building a successful business. Once you’ve identified the accomplishment look at the obstacles that an ancestor faced in achieving that accomplishment. A woman who wants a family may find herself struggling with finding an appropriate husband and then only to have multiple miscarriages before finally having a child. Few of us achieve great things without having to jump through some hoops and overcome a few obstacles. Shape your story around those challenges on the path to finally acquiring their goal and you have an entertaining family history story.

 

  1. Seek out Motivations

Everything we do in our life is generally motivated by something in our past. We may realise it, we may not.  We rarely do anything, make any change, or seek out any goal in our life without it being driven by something in our past. For example, if your ancestor emigrated, why? What motivated this emigration? Perhaps it was poverty, maybe it was the fear of war, maybe it was certain conscription into the army. Seek out the motivations behind your ancestor’s actions, and you will often find a conflict they have grappled with and that has eventually driven the choices in their life. Shape your story around these motivations and your readers will be glued to your story to the very end.

 

  1. Look for Actions that Took Place Around or Because of Historical Events

Was your ancestor’s life affected by local, regional or world events? These events may have presented them with conflict. For instance, did a World War present conflict for an ancestor? We’re they a conscientious objector, or perhaps troops marched through their town changing their lives forever? We’re they conscripted? Sometimes conflict is thrust upon our ancestors by outside events they had no control over. Look for how a historical event propelled great conflict into your ancestor’s life and altered its projection forever.

 

  1. Look for ‘What If’s’

What would have happened if…? If my ancestor had not emigrated? If my ancestor had been conscripted into the army? If we look at our ancestor’s life from the perspective of a ‘what if’ then it can often show some struggles and conflicts that our ancestors faced in their life. When looking for conflict in our ancestor’s life, it might be buried in what they managed to avoid. Sometimes I hear family historians say, nothing significant happened in my ancestor’s life. There is no conflict. It may appear as if there was no conflict because your ancestor managed to avoid being caught up in such struggles. Look at the choices they made and the ‘what ifs.’ What if they hadn’t made this decision or taken that option, you might be surprised at what you find. It’s not that the conflict didn’t exist, your ancestor may have been one step ahead of the conflict.

 

Take a look at your family history research using the 5 tips above and you might just discover some amazing family history stories waiting to be written.

 

Related Post

How to Use Index Cards to Plot a Family HistoryHow to Use Index Cards to Plot a Family History

I’m known as a plotter. This means I love to outline my stories in great detail before I begin to write. For me, it’s like creating a road map of a story from start to finish. It allows me to organize my story so that when I start to write I know exactly what I’m writing and where I’m going with the story. It eliminates sitting and staring at my computer screen in that deep dark hole known as writer’s block.

I use index cards to create this map. Each index card represents a scene or a summary. A creative nonfiction story is comprised of scenes and summaries and having those scenes carefully thought out in advance can help keep you organized and writing every day. Check out my scene building cards that I designed just for family history writers.

Once I have my story mapped out with my index cards, then I can begin to write my first draft.

While index cards may seem a rather old-fashioned method for outlining it is with good reason it’s still around, it works. Of course, just as technology has impressed itself on every aspect of our lives even the little old index card has not gone untouched by the digital world. You can still use paper index cards if you are tactile, and like the physical feel of a paper card in front of you. I love to lay out my index cards on a corkboard in my office it keeps my story in front of me and top of mind.

There are plenty of digital index cards available today that have replaced the paper card. For instance, Scrivener offers index cards on a corkboard so that you can storyboard your family history within the writing program. Check out this video to see how to use the Scrivener corkboard. Scrivener also offers the ability to print off those cards so you can still have those paper cards to shuffle around on a physical corkboard.

There are plenty of apps for index cards, the Corkboard Writing app, and the Index Card app are just a couple. Most are available for iPads and iPhones. Check the Apple App store for a selection.

Elements of an Index Card

An index card will record either a scene or a summary on the card. On each card, you will record bullet points to help you write that particular scene or summary. Here is an article that explains the difference between scene and summary.

Scene cards should contain a few basic elements that will help you to write the scene when it comes time to put pen to paper.

Who – the primary ancestor in the scene

Scene Goal – your ancestor hopes to accomplish an explicit goal with the scene. Read here about scene goals.

Action – what physically happens in the scene.

Setting – Where and when does it happen? Indoors? Outdoors? Time of year, day, place, etc.

Conflict – within the scene is conflict, tension or suspense.

Inner Journey– how is your ancestor emotionally affected by the outer journey or action happening in the scene.

Theme – Do the details in the scene support the theme you have created?

Index cards are another tool in our writer’s toolbox that helps us to break down our writing into manageable tasks, keeping us from becoming overwhelmed and hitting that all too familiar writer’s block.

Writing a Family History Scene (1)

Want to learn more about how to write to write a family history scene consider our upcoming class, Writing a Family History Scene.?????????????????????????????

To understand how to format a story using scene cards, consider joining us for our upcoming course Plotting a Family History Story or our e-workbook, Finding the Story. Also available on Amazon in paperback.