Finding Story Seeds: A Mini-Workshop




 

All too often when we think about writing our family history stories, we contemplate writing about those big story ideas. We want to write an ancestor’s life story from birth to death. We think about writing our family history from as far back as we have researched to present day. These are pumpkins. Gigantic pumpkins.

Your family history might very well be an inspiring and insightful story. But when writing your family history, you don’t always have to go big. Sometimes there are little seeds of stories buried within your research. I love those stories because they zoom in and show our ancestors in their most personal moments. These intimate moments will resonate with your readers.

Often, we have these pumpkin size ideas. Pumpkin ideas are cumbersome and hard to carry. They tend to wear us down. They are overwhelming. When you write about huge topics, you can tire out and lose interest. Huge topics can also be challenging to write, with so many aspects to consider. It’s more fun to dig out the seeds than carrying around a big awkward pumpkin.

LET’S CARVE UP OUR PUMPKIN IDEA AND FIND THE SEEDS

 

For example, my mother’s life story is a pumpkin size idea. It’s a huge pumpkin with over 85 years of life to write about. Even if I break her life story down into subtopics, they can still be significant. Watch me do this with my mother. I jot down pumpkin-sized ideas in my notebook.

They might look something like this:

  • Growing up in Northern Ontario
  • Working on the Tobacco Farms in Southern Ontario
  • Married life and raising children

 

In my notebook, I have carved up my pumpkin and listed all sorts of things that were interesting about my mother’s life, as you can see above.

Now that I’ve carved up my pumpkin, I begin to see the seeds and start to pull out those seeds.

  • Her first job cooking and cleaning for a family
  • The day she left home
  • Blueberry picking trips
  • Giving her baby sister her first bath
  • Cooking meals at the Poorhouse

 

Ohhhh, see that!? Now, these moments are starting to sound more like stories, and less like topics. You saw how I did that, right? Finding my seed ideas inside that big pumpkin of a life story.

Now, you may already have ideas that are somewhat specific. Maybe you’ve carved your pumpkin already instead of leaving it whole. But I challenge you to zoom in and pull out those small seeds.

 

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO FIND SEED IDEAS

Grab your writing notebook, and identify an ancestor you want to write about. This is your pumpkin idea.

Next, create subtopics, carve up that pumpkin, usually around time periods or significant events in your ancestor’s life. They may look like this:

  • marriage
  • immigration
  • buying land
  • going to school
  • career

Next, take that carved pumpkin and pull out the seeds, those little ideas within those topics.

For example,

Immigration

  • Buying the ticket
  • Seeing North America from the ship for the first time.

Job

  • First day on the job
  • Receiving an award
  • Last day on the job

Marriage

  • A funny event at the ceremony.
  • First date
  • Marriage proposal

Seed ideas are usually memorable moments in a person’s life, but they also can trigger random specific moments in their life that can hold significant meaning.

If you’ve been struggling to get your family history stories out, I’d suggest it could be that you’re carrying too large of an idea. Every time you write, remember to zoom into your ideas, carve up the pumpkin and start to pull out those small seeds. A seed idea is quite fun and manageable to write about!

Go on, dig out those seeds and start writing.

 

 

1 thought on “Finding Story Seeds: A Mini-Workshop”

  1. I love the analogy. This idea speaks to me and looks as though it will help me simplify the overwhelming task of writing my father’s story. It now feels manageable using the seed idea.

Comments are closed.

Related Post

challenge road sign

Finding the Conflict and the ObstaclesFinding the Conflict and the Obstacles

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?