Your first draft is complete now what? Understanding story editing, including the 4 stages of editing your draft and when to use them is critical at this stage. In today’s Storylines, we look at the 4 stages of editing your manuscript. Learn how to present a polished story to your readers by ensuring you walk your draft through this process.
Are you a little afraid or intimidated about incorporating dialogue into your family history story. In today’s Storylines, we’ll discuss not only why it’s so important in your narratives but how to use it with confidence.
When attempting to tell the story of a family’s history, it can be difficult to fill in the blanks when details are missing. Through research and investigation, it is possible to piece together an accurate and engaging story of your family’s past, even when details are missing.
How, you say? Well consider a short story. In this week’s Storylines we compare short stories to novel-length narratives, and how they can benefit us as family history writers. See you inside.
It takes more than just some writing skills to create entertaining family history stories. It takes creativity. But what if your creativity is lacking? No worries, you can actually develop your creativity. We all have it in us. In today’s video, learn how to develop your creativity and enhance your family history stories with a few simple tasks.
Capturing your family history through scenes can be a powerful and magical way to retell the events of our ancestors’ lives. With the help of scenes, you can bring more life to your story and make it even more meaningful. Scenes are the best place to start when making that leap from a factual analytical writer to a more creative storyteller. In today’s video we discuss how scenes can transform your stories.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed or discouraged when comparing your writing to others? It is too easy to look at someone else’s success, creativity and skill as a writer and become paralyzed with doubt and anxiety. While taking the time to learn from published writers can be beneficial, constantly judging your own work against theirs can limit your progress as a family history writer. By understanding why we do this — and learning how to break free of these mental traps — you will find yourself more open to creative possibilities while freeing up energy that was once wasted on unhelpful comparison. In this blog post, I’ll explain how constantly measuring our work against others can damage our own unique writing voices, as well as provide strategies for moving forward in developing these skills instead of getting stuck in comparison mode.
