What’s Your Message?




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.

 

Related Post

Enriching Your Story with HistoryEnriching Your Story with History

In the Getting Ready to Write and Authentic Ancestors workbooks, I mentioned historical timelines and their importance in organizing your research and writing your ancestor’s stories.  Not only is it important to map your ancestor’s life on a timeline, but also to map world, regional and local history. It’s necessary to consider what was happening in the world around your ancestors and it’s relationship to their life.

I want to spend a few minutes today discussing how we can use historical events to enrich your stories.

Historical events can provide both a background and a setting for your story. However, while these events can add a lot of colour and depth to your story, it’s important to not just insert a historical event in your ancestor’s narrative only because it happened during their life.  It’s important to look at how those events may have impacted your ancestor’s life, actions, and reactions.  While some events will be easy to include due to your ancestor’s direct relationship to an event, do not discount an event because it did not happen directly to them. It may be happening in the background and influencing their life.

These historical events can happen before, after or during the story. It may be something from the past that sets in motion a current event in your story. Historical events can add richness to your story and can place your ancestor’s life and story within the context of the world. It can also help to establish the tone of your story for your reader.  By linking your ancestor’s story to something happening or that has happened, this event may impact them or people around them. It’s important to consider how the event may change their feelings, attitudes, culture, or society.

These historical events may strengthen your story ideas and feed your ancestor’s stories. Perhaps your ancestor’s story will be a political or social statement about abortion, adoption, slavery, corruption in politics or the environment to name but a few. You can look to historical events to help you build your story ideas and theme.

An excellent resource for looking at events in a variety of categories is The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun.  This book is organized into seven categories, history and politics, literature and theatre, religion, philosophy and learning, visual arts, music, science, technology and growth, and daily life. It spans from 5000BC up to 1991 and is organized on a year by year basis.

I’ve also provided you with a small chart below for you to download and use if looking at the historical events of your ancestor’s life and analyzing them for the impact on their lives. Completing this chart might help you to shape your story with regards to plot, theme, and your story question.

Don’t limit yourself to just the large world events. Regional and local historical events must also be considered. We often think wars and national tragedies when discussing historical events. However, a local storm that causes devastation to area crops or local politics may play a significant role in your ancestor’s life and decisions.

Historical events provide context and richness to your story, and  it places our ancestor in the world making them more real and believable to your reader.

Here’s the timeline with a couple of examples filled in.

Timeline Table

Timeline Table – blank