All through 2017 we focused on various questions you could answer to begin writing your own personal story. Now what? Knowing facts and presenting them in interesting ways may be two completely different things. Here are some suggestions made by Angie Lucas in a FamilySearch blogpost that might help you continue working on your personal story.
Lucas suggests that you are the best person to tell your story. You were there, and you know the details. Your perspective on your life is unique and unlike anyone else’s. Own your story!
If you had any trouble remembering the details of your life when answering the #52Stories questions, then try telling some of your stories out loud with other members of your family. I have heard the story of my oldest brother winning the yoyo championship at a local drug store in the 1950s at least a dozen times. It wasn’t until recently that I listened to my other brother relate the story and added the fact that he really wanted to win (he’s very competitive) and didn’t. I now have a totally different perspective on the same story.
When you answered the questions from 2017, they were often random and not in any specific time order. Try making a timeline of your life. Create a computer file for each year of your life and leave space in between to come back and fill in the events of those years. What you will find is that you have created future chapters for your story. Then it is easy to plug in those stories you have already written, and hopefully, those stories will spark new memories for you.
One of the small tips I always tried to impress on my students was the need to be specific. When writing, we often leave out details and don’t realize it. Those details are still in our heads, and we subconsciously put them back in when we proofread. Think of details as testifying in court. An attorney will keep asking questions until he has a clear picture of what happened. Details create a picture of the event.
When I was teaching writing, I often heard students complain about writer’s block. And they sometimes used it as an excuse as to why they didn’t have a paper ready on time. The easiest way to start writing is to start writing! Don’t worry about beginning and ending, just write. You can cut and paste paragraphs into the right spaces. As thoughts and impressions come to you, write them down and come back to them later. Just begin anywhere that you like, and then fill in the empty places. This is how professional writers write. You can do it too.
These are just a few of the suggestions Angie Lucas made in her article. Check back next month for more hints. [Source: Angie Lucas, FamilySearch Blogpost, 3 January 2018]