Writing a book?

[Finley 1]

I was just writing my life story for my girls and family...

it became too painful to continue

so I had to stop...

I have had a happy life, (so far    )  but attempting to remember certain things shared with CLOSE CLOSE  people no longer here  ----- I just couldn't do it...

maybe have time yet,

we shall see

xin

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Cristeen,

There are several topics about writing family history books in the subforum:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/fh-programs-organisation-presentation/

I collected some of them in a list here
Topic: RootsChat Topics: Organising and Presenting your Family History
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=158638.0

regards,
Bob

[Berlin-Bob]

I once saw an interesting article about writing a family history, but unfortunately the web-link doesn't work any more.

Here is a short summary.

The author (Margaret Anne Storey) listed 5 ways of writing a book:

• 1. Standard Data:
  Example: "William Smith was born in 1652 in Little Dribbling" - Absolute Minimum => BORING !!!
  
  
• 2. Expanded:
  

  you will need to do a lot of research into your ancestor’s occupation, the village he lives in, his neighbours, the climate etc. It is probably the most acceptable as far as what most people expect a family history to be.

  "The old stone church sat high on the hill. The gravestones all around showed evidence of it's past, and of that of the villagers who had once lived in Little Dribbling"
  
  
• 3. Very expanded:  like 2. plus a bit of imagination !
  Example: The Smith family approached the old church, high on the hill. The baby, wrapped in an old christening dress, lay cradled in her mother's arms. It was 1652.
  
  
• 4. From the author's point of view: (as if you were there)
  "I slowly climbed the hill, to the old stone church. The gravestone nearby told me a tale of a byegone age, that of my ancestors".
  
  
• 5. Fiction + Fact = Faction: Facts + Imagination in the form of a novel. This is probably the most difficult: you are leaving the path of the proven facts and adding a lot of imagination and speculation.
  - will the relatives like this ?
  - more important: will ich be fun for you ?
  
  

As a "technician" I can write reports fairly easily but I find it hard to write about non-technical subjects.  My website/family chronicle is written mainly in style 1 - standard data - with occaisional excursions into style 4 - "I .." where I also include information about the search itself for information. Now and again I'll add some of my speculations as well (style 5)

A useful help here (for style 3-5) are "biographies as novels". The authors will often take known utterances of 'public' people (from diaries, letters, and other publications) and weave them into (fictitious) dialogues. i.e. they did actually say this, but in another setting ! If you have diaries, letters and other documents of your ancesters, you could build them into your narritive here.

[Berlin-Bob]

• 4. From the author's point of view: (as if you were there)
  "I slowly climbed the hill, to the old stone church. The gravestone nearby told me a tale of a byegone age, that of my ancestors".

This method presupposes that you have actually been to these places
Even if you don't write the whole book or chronicle in this style, it might be an idea for the introduction or preface.

Bob

[panda40]

For those of you who find it daunting to write have you thought about doing an oral history and recording your memories and putting these recordings on a web site or leaving them with a archive for future generations to listen to.
Regards
Panda

[cristeen]

Thank you all, lots to think about and some great advice

[pharmaT]

For those of you who find it daunting to write have you thought about doing an oral history and recording your memories and putting these recordings on a web site or leaving them with a archive for future generations to listen to.
Regards
Panda

I'm even more ashamed of my speech than I am of my lack of writing skills

[Viktoria]

Don`t be ashamed of your speech, the vast difference in regional dialects ,word use and even grammar is so interesting.
I can remember when people where I spent my childhood had
such a lovely soft accent and hundreds of words peculiar to that region(South Shropshire).
Now only the oldest people have retained the words and accent
ibn its purest form
 I recorded some and oh what a change has taken place . Whether coincidental or not it dates from them  having T.V which was much later than most places as there was no electricity until the early 60`s.
I think it is a great loss.
Have a bash, you may regret it and I`m sure your family will appreciate it very much- they won`t want you to "talk posh".
Best wishes with that, Viktoria.
I`ve come over all weepy now. Struggled to remember my mum`s voice. All I can hear is her saying my name in a very sad cross way when I decided to change horses in mid stream so to speak and take another direction in my training.
Got my dad`s but sadly after throat cancer and a tracheotomy tube, so not really him..V.

[Lionrhod]

Look up the Writers' Digest books. They have a couple excellent books on writing your family story. I can't remember which one I read (I had a housefire, so my library burned to the ground and I don't recall the titles of all my books, but I know there were a couple good ones on family memoirs.

Your approach obviously matters. Is this a history for just your family and friends, or do you want to turn this into a biography or novel?

If it's for public consumption then you'll need to focus on a common thread that others can relate to.

Don't worry if your family are fishmongers or sailors or whatever. Everyone has a story, and you don't need to be blue-blood nobility to be interesting. In fact, most often IMO it's the lives of the common and everyday people who are far more interesting.

If it's a generational story, find a common thread that you can use to bind the generations. It could be a family home or a locket owned by an ancestress and gifted to each member in the story. It could be as simple as a family recipe passed down.

One of the biggest choices is whether or not to fictionalize. Me, as a fiction author, I fall on the side of fictionalizing. I take what I know actually happened or words that were actually spoken (whether hearsay or actual quotes) and then work around that.

One thing I will say is don't get stalled in games of "he said" "she said" unless you are up for exploring that. And potentially fictionalizing that. My sister died a few years ago. At the time she'd asked me to write her life story (it certainly was an exciting one). When she died of cancer, everyone in her family started blaming her for all the bad stuff that happened. Till today I don't know what the truth is.

At this point I've taken a year or three off the story to both decide who's telling the truth. (Family members often lie to protect their own selves.) And to decide if I'm going to go ahead with a fictional or non fictional version, or not at all.

Either way, enjoy the journey! Trust in yourself and in  your unique voice!