What is their life story?

How many times has somebody said to me “But my life is so ordinary, it’s boring, they won’t be interested”?

Having just spent a weekend talking with people from all walks of life at a baby boomers and retiree’s expo the subject of an ordinary life of no interest to descendents was raised numerous times. It is true, some people have had what appears to be a more interesting life, more excitement, done more ‘things”, experienced more and have stories to tell. Lives like that are the raw materials for many a documentary and I love hearing about them myself.

Just as certainly I enjoy hearing family stories shared that seemingly are about the minutiae of life. Why? It is all very well to know through genealogical research that John was born in Dubbo (a regional town in country NSW Australia), lived from X date to Y date and was a plumber. But what was John like as a person? Where did he grow up? What was the house and family life like? What changes did John see in his life? What was his philosophy on life? What did he enjoy doing and was he particularly good at anything like sports or perhaps music or some other pastime?

At some stage in our lives most people ask the question “where do I come from”? This is the key question for the popular TV program “Who Do You Think You Are”. What makes me who I am? In asking those questions of ourselves a part of it is discovering more about those ancestors of ours who have come before. And, unless your particular family has been good at record keeping, been wealthy and well documented, had individuals who have been written about in newspapers or otherwise had significant actions recorded, then you are lucky to get more than a few snippets about the lives of those who have come before. Your descendents will be interested in your story. They will want to know about you and your life. Whether you sit down in a quiet moment and write the chapters of your life out long hand, sit at a computer and type or commission an Oral Historian such as myself to record your life story or that of a significant loved one in your family the thanks of your descendents will wring long and loud.

Each of us has a story or stories to pass on, the stories from our own life and the stories of our elders, both personally known or stories that have been passed on to us. Due to timing, those around you right now may not outwardly show interest in your story or give the impression that they already know your story. I bet they don’t but that is a subject for another time. It may not be your children, however, it may be your grandchildren or great grandchildren that go seeking to know more about you and the circumstances in which you lived.

With knowledge comes understanding, you can give a great personal gift to your descendents no matter how you preserve your story. It’s worth preserving and I can assure you it will not be boring to those who come after you.

For tips on how to make it easier to preserve your life story you may wish to view a series of free videos I have prepared. Just click on the link on “How to Write Your Personal Memoirs” to see the first in the series.

Pick a theme a subject or a scene and just start. This is sometimes called “stream of consciousness writing”. If you would like some tips on structuring your personal memoir writing project then this earlier post has the information on structuring your personal memoirs.

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As Sean Connery’s character in the movie “Finding Forrester” advises the young “want to be writer”:

“Write the first draft from your heart, the second from your head.” “No thinking – that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think!”

I believe that this quote sums the act of writing up very well.

Pick a place, person or event and just start writing and use any notes that you have made as reference. Simply keep writing until you have exhausted that subject and when you have finished one section, sit back and give yourself a round of applause because congratulations are in order.

You don’t have to write in any particular order. If something else springs to mind whilst writing, jot it down in a notepad for later and come back to it next. Often inspiration for the next section to write will strike you whilst writing the first and the actual order you write in doesn’t matter.

In this video I outline some very useful basics in how to approach actually writing your personal memoir.  I have previously written about the importance of a story plan. Use your story structure plan when you are writing and tick off the sections as you go.

Just write until you have finished your story.

Deciding how to structure your personal memoirs so that it captures and retains the interest of your reader, whilst telling your story, is perhaps one of the hardest tasks a writer of personal memoirs will face. The video Personal Memoirs Writing – Structuring Your Story, will help you get a head start and hopefully make it easier for you.

In order to write your personal memoirs, life story or family history you will initially spend time resurfacing memories and gathering the source materials to use in your written story.   This process will inevitably result in a lot of material, whether written notes, photographs or other source documents. Just looking at the volume of the materials can be off putting when trying to decide what to include and how to structure your personal memoirs.

Regardless of whether your intention is to tell your story in a lineal progression, perhaps covering a certain event or period of your life, or whether you have a more extensive time period in mind, bringing order to your notes will assist you in your actual writing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this video oral historian Greg Lawrence provides you with some easy to use tools that will make structuring your memoirs easier. There are tools to help you discover your emerging themes and get to the real essence of the story you wish to tell and other techniques to assist you in discovering the gaps where you will need to do further research before commencing your actual writing.

If you are just embarking on your personal memoirs project you may wish to review the other videos in the Personal Memoirs Writing Series:

Personal Memoirs | Motivation is Everything

Personal Memoirs | Writing Lists and Stories about Places

Personal Memoirs | Writing about People

Personal Memoirs | Writing about Events

As you set out to write your personal memoirs or life story most likely it is the events in your memoir which willtake a great deal of your focus.

It is at this point you will need to re-evaluate your purpose for writing and you may wish to read an earlier poston why motivation is everything for Personal memoir Writing Just what is the story you wish to tell? What are the events which have had the most influence on your life storyand what part did those events have to play in your overall development or the personal memoir you wish to tell?

In this personal memoirs training video Oral Historian Greg Lawrence outlines ways you can begin to recall the events in your life story that you may wish to include in your memoir. He discusses the inclusion of life events, thoughts and beliefs and how to use memory prompts to recall events.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When you are preparing your thoughts write down as many events as possible which played a part in the story you wish to tell.  Who was present at the time and what was their involvement in the event? One of the earlier videos in this series, Personal memoirs – Stories About People will help you formulate your thoughts on the people who played a part in the events you wish to write about.

Note down the really important events in your story but don’t forget the little ones either. The little events that will add colour to your personal memoir and add depth and context for your reader. Keep in mind that your reader has a different set of experiences to your own and it is often the little things providing the context which will allow them to relate more quickly of in more depth to the life story you are telling.

What were your feelings about the important events of your life story?

When you are preparing to write the notes that you are making can be considered ‘fuelling up”. You are adding gas to your writing tank and it is at this stage it’s your outline notes, the raw fuel, which you are interested in.  The more “fuel” you can add to your tank at this point the easier it will become when you actually sit down to write your story. Don’t worry about the details in the early stages, those can come later.

A list of 10 life event prompts you might find useful:

• An event in or about a place you lived in?
• Something involving a favourite Aunt or Uncle, your Mother or Father?
• Something from your working life?
• A remembrance about a child?
• A sporting or cultural achievement.
• Your personal triumphs and tragedies.
• A major crisis.
• A travel experience.
• A turning point in your personal life philosophy.
• When a climatic event impacted on you or your family.

Think about the major events that occurred during your life and what surrounded them. What was happening at the time in the wider community, locally, nationally and internationally? Did these events impact on you in any way? What did you think about them?
Anything can trigger a memory and once you start you will find that one thought leads to another.
The Importance of Thoughts & Beliefs

In your personal memoirs what were the major issues of the time? Did they have any particular impact on you oryour story?

If you find that you can easily remember a major issue or event then it probably is worth examining it for an impact or an influence on your own personal belief system and considering its relevance to the story you are telling.  Your readers would like to know you on more than a surface level and therefore any strong beliefs or influences on your development are likely to be of interest.

For example do you hold strong religious beliefs? How did they develop and come about?

Were you influenced by any international conflicts? Either as a person directly involved or as a person who developed a strong belief either for or against your nation’s involvement. What influence did these events have on developing your personal philosophy? How you came to have the belief system you have is often of great relevance to the personal memoir you are telling.

Memory Prompts

When writing personal memoirs or a life story the memory prompts you can use can include anything and everything. The most important thing you can do is to constantly keep a small notebook with you just to jot down the memory fragments as they surface. Think of your memory as a filing cabinet. A filing cabinet where, as you progress  through life, you keep adding things to the front and where your older memories are constantly being pushed to the back. It’s difficult to see everything when you first open the cabinet.

Your memories are still there it’s just they have over time become clouded with the sheer volume of them and you need a way of systematic rediscovery. The mind is a wonderful thing and connects memories in ways which constantly surprise us. In order to tap into those memories you can use a series of memory prompts to help you.
Useful Memory Prompts you can use include:

• Photos.
• Diaries or Journals.
• Family Treasures.
• Old Letters & Papers.
• A reunion with family, old friends or past work colleagues.
• A recipe book.
• An old résumé or CVs can prompt memories.
• Talk with friends or family about an event, person or place you want to include.

Keep your notebook with you and as you look through a selection or old photos or talk with family or friends make a note of any memory that resurfaces so that you can later come back to it and use that memory as a starting point in your own memory filing cabinet. You will find that once you can grasp the edge of an old memory other ways of teasing that memory out into full light will readily present themselves to you.

People are interested in people.  Why do you think magazines about people are so popular?  Go into any news store and just look at the breadth of magazines that are covering the goings on of people.  Oh look!  Here is a celebrity behaving well or badly, oh another one wearing the latest fashion and yet another at a film launch or opening something or other.  The fact is that as humans we often live through the lives of others and have a deep and complex interest in what people do.  And that’s just those we know through the media!

When writing your personal memoirs you will need to develop your cast of characters that help you to illustrate your story.  This doesn’t just mean a list of who is who but a rounder, fuller description of who they are, what they looked like, what they sounded like and what they did.  Your readers, just like the magazine readers, want to find out the details of the people in your life.

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In this video Oral Historian Greg Lawrence details some of the things you should be looking at when it comes to looking at the people involved in your story. Did they have any special mannerisms, things such as tapping the side of their nose when telling you something of particular importance? Did they have a special way of saying things or special sayings that they repeated and peppered their conversation with? What relationship did you have with the people in your story? The free video training is full of tips on how to organise your thoughts about the people in your story.

What about when you are writing your own family history, personal memoirs or autobiography?

Ask anybody who has embarked on genealogical or family history research and you will find that they get a real “Hey this is neat” moment when they discover letters, descriptions or an event in a person of interest’s life.  It is those facts and descriptions which add colour and depth to any family history story and draw and hold your reader’s interest and bring you or your ancestor to life.

The fun and enjoyment for readers of life stories and family stories is getting a real sense of who your characters are.  You have the advantage as a the writer of a family history, personal memoir or your autobiography in that you are able to provide that description and depth right now, as you create it for your own and others enjoyment.

When writing a family history, personal memoirs or an autobiography, we need a way of pulling out the past memories and shining a light on them to see if they will have any part in the story we wish to tell.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this video, Oral Historian Greg Lawrence talks about the power of lists and how they can help your memory recall for personal memoirs writing. The video includes easy techniques that every writer can use. Lists allow you to jot things down memories as you recall them and take advantage of the memory by association process as you prepare to write. The memory method described in the video details how you can use the power of lists to enhance your memory recall.

By preparing memory prompt lists when you come to develop your story structure you are easily able to include details about places, people and events. Later in the “Personal Memoirs Writing” video series Greg will share powerful techniques you can use in organising your memory prompt lists. These techniques will enable you to leverage the power of memory prompts in your writing.

Remember, whether writing a family history, your personal memoirs or autobiography, the list is your friend.

One of the core memory prompt lists, and a pillar of personal memoirs writing, is used to provide your readers with a sense of place. A sense of place helps you contextually place your story’s characters in the events and actions in your story. By including descriptions and details about where your story takes place allows your reader to build up a mental picture of how that place influences your characters and the story you are telling. Details assist readers to empathise with your characters.

The video talks about how to include the different places the characters in your story lived and worked or experienced life events. It provides practical advice for developing useful memory prompts to recall the important places in your own story. Greg provides a descriptive example of an Australian home and setting during the late 1940s and ‘50s where the story teller evokes a real sense of place and by doing so allows the reader to add a layer of understanding about the story teller’s life and perform a mental comparison between the story teller’s experience and their own.

Today’s homes, towns, cities, farms and society are manifestly different from those of even a few short decades ago.  A sense of place helps your story come alive and capture your reader’s attention.

Personal memoir writing is a pursuit which depends on your motivation to finish.  Start something without very clear thoughts on what your purpose is and, well, nothing much will happen.  Writers block and unfinished or unedited memoirs will be the result and they will soon mount up to a point where just looking at them is a daunting task.  Without a clear purpose before you start to write your autobiography or memoir when you take a break and put aside your pen you will never quite get back to them.

In this video, “Personal Memoirs Writing Video 001 – Motivation is Everything”, Oral Historian Greg Lawrence talks about clarification of your motivation before you begin to write.  What to consider when clarifying your purpose for writing your personal memoirs or autobiography.

This is the first video in a series of a free online video training course on “How to Write Your Personal Memoir or Autobiography”.   The series will cover memory prompting, researching your memoir or autobiography, finding a theme, memoir structuring, writing and editing your memoirs and self publishing options for memoirs and autobiographies.

Any time you set out on a writing project you need to be clear about the why you are writing.  If you are writing just for yourself or for close family then write for that purpose.  If you are writing for family you can more freely use an informal writing style and include references to things that family insiders will inherently know about and nobody, well not many, will get upset if your writing style is a bit too clumsy or references are left out.

If you decide that your life story, personal memoirs or autobiography will be written for a wider audience then you will need to pay more attention to your writing style but equally you need to focus on just who is your target audience. For your memoir to have wider audience appeal you will need to pay more attention to providing contextual information and facts so that your readers are able to reference your writing and connect it to their own experience or general knowledge about the subject.

This video series will provide you with a methodology for uncovering the facts about your subject and how to organise those facts as writer’s fuel to increase the interest and engagement with your audience whether you are writing a for family or a much wider audience.

But why write your memoirs in the first place?  A memoir implies a focused piece of writing recalling a specific time or experience in your life.  It might be reminiscences about your work, family event or series of events but if you don’t have a strong motivation and passion you will rarely end up with a piece worth publishing in any form. That is if you end up with a finished piece at all.
Clarify your purpose and motivation for writing your personal memoirs before you start.

Respect Boundaries When Asking Family History Questions

When you embark on family history research there comes a time when you want or need to ask family history questions of your living relatives.

Family members often have the real hidden gems to your family history that can make the time and research you invest in your genealogy jusdt that much more rewarding.

But how do you ask family history questions that will provide the answers you seek?

List to a Podcast with great family history question tips.

Families are made up of a complex web of interpersonal relationships with many subtle nuances that you may not even be aware of. When you ask questions about another person’s life story or ask family history questions seeking information, unknowingly you may be pushing against your interviewee’s boundaries in ways that are uncomfortable to them and you don’t even know it!

How can you get past some of the barriers that are present to find answers by asking the questions you want to?   How can you engage your subject and have them provide the information you are seeking?

To find some answers to these common questions and find the best way to ask family history questions I turned to relationship expert and licensed councillor Kim Leatherdale.  Remember families are relationships.  Who better to ask for tips on how to approach family members respectfully but a relationship expert.

In this podcast Kim Leatherdale and I explore the question of how to get a family member to open up to answering questions about our family history.  Kim provides some great tips on questioning techniques and what may lie behind the ducking and weaving we get sometimes when asking older relatives about the past.  Our conversation provides some great tips you can use in your quest for family history AND also in your everyday life.

Kim Leatherdale

Kim Leatherdale, LPC, ATR-BC, NCC is a professional relationship councillor and licensed therapist.  She counsels couples and individuals through video-counseling, phone sessions, and in-person meetings. Kim is a well-liked speaker and blogger and is based in New Jersey, USA.

Kim’s blog, Creating Rewarding Relationships, is packed with useful information on how you can improve and create rewarding relationships for yourself.

Perhaps they do tell you their life story but often as the memoir and stories they share are told whilst you are focused on something else how can you possibly remember all their stories?

Lifetime Memories and Stories helps individuals make that process easy and fun. This short video outlines our methods for memoir writing and life story recording using oral history techniques and life story books.

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I know that this is only a taste but be sure to visit the blog regularly as over the next few months as we will be posting a series of videos and articles with some detailed practical information on how to go about writing your memoirs and capturing your precious family stories.

Don’t delay, capture your precious family stories.

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