Five Lessons Learned While Writing

Thinking about writing a family history story? I took the plunge, and am here to tell you the water’s fine.

In February, encouraged by Harold Henderson's article, "Why We Don't Write, and How We Can" and Lynn Palermo's Family History Writing Challenge, I wrote two blog posts and one full-length article about my ancestors. All told, that came to about 4600 words, plus at least half that much again in endnotes. Yes, it took a lot of time, but I’m glad I did it. The act of writing the article, especially, drove home a few points that I thought I’d share with you.

Five thoughts on the value and process of writing family history:

1. Getting started is (almost) half the battle

Although I knew I wanted to write an article in February, I hadn’t settled on what it was going to be about. It took me several days to determine a subject, narrow the focus and scope, develop an approach, and write the introduction. I tossed out two outlines, tried mind-mapping, and cut the beginnings of several drafts in the process. Finally I came up with a rough framework—just a list of subheadings and points, really—that worked. The lesson, for me at least, is not to get discouraged early. It takes a certain amount of perseverance just to get through the starting gate.

2. Writing exposes any holes in your research

Even when you’ve already done the research, analyzed and correlated it, and formed your conclusions, chances are you’re going to find some gaps when you sit down to write it up in narrative form. Writing forces you to see those holes and find ways to fill them. In this case, I realized I hadn’t fully explored all the siblings of my ancestors (one guy alone had ten of them). And there was one instance where I felt I needed additional proof of the relationship between generations. There’s nothing like the thought that your work might be put into print to make you double-check your findings for flaws. In the end, I visited a courthouse, three libraries in different counties, a cemetery, and the state archives after I started writing the article. Just to fill those gaps and make sure I had it right. The lesson? Be prepared to do more research while you’re writing, to strengthen and solidify your work.

3. Creating broader appeal means thinking about your reader

Why should total strangers want to read about your family history? I can think of two main reasons: (1) they’re interested in the methods and resources you used to solve your genealogical questions, and (2) they’re absorbed by the way you tell your story. Ideally, you want to satisfy readers on both these accounts. Since I wanted to write an article that appealed to a wide audience, I tried to incorporate bits of history, geography, and social history into my account. And I tried to illustrate how I pulled information from multiple sources together to frame my ancestors’ lives. I took care with the endnotes, to help people who might be interested in using the same or similar sources. Of course, I’m not sure how well I accomplished those goals, since the article hasn’t yet been accepted for publication. Still, I think the take-away is a valid one: give your reader a reason to keep reading.

4. Editing is just as important as writing

Well, this point probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone. A lot of my paragraphs—including the first one—looked very different in the end than they did at the beginning. Some writers save all the editing and rewriting until last, and that’s fine. But I did part of it as I went along, spending some time each day cleaning up what I had previously written, followed by more extensive revisions after it was mostly finished. Before I sent in my final draft, I printed it out and read it out loud, slowly, to myself. Believe me, you can catch a lot of errors that way, and you can also see where things sound awkward or unclear. The unavoidable bottom line is that editing takes time and thought.

5. Focusing on the goal will see you through

Writing, for me, demands total focus. Some people might be able to multi-task while writing, but I’m not one of them. While I was working on the article, I fell asleep thinking about the family. When I woke up, they were in my head again within moments. That kind of intensity means that not a whole lot else gets done, to be honest. But it feels good to have created something that hopefully will be published, preserving the work that I’ve done on the family. And that, above all, was my goal: to move the research out of my files and synthesize it into a format that could be accessed, used, and hopefully enjoyed by others. There’s a feeling of satisfaction from knowing it will be preserved, come what may. The end result is worth the time it takes.

If you’ve considered writing a family history article or submitting a story for publication, I’d love to know if you found these thoughts helpful. I’d also welcome any other tips or insights you might have. What inspires you to write, and what are the take-away lessons of writing for you?

--Shelley

Taking the Family History Writing Challenge

February can be rather gray month here in Ohio, so I’m excited that Lynn Palermo of The Armchair Genealogist is offering her Family History Writing Challenge again this year. I participated last year, and while I faltered a bit toward the end, I appreciated the focus it brought to my writing efforts. It’s easier to make writing a family history story more of a priority when you have daily support, encouragement, and tips, which Lynn and her guest authors provide in abundance.

I’ve decided to take Lynn’s challenge again this year. That means I’ve got a few days to finish selecting a primary subject to write about, out of so many swirling around in my head. (I can almost picture my ancestors jumping around, their arms waving, calling, “Pick me! Pick me!”) So I might settle on doing a few short vignettes as well, some of which should appear on this blog. For the month of February, I’m going to focus on stories, rather than resources, tips, or technology, here at A Sense of Family. Stories take more time to write, but they linger with me longer and give me greater satisfaction, too.

I’m particularly looking forward to the line up of guest authors that Lynn has scheduled this year. Lisa Alzo (The Accidental Genealogist), Biff Barnes (Stories to Tell), Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, Mariann Reagan (Into the Briar Patch), and Tami Koenig (Your Story Coach). Plus Q & A interviews with Denise Levenick (The Family Curator) and Ryan Literall. Who could help but be inspired by that group?

If you’re interested, there’s still plenty of time to join the Family History Writing Challenge. Just head over and sign up for Lynn's emails. You don’t have to have a blog to participate. You can write privately, in any format that’s comfortable for you (I’ll be writing privately for the most part, as part of a larger project). If you do have a blog, though, be sure to pick up a badge like the one above.

Have you joined the challenge? Leave me a comment, and a link if you'd like, so I can follow along with you. Let’s keep each other company this February!

--Shelley

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Buckingham Palace, Leonardo da Vinci, and a Lesson for Us All

Time for a Happy Dance

Follow Friday: The Accidental Genealogist

Buckingham Palace, Leonardo da Vinci, and a Lesson for Us All

I recently returned from a two-week vacation in Europe and Great Britain, leaving my daughter behind in London for a semester abroad. While there, I had the chance to tour Buckingham Palace, parts of which are open to the public a few weeks each summer while the Queen is at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The state rooms of Buckingham Palace are fittingly ornate and impressive. I particularly enjoyed walking up the Grand Staircase to the Ballroom, then into the State Dining Room, where Queen Elizabeth II is said to personally supervise the details of the place-settings and menu for each occasion. I felt an undeniable sense of history touring the Palace during Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year (that’s an amazing 60 years on the throne).

Buckingham Palace (author's photo)

As part of my Royal Day Out ticket, I also got to tour The Queen’s Gallery, which currently is featuring an exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist. And it was there that I received an unexpected, yet very powerful, lesson that I think relates directly to all of us engaged in tracing our family history.

Before my visit, I didn’t know that da Vinci, painter of The Last Supper and Mona Lisa, also studied anatomy. He made copious notes and fabulously detailed drawings of animal and human anatomy in the late 1400’s and early 1500’s, keeping them in various notebooks over the years. By the time he died in 1519, he had made discoveries and drawn sketches that could have transformed the study of anatomy for generations to come—if only other scientists had known about it.

But therein lies the rub. You see, da Vinci never published his ground-breaking work. It remained in loose, uncollected form upon his death. Even worse, da Vinci wrote his notes using “mirror writing”—a left-to-right hand style that is extremely difficult to decipher. Odd notebooks full of strange drawings and unreadable script that fellow artists and scientists didn’t even realize existed? Sad but true. Da Vinci’s work disappeared into oblivion. The sketches and notes were eventually collected into an album and acquired by King Charles II, but they were not interpreted and their significance recognized until the early 1900’s—roughly 400 years after they were first written. By then, other scientists had made even greater strides in anatomical studies, and da Vinci’s discoveries had lost their impact.

 Da Vinci's anatomical study of the arm

Da Vinci's drawing of a fetus in the womb

So what does all this have to do with family history? In the end, I think it comes down to two words: publish and preserve.

Now I’m the first to admit I get caught up with the thrill of the hunt. It’s hard to take time out to write my thoughts and conclusions up when it seems like more ancestors are waiting to be discovered around every corner. If only I branch out more widely, or reach back another generation, or break through that elusive brick wall—then I’ll write it up, I tell myself. It’s not finished yet, and besides, there’s always tomorrow.

But the sad truth is, there’s not always tomorrow. The recent death of John Humphrey, one of the world’s foremost genealogists and a wonderfully generous instructor and author, has driven home that point. Our time here is not unlimited. And if we want our work to survive us and be beneficial to those who follow, we need to make sure it’s preserved in useable, accessible form.

The lessons I hope to learn from da Vinci are:

1. Write in a format that will be universally readable and understandable for ages to come.

The fact that others couldn’t read what da Vinci had written was a big part of the problem. How do we make sure future generations can read our findings? Personally, I think this means we need to produce material in print rather than rely on computer files. Two hundred years from now, I’m pretty certain someone will be able to pick up a piece of paper written in English and read it. I’m not so sure that they will be able to access a DVD, flash drive, or GEDCOM file. And the “cloud” is still brand new territory. Technological changes are hard to predict, and today's Word file might be mumbo-jumbo tomorrow. Saving things electronically for current use is fine, but for the long haul, go with the hard copy.

2. Compile your findings into some organized, cohesive form—a report, article, book, lineage application, chart, or anthology.

Da Vinci’s lesson here is straightforward: don’t leave your hard-won research languishing in a stack of files or notebooks that no one else will make the effort to compile. Realistically, will your descendents, or even your favorite genealogical society, be willing to sift through piles of documents or layers of computer files? And will they know the conclusions you intended to draw? I don’t see anyone in my family raising a hand for that job. Along with this comes the responsibility of letting those who read your work know where you got the information. That doesn’t mean your source citations have to be perfect, as long as they contain enough detail for others to find and evaluate what you looked at.

3. Share your information with others by publishing or distributing it.

While publishing a family history book may be the ultimate goal for many of us, it can also be intimidating. But publishing doesn’t have to be a huge, one-time proposition. If you have a blog or family history website, you can publish some findings there. You could also write an article for your local or state genealogical society publication. Perhaps you could send copies of a report you write for yourself to others researching the family. There’s no right or wrong way to get the word out. Even the simple step of making multiple copies of a family summary and giving them to a number of people (say, all of your siblings and first cousins) is valuable. I inherited significant information on two family lines that way. Online family trees and wikis make it easy to collaborate with other researchers, as long as caution is used when merging material. And that book you’ve always wanted to write someday? Maybe a series of mini-books would be a more approachable goal. 

I realize that this is easy advice to give, but tougher to follow. If I intend to take it, I’ll need to make compiling and writing up my research more of a priority. But walking through that elegant gallery admiring what should have been ground-breaking work, only to discover that it completely lost its impact because it was never communicated effectively, was a powerful lesson. And it’s one I think has real significance for all family historians. Who better to learn it from than a master, and what better place than a royal palace?

--Shelley

(Images of pages from da Vinci’s notebooks, illustrating his mirror writing, are from Wikipedia Commons and are in the public domain in the U.S. The photo of the embryo studies page, taken by Luc Viatour, www.lucnix.be, is considered one of the finest images in Wikipedia Commons.)

Copyright 2012, Shelley Bishop

Time for a Happy Dance

If you’re like me, it’s not often that you find something genuinely exciting in your email inbox. But yesterday I received a real gem, and I’m eager to share it with you. So I hope you’ll join me for a moment in a little cyberspace happy dance.

The email was from Diana Chrisman Smith. The first line grabbed my attention right away: “Congratulations! You are one of the winners in the ISFHWE Excellence-in-Writing competition for 2012.”

Did I read that right? I quickly read the rest and downloaded the attached list of winners, and sure enough, under the “Columns” category, there was my name. Not once, but twice. I had won first and second place in the category!

Woo-hoo! After re-reading it a few times to let it soak in, I had to jump up and tell somebody. My daughter was the only one home, and to her credit, she was genuinely happy for me. She even put the list on the refrigerator door with a magnet. And if that’s not a sure sign of a Very Important Paper, I don’t know what is.

So now I’m proud to share the news with you, too. My winning entries are:

First place: A Big Game for the Big Day

This story is one of my personal favorites. It tells the tale of my grandparents’ elopement on the day of the OSU-Michigan football game in 1935, some of it in my grandmother’s own words. It was published on November 1, 2011 for the Carnival of Genealogy, and you can read it here.

Second place: Newel King, 91st Ohio Volunteer Infantry

This post has received more views than any other I’ve written. It recaps the experiences of my great-great-great grandfather in the Civil War, as pieced together from a numerous records and historical accounts. It was published on April 10, 2011 for Bill West’s Civil War Challenge, and you can read it here.

All of this had its start at the NGS Family History Conference in Cincinnati in May. I’ve been a member of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors for about a year, so I stopped by the booth to pick up the ribbon for my badge. There were a few other people there too, and Diana, who was staffing the booth, encouraged us all to enter the Excellence-in-Writing contest. The deadline was fast approaching, and I mentioned that I didn’t have time to write a new article specifically for the contest. But she told me that individual blog posts are eligible for entry under “Columns,” and I could use anything published in 2011. Hmmm. Something to think about.

So a week later, I looked through my posts from last year and found two that I felt did a good job of telling a family history story. I thought if I submitted them, it would be valuable to get the judge’s remarks back. I sent the entries in and pretty much put the whole thing out of my mind, until the email arrived yesterday.

I’d like to say thank you to ISFHWE for this honor, and for the support they offer to family history writers. I’d also like to thank my family, who doesn’t think it too terribly strange that I like to spend my days digging up clues to our family’s past (or if they do, they hide it well). And most of all I’d like to thank you, my much-appreciated readers, for your time and the comments you leave that show you’re interested and engaged. More than anything else, that encourages me to keep writing.

--Shelley

Follow Friday: The Accidental Genealogist

Is it really possible to write a family history book in only 15 minutes a day? According to Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist, the answer is absolutely—as long as you do something on your project every single day.

I attended Lisa’s lecture, “Write Your Family History Step-by-Step,” on the last day of the FGS Conference in Springfield, and came away inspired and invigorated. Lisa advocated blocking time for writing on your calendar, setting a timer for as little as 15 minutes, and doing something—taking notes, organizing, or writing even a few sentences—every day, like clockwork. She also suggested breaking the book into two sections—a readable narrative and a reference section containing genealogical summaries and sources.

Here are some of the other points I took away from the session:

• Make a timeline or outline to serve as a framework for the story
• Reel the reader in with an exciting event or conflict
• Leave something hanging at the end of every chapter
• Study the history of your time and place
• Milk all the details out of your documents and photographs
• Capture emotion and feelings in your oral interviews
• Use writing techniques like flashback, character detail, suspense, etc.
• Don’t wait until you feel like you’re “done” with your research to start

Lisa provided several websites and resources that she’s found helpful in the writing process. She also referred us to her blog, The Accidental Genealogist, for samples. If you click on “Publications,” then “Other Writings,” you can see a transcript of one of her interviews and a writing sample from her book, Three Slovak Women. Her tips and techniques are applicable whether your goal is a personal memoir, a family-only publication, or a more universal story for a larger audience. Lisa’s lecture should be available as a CD-Rom or MP3 file (your choice) from Fleetwood Onsite soon.

Lisa’s session gave me a boost to get started on a writing project I’ve been putting off because it just seemed too overwhelming. By breaking it down into smaller parts and chipping away at it a little at a time, using some of her strategies, I hope to make it seem more manageable. Now I don’t have any excuse not to get started!

Related Posts:

News from the FGS Conference

Learning a Lot at FGS 2011