How To Create a Family Stories Book

 

Yesterday's post was an interview with Leo Lake, who wrote his family history and stories, one week at a time for a year. His stories and photos were then bound into a nice quality book in hardcover. Leo used a program called "Story Worth" to write his book. The company sent him one question, or prompt, each week for a year, and he wrote a chapter for each one. He added photos to what he had written.

This is an easy way to complete a project that you might have been considering for a long time but just could never get started. Those questions/prompts are great triggers to memories. The best part about a program like "Story Worth" is that you do the writing, and they do all the rest. 

There are other companies that use this same method to help you write your family stories and the history of your family. Use a search engine to find them.

Another company that aids you in your project is one called "Story Terrace" that works in a slightly different method. They connect you with a professional writer who helps you write your story. You give the facts through an interview, and they write in a professional way. These writers are often called Ghostwriters. 

Heirloom Books has a list of books that will help you write your family story. This one requires more work from you as you must read the book(s) and then transfer what you learned to your project. The website gives a detailed description of each of five books. 

My friend, Annette Gendler, published a book last year that is meant to help people write family stories titled "How to Write Compelling Stories from Family History."   It's a down-to-earth, sensible book to help you with this worthwhile project.

There's also the Do-it-Yourself method. This one gives you no help from an outside source. Instead, you write your family stories, one at a time, keep them together in a file until you have enough to create a book. Take it to a place that does printing and binding your stories into a book. The ones I've seen are softcover and spiral bound. Places like Staples, Office Depot and even FedEx offer this service. You can check your home area for these or similar places to help you finish your project into a book.

Another way to make up a Family Stories Book is to assemble all your stories into a 3-ring binder. The nice part about this method is that you can continue to add more stories as you write them. 

This is not an endorsement for any of the above but to show you some of the options you have. Like all things, there are pros and cons to each one. I do think that "Story Worth" would be very helpful in keeping a person on track because of the weekly questions. The idea is to write an answer to the question when you receive it and not let them pile up unanswered.

Like all projects, the key is to start, then keep working until you finish.