In the current business climate, storytelling is all the rage. The best way to connect people to your brand is to tell a story. Whether we tell stories to inspire our families or to sell a product, many of the principles are the same. Here are two articles on telling stories in the workplace that have some interesting points to consider as you plan to tell your own stories—to whoever you choose.
Read moreLife Story Webinar #6 - Editing Your First Draft
This week's webinar is the sixth in the series: "Editing Your First Draft." In this webinar, you will learn some effective ways to edit your first draft, such as how to handle sensitive information and how to keep from getting stuck.
Read moreLife Story Webinars #5 - Finding Theme and Order for Your Stories
This week's webinar is "Finding Theme and Order for Your Stories"
Hey, we finally got around to creating a Pictures and Stories YouTube channel! We'll be posting new instructional video content from time to time. But first, we thought we'd share some webinars we created last spring as part of our series to accompany our book, "How to Save Your Life, One Chapter at a Time." We'll be posting a webinar each Friday. We hope these webinars are useful to you as you prepare to tell your life's best stories.
This week's webinar is the fifth one in the series, "Finding Theme and Order for Your Stories." In steps 1 through 4, you have written a nice little pile of stories about your life. Now what? This webinar will give you some ideas about how to go about putting your stories in order and finding an overall theme and tone for your life story book.
Enjoy! We'd love to know what video content you'd like to see from us in the future.
Life Story Webinars #4 - How to Write Your Stories
Hey, we finally got around to creating a Pictures and Stories YouTube channel! We'll be posting new instructional video content from time to time. But first, we thought we'd share some webinars we created last spring as part of our series to accompany our book, "How to Save Your Life, One Chapter at a Time." We'll be posting a webinar each Friday. We hope these webinars are useful to you as you prepare to tell your life's best stories.
This week's webinar is the fourth one in the series, "How to Write Your Stories." In this webinar, we'll show you some ways to make the writing process much easier. Writing isn't your thing? We'll show you how you can turn an oral history into a written manuscript.
Enjoy! We'd love to know what video content you'd like to see from us in the future.
Adding Historical Context to Your Autobiography
Do you remember the moon landing? Put your life stories in context with a little history.
Putting your own life in a historical context—comparing your life events to what was happening in the world or in your community at the time—can add great depth to your stories. Looking at historical events can also spark your own memories.
Read moreLife Story Webinars #3: Story Triage-Choosing What Stories to Tell
This week's webinar is the third one in the series, "Story Triage: How to Choose What Stories to Tell." In this webinar, we talk about how to choose your most important and compelling life stories from all the possibilities you've gathered in your brainstorming.
Read moreTell Me a Story! Three Places to Hear Great True Stories
Swell! We can still listen to stories on the radio! And online and in podcasts! It's a great day to be alive!
Especially if you are working on writing or recording your own life stories, listening to other people tell their life stories is a fantastic way to get inspiration and ideas. Listen, and take notes: what makes this story work (or not work?) Why was it compelling? Did it surprise you? How could you use these techniques in improving your own stories?
Read moreChoosing a Title for Your Autobiography
The title of your book gives the reader a promise of what's to come.
Some of our clients come to us with a title already picked out, before they've even begun to write. Others wait for the title to be revealed to them in the writing. Which way is better? It depends.
We get asked this question a lot: how do I choose a title for my book?
Read moreLife Story Webinars #2 - Your Life Story Assets
This week's webinar is the second one in the series, "Your Life Story Assets." In this webinar, we talk about your pictures and documents - how to gather, organize, and begin to use them to trigger memories and assist in the storytelling process.
Read moreUse Evernote to Write a Memoir
Over the weekend, as I was in the organizing mode (specifically, organizing better my genealogy files), I ran across this article on Evernote's blog. It had some great ideas for using the Evernote app to capture and organize genealogy information, but it also gave me an idea:
I could use Evernote as an electronic timeline and capture device for a life story project! Many writers use Evernote to write novels, so why couldn't I use it to write a memoir?
Read more
We are so excited to be back at RootsTech live this year! Come by and see the Pictures and Stories booth (#1609) and see some of the many new books we’ve helped our clients create. Alison is giving two in-person classes: The Seven Deadly Sins of Building a Digital Archive, and Making a Genealogy Story Book. Hope to see you there!