Let them walk in your shoes

At a recent speaking engagement a woman told me that she liked the way my brother and I wrote because it made her feel like she was right there with us. "You make use of all the senses," she said. "When you write about the food you ate when you were young, I can almost taste it myself."

That's what readers want--to be drawn into your story--to walk in your shoes. This is from a chapter in our book A SPECK IN GOD'S EYE.

Daddy was an avid sportsman. It was common for our table to be graced with wild duck, turtle soup, or fish chowder. My brothers went duck hunting also, and when a platter of those golden brown delicacies arrayed our table, they would pick out the teal, or the mallard or whatever it might have been that they had shot, and relay the exciting event as they remembered it.

Wild duck was referred to as a succulent delicacy, but it was not something you delicately picked at with your fork. The way to eat duck is to grasp it in your hands and break off a piece and bring it to your mouth and savor the flavor.

"And to think," Daddy said, "there's some poor bastard out there wondering where his next meal is coming from, and here we are eating like kings."

Wild duck was not a favorite of mine, and on those particular nights, when everyone else feasted on duck, I had cornflakes for supper, and I wondered if the kings had cornflakes too.

New writers have a tendency to give the facts without realizing the power behind relaying their feelings at the time of the incident. Keep in mind that the reader wants to feel what you feel and to accomplish this you must describe the details of an experience--what preceded it, your thoughts at the time, why it happened, what you did about it--the little things that make it come to life.

While writing our book my brother and I edited each others stories. In one story he wrote that he and his family had planned on spending the Christmas holidays in the Alps before heading to his next teaching assignment in Naples, Italy, but as luck would have it, the car broke down. It was December 22. They stopped at a garage in Augsburg and were assured the car could be made road-ready by the next day. His hopes were high when he picked up the car, but soon disappeared when he attempted to make a left hand turn and the car didn't respond. Back to the garage he went.

Rather than say the car didn't respond we decided on this:

Grasping the wheel tightly between his white-knuckled hands, he pulled down hard on the unrelenting wheel. The car moved laboriously to the left using the entire intersection to make the turn. "Sweet Jesus," he muttered to himself. "What else could go wrong?"

That's what's so great about writing non-fiction. You don't have to make something up. You were there. You experienced it. Rely on your senses to help you to describe it to your readers.

Preserving Family History

Not everyone has the dedication needed to write a book. Do not let that discourage you. There are numerous ways to preserve family history/write a memoir. The first book I wrote was hand written. When my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I wanted to do something special for her, so I took a large post-bound photograph album and bought similar size post-bound scrapbook pages and alternated them in the book. For every page of pictures I had a page to write on. I filled it full of snippets - oft time repeated phrases and remembrances. These are some of the remembrances of my mother. The title of my book is REMEMBRANCES OF GRACE BOLLOM.

We always had exciting holidays. At Easter Ma would hide colored eggs up in the barn. Moisture would form on the eggs after being placed in the cool barn and we were all sure it was because the Easter Bunny must have just laid them.

Pa was so good to us. He always brought us something when he came home from town. We'd be so excited and run to meet him. "I've got something you girls are going to love," he'd say. Sometimes it was sausage and sometimes fat back - that's the fat from the back of a pig. It came in a slab. Ma would fry it down until it was cooked through and when it was cold we would scrape it with a knife and spread the scrapings on our bread. It was so good.

Our horse, Tom, was a pretty smart horse. Tom knew when we went to Grandpa's he'd get oats to eat. he didn't get oats much at home. Tom knew as soon as we turned Brink's corner and got over the hill that we were going to Grandpa's and he'd start running as fast as he could go and we'd be just a bouncing in the back of that democrat wagon.

I use to tease Tom by offering him oats in a bucket and then taking it away. One day he grabbed my shoulder with his teeth, picked me right up and put me down on the other side of him. I never teased Tom again.

These may just be snippets, but put into chronological order along with pictures taken during my mothers childhood opens a window into her personal life and experiences as a child. Followed by other snippets as she grew up, got married and had children, the book became a cherished possession and family memoir. My mother kept it with her at the care center and visitors would often ask her to get it out. It brought back so many pleasant memories and happy times and always gave them something to talk about.

My brother did something a bit different and put together a book for his children and grand children that he called GRANDPA BILLY'S SCRAPBOOK - FAMILY HISTORY, FAMILY STORIES, WIT AND WISDOM. In this book he includes research on family history, both from his side and his wife's side of the family. He included thoughts on a variety of topics. Much of the book is what he calls an ethical will (all his personal wealth) - passing on the experiences and values that have infused his life with meaning.

After gathering the information and pictures, organizing it and making out a contents page, he took it all down to a local publishing company. They copied the pages just as he arranged it - the stories, the newspaper clippings (he included all the editorials he wrote to the local paper) and numerous pictures. He chose a soft cover spiral format and he was able to order as many or as few copies as he wanted.