Untold Stories

Illustration Vectors by Vecteezy

I love serendipity!  I've been toying with a blog topic for a couple of weeks and have even received a couple of responses for future publication.  The basic topic is storytelling and title of the blog asks people to "Tell Me A Story".  More on this below.

Friday April 26,2024, on ABC's Good Morning, America there was an item about a new book, Cemetery for Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez.  Brief synopsis of the book: an author decides to literally bury a pile of unfinished manuscripts in a cemetery plot and be done with them.  But the characters in the manuscripts protest and haunt her to finish their stories.  That sounded so intriguing, I had to go on Amazon and purchase the book!

I am about one third into the book and Alma, the protagonist is expressing some of my exact thoughts.  The epigraph is a simple four words: Tell me a story.  I swear, and have witnesses, that I started using that phrase before I obtained the book.  No plagiarism here!

"Everyone leaves me, Bienvenida says tearfully. Even the writer who was going to tell my story."

I think the title, Cemetery for Untold Stories is especially fitting for us as family historians.  We not only have access to a lot of our family stories, we have a responsibility to pass them along.  Otherwise, we are establishing a cemetery for untold stories, a graveyard of family lore.

Tell me a story

So the campaign for this blog and our readers is to share some of our stories.  Please submit stories about experiences, parents or ancestors, poignant or funny, thought provoking or just entertaining.  The object is not just to collect stories here but to put people into storytelling mode.

I don't know what to write!

AI image generated 27 April 2024; Microsoft Designer 

Just tell a story.  Make it like a bedtime story for a child or a ghost story told at a campfire.  We all tell stories in our interest groups. Whether it's about using DNA to solve a relationship or online research at a new database, we start by giving a few details about our subject and usually follow a rough timeline of events.  Along the way, we often say, "that's another long story," about a related topic.  We're on our way!

If writing is an arduous task, try dictating.  You don't need a lot of fancy equipment to get your basic stories recorded.  Word processing programs will record your voice and then transcribe it into written word, ready for your editing. (Hint: make sure your television or radio is not being picked up by your recorder; you could get some very strange details in your story!)

I have trouble getting started

The journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.  The story of 1000 words begins with...?  That first sentence is always a struggle.  We feel it has to be profound or provocative; it has to pull the reader in and hold his interest.  Not true!

Don't obsess over the first sentence.  Just start telling the story; as you progress, the first sentence will probably present itself.

Borrow a famous first line from a well known author.  Try Snoopy's, "It was a dark and stormy night."  Whether it fits the story or not, it's a beginning and you can edit it later.  Another old standby is, "I walked five miles to school and back; uphill both ways."  "It was 40 below, even in August."  

Illustration Vectors by Vecteezy

Enlist a friend or relative--that person with whom you can say, "Remember when we . . .?"  and one story leads to another, not because you are trying to outdo each other but because you can't help but share the memories.

My Cousin Larry asked our aunts and uncles to write some of their memories of their childhood in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.  They told a lot about clearing the land and building the farmhouse, maintaining the apple and cherry orchards and family dynamics in general.  My Uncle Gordon told his memories with a wonderful sense of humor. I wish I had known him.

"One little memory I must not overlook.  Aunt Minnie [Kinney] was visiting us and I had brought out Dad’s drink of water and was playing around.  He had dug out an old pine stump and it was full of big, old grub worms.  He put about eight of these big fat worms in my pocket and said, “Take these to Aunt Minnie.”  (Even at my tender age, I could see the joke real quick.)  I flew for the house and told Aunt Minnie, “Papa sent you something.”  I opened the entrance to my pocket and said, “Take it” and she put her hand in there and came out with about four of those worms!  You never heard such a blood curdling scream in all your life.  Years later, on a real quiet day you could still hear it as it bounced from hill top to hill top."

 

Are you in storytelling mode yet?

Tell us a story!  Send your stories, and pictures if you have them, to m.strickland@skcgs.org so we can share them with each other.  Listen to the voices of your untold stories; share with your families, both present day and future.  And share with readers here; you may help inspire others to tell their stories as well.

MaryLynn Strickland