Life can only be lived
forwards,
but it can only be
understood backwards.
Soren Kierkegaard
Where I publish monthly, Asiancemagazine.com’s goal statement is “connecting
Asian American women to the world.” Making that link between East and West
involves, in part, understanding the past, especially that of one’s parents, one’s
extended family, and their ancestors.
While you still can, you might well gather
information from your parents and other relatives about the lives they lived
Over There and how things changed by Coming Here. You can interview them,
recording it as oral history. You can examine documents and mementoes they
still have. You can use authoritative sources to give the background for the
times and places in which your relatives lived.
Then, you
write your book.
Why Write?
You will understand your family and yourself
better. They will be pleased that you are interested. You will preserve the
history of the microcosm in time and space that they inhabited. If you publish,
you will become a published author, a feather in your career cap. Perhaps
having written it will open some doors. Who knows?
Who Will Read It?
Your family and friends will, and you may end
up having written a book that deserves and gets wider attention.
How Write It?
Prepare
for a marathon.
Hundreds of hours spent on a book is typical. Fortunately, there is no big
rush, so settle into a pace you can maintain. Find some times during the week
you can set aside and find some place you can work well in. Some of you will
like to write alone, while others might prefer to do it at Starbucks. Some will
use the computer, others pen and paper. Some will even dictate and transcribe.
Make an
outline.
Start with the big chunks first, and later you can add the smaller ones. To get
your readers interested, you’ll start with an attractive cover and title, but
for now, let’s focus on the text. Here’s an outline that can work:
· Crisis: catch the reader’s
attention with something dramatic.
· Background: what
led up to it.
· Outcome: what followed,
immediately and in the long run.
· Lessons learned: what
was learned and what can others take away?
Let’s see how that might play out for your family.
· Crisis: Something made them
leave all that was familiar and come thousands of miles to a country where they
were likely to be viewed as outsiders, had no jobs, and quite possibly could barely
speak the language. Why leave? Why come here?
· Background: Who
are these people? Where did they grow up? What was that like? How did they come
to this point in their lives? What is the cause of the crisis? What are the
possible resolutions? What are they hoping for? How likely is that?
· Outcome: What followed from
the crisis? What are the implications both for them and for people they really
care about? What does the future hold?
· Lessons learned: What
did they take away from this experience? What do you? What should others? What
are the major themes?
Because family
histories are stories, start with a bang: capture your reader with your beginning.
Make them wonder about the outcome of
something. You should include lots of stories. As with fiction, the writer
needs to tell the stories clearly, to make sure the reader learns the answers
to the questions journalists pose for themselves: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? The little stories need to start with implicit headlines to alert
the reader to what is coming: “It was a
dark and windy night….” Snoopy knew what to write!
Write any
part you can, any time you can. Organize (outline) early and agonize
(proofread) later. You’ll stitch the parts together and add foreshadowing and
transitions later. Chronological ordering is easiest, but sometimes there are themes
that can be developed in sections.
Having
written a first draft, pass it around to those who know the family history and
to those who can help you with your writing. Your relatives will be pleased to tell
you stories, which you should heed, and your friends will likely give you
advice on writing…which you can take or leave as you wish. You may have to
change the names or locations in some of the stories, but you can alert the
readers to that at the outset.
An Example
One of my
writing students has a four-book (!) series planned around the stories of her
female ancestors,
an admirable group of hardy and independent women in Upstate New York. One of
the books will start with the family’s being evicted from their farm, taken by
eminent domain by the government as part of an army base. No, these are not
Asian Americans, but the government is the U.S. and the base was Fort Drum in
northern New York, built during the early years of World War II, even before
the U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
The writer has interviewed her 90-ish grandmother
and preserved the results of the interview. Part of this will likely be quoted
at the beginning of various chapters.
The writer has also amassed letters and diaries
from her family that will be used in preparing the books she has planned. You could
probably find such materials, too, and read them or have them translated for
you, if necessary…while the participants still live.
The Title
If
you are writing for strictly family and friends, then a simple and clear title
is all that is needed. If you hope to get a wider audience, then you’ll want to
give the title more thought.
Taking
some time and effort to choose your title makes sense. This will also help
guide the direction of your writing. The title should be only a few words; the subtitle
can clarify them. Perhaps there is a theme
that the title can express. Perhaps there is a central figure or event to be highlighted this way. If you find
later on that you have strayed from the title as you wrote the text, you can
then decide whether to change the title or to bring your writing back in line
with your original idea.
For developing a title that will help your book
reach its audience, you’ll be balancing
between what is creative and what is clear. In some cases your title may be
a bit mysterious, but you can choose to clarify it with a subtitle. In working
on the book, you’ll likely have a shorter title. Your book’s formal title may
be different from the “nickname” you started with, your working title. No
problem.
The Cover
People do
judge a book by its cover. You can decide how much to care.
For a family
history for family and friends, you won’t worry much about the cover. Perhaps
one of the relatives has some artistic ability that can be harnessed. If you are going to
publish the book more broadly, then you will likely get a commercial artist to
do the cover or use something supplied by the publisher, such as a template to
which you add a photo or drawing.
In general, we are advised that simple covers are
best, especially if the book is going to be published and then distributed
online, where the covers are tiny in comparison to that of the book itself. Your
title will be large, your name small. Asymmetrical covers are said to be more
eye-catching than those that are symmetrical. Use a few, contrasting colors, rather
than many.
Front Matter
Have a Dedication page; write a Preface about
why you wrote it and who should read it; maybe even get someone to write a
Foreword describing and praising what you have written. A detailed Table of
Contents will serve as a quick outline for readers and let them find the pages
of most interest to them, as you are not likely to have an Index.
Near your Title page, put “Copyright My Name
2015,” which will assert your rights to the material. You’ve written a book. You've become an author.
Launch
There you
go! Writing your family’s history will be an adventure, one you will probably
be glad you undertook, one others are likely to appreciate. Who knows what will
come from doing it?
###
Dr.
Cooper (douglas@tingandi.com), a retired scientist, is now an author, editor,
and writing coach. His first book, Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage and
Devotion, was published by Outskirts Press in 2011. Also available from
online booksellers are two memoirs he co-authored: The Shield of Gold and
Kidnapped Twice, and
three memoirs he edited: High Shoes and Bloomers, But…at What Cost, and soon Home is Where the Story Begins. On
Twitter, he is @douglaswcooper. His writing, editing, coaching site is http://writeyourbookwithme.com.
