How to turn an oral history into a compelling story

Once you’ve interviewed your family member(s), you’ve got the most important step under your belt—congrats! But why not take the NEXT step and turn those spoken stories into something more permanent and engaging: an edited narrative that will hold meaning for generations?

So many people land on my website in search of family history interview questions (are you one of those folks?). And while ASKING the questions—and recording them—is literally the best first step (even if you never do anything else with the recordings, you have them!)…it’s always my hope that you’ll go a few steps further and hone those interviews into compelling narratives.

This process involves capturing the storyteller's voice, structuring the narrative effectively, enriching it with context, and editing with care. Each step is crucial in preserving the authenticity and emotional depth of the original accounts, ensuring your stories will be read (happily!) for generations.

If you’d like to conduct the personal history interviews then hand them over for professional editing, please reach out to schedule a phone call to see how we might work together. If you’d like to give it a go yourself, here are some concrete steps—as well as further reading on each topic—to help you turn raw conversation into engaging stories.

4 steps to turn your family history interview into great stories

Step 1: Conduct thoughtful and open-ended interviews.

A compelling narrative starts with a strong foundation: the interview. Whether you’re sitting down with a loved one in person or recording a conversation remotely, the key is to create an atmosphere of trust and openness.

• Start with broad, open-ended questions. Instead of asking, “Did you like school?” try, “What was a typical school day like for you?”

• Encourage storytelling. Prompt with, “Can you describe that moment in detail?” or “What did it feel like when that happened?”

• Follow the unexpected. Some of the most powerful stories emerge when we let conversations flow naturally rather than sticking rigidly to a script.

• Record (with permission). This allows you to focus on listening rather than scrambling to take notes.

PRO TIP: Small details often unlock the most vivid memories. Ask about sounds, smells, and emotions to deepen the storytelling experience.

Further Reading: "Best questions to open your family history interview"

Step 2: Preserve the storyteller’s voice.

One of the most powerful aspects of oral storytelling is the subject’s voice. When converting spoken words into written text, aim to retain the unique rhythm, expressions, and personality of the speaker.

• Transcribe with care. Capture natural speech patterns, but remove filler words like “um” and “you know” for readability.

• Enliven the story with dialogue. If a story includes conversations, write them as scenes rather than summaries. Direct quotes help maintain authenticity.

• Use first-person narration when possible. This makes the story feel personal and immersive.
  
  For example, instead of writing:
“My grandfather worked in the shipyards during the war. He remembers it was hard work.”
  
  Try: “The shipyards were cold in the winter, blistering in the summer. I’d come home with hands so sore I could barely hold my fork at dinner. But we had a job to do, and we did it.”

Further Reading: “Write the way you talk—your family will thank you”

Step 3: Make the structure easy to navigate—and impactful.

Oral storytelling is often nonlinear—memories surface out of order, details emerge in layers. But written narratives benefit from clear organization. 

Consider what structure best serves the story and resonates with the intended audience. This could be:

• Chronological: Ideal for life stories or historical accounts.

• Thematic: If certain themes (resilience, migration, perseverance) emerge strongly, organize the story around them.

• Vignette-style: A collection of short, evocative moments can sometimes be more powerful than a strict timeline.

PRO TIP: When shaping the narrative, think like a reader: What details create tension, curiosity, or emotional connection? What order makes the story most engaging?

Further Reading: “How to create a life timeline for your memoir writing project”

Step 4: Enrich the story with context and details.

While spoken stories often assume shared understanding, the written version benefits from additional historical context. Future-proof your family history book by doing the following:

• Add historical and cultural details. If a relative mentions a significant event, include a brief explanation for future readers. The COVID-19 pandemic is fresh in our minds, for instance, but won’t be immediately known by the next generation.

• Describe places and settings. What did their childhood home look like? What was the makeup of the neighborhood where they were raised? Were their schools integrated, religious?

• Clearly identify people. Use names rather than just “he” or “she,” and clarify relationships whenever possible to avoid confusion.

Further Reading: “How to edit your family history so it will make sense 20 years from now”

By transforming oral histories into written narratives, you’re creating something lasting—something that can be held, reread, and passed down through generations. It’s a labor of love, but also an act of preservation, ensuring that the voices of the past continue to speak to the future. 

A new book to help you write the hard stories

Brave the Page: How Writing Our Hard Stories Brings Healing and Wholeness by Megan Febuary was released in June 2025 (Baker Books).

While many of my clients come to me wanting to undertake personal history interviews to capture their stories, others endeavor to write their stories themselves—with a little help. In those instances, I act as a memoir coach, meeting them at whatever stage they are currently at by providing guidance, support, and editing. When their stories delve into traumatic experiences from their past, we inevitably have to slow things down and focus as much on self-care as on the writing. That often comes as a surprise to them.

Writing hard stories is…well, hard. But as Megan Febuary puts forth in her new book, Brave the Page (Baker Books, June 2025), doing so may also bring healing and wholeness.

Inside “Brave the Page”

In Brave the Page, Febuary shares more than once that “story healing,” as she calls it, has nothing to do with being a writer—rather, “it is about paying attention to the stories within and digging into the deep questions that our stories ask of us.” Sound scary? It can—and perhaps, should—be: Going deep and writing about trauma will inevitably make one feel some of that trauma again; as the title of her book suggests, you’ll need to be brave.

What Febuary offers up in this book is a whole lot of support. That support takes the form of:

• inspiring personal stories

• research-driven approaches to self-care and trauma-focused writing

• gentle encouragement (including a mantra at the beginning of each chapter)

• and plenty of guidance (the writing prompts are generative and clear, and will certainly get your pen moving across the page).

There are moments in the book where, if you haven’t been in therapy, you may feel thrown by some of the psychology jargon (attachment styles, inner child healing, trauma responses)—but don’t be put off by this. In every instance that the author describes the rationale behind her approach to story healing, she (a) footnotes her references if you’d like to dig further; and (b) perhaps more importantly, describes how these concepts have played out in her own life and writing. There is an autobiographical bent to the book that lays the foundation for all the guidance and writing prompts that follow.

Are you ready to write about your trauma?

Febuary is deeply knowledgable about writing about trauma. She has journaled since her youth and braved the page quite literally when she began putting words to her shame around a childhood diagnosis of scleroderma, and later to abuse she suffered as a girl and sexual violence as an adult. She earned her master’s degree at a school that specialized in narrative-focused trauma care, and she “researched the body as storyteller, learning how it becomes the gatekeeper for the stories too tender to address until we are emotionally available for them.”

Brave the Page, I hope, will help you know when you are emotionally available for your own hard stories, as well as how to support yourself and heal while doing so. It will teach you how to be a “compassionate witness to your life” and to feel safe while doing the tender work of probing your memories.

Do you feel like you need permission to write about your challenges? Permission to put words to your feelings of shame? Permission to claim your story as your own? Permission to go slow—to unbury memories that have been long hidden, but at your own pace? You’ll find all that permission and more here.

Your story is not finished. It is ever-evolving, and writing about it, Febuary describes, is a “spiritual progression.”

And you must keep at it, even when it feels hard. “This work of using our voices,” she writes, “is a muscle we must train, and it becomes stronger each time we do it.”

Megan Febuary and I are in agreement: Writing through your trauma will be hard—but it will also be transformational. I recommend picking up a copy of her book to be your companion on your personal story healing journey. And she hopes that your copy will be well-loved and visibly used: “May [it] be dog-eared and highlighted, may its pages be torn out and posted as reminders, and may its edges be filled with your own brave reflections.” Mine is.

So, go forth and find your voice…and be gentle with yourself on the way ❤️

P.S. If something about this post stirred you, but you don’t feel quite ready to “brave the page,” I implore you to buy the book anyway. In my opinion, YOU are exactly who this book is for. Let it sit on your bedside table for a year if you must. Once you dip into it, those stirrings will become stronger, and so will your resolve to give voice to your memories and to put pen to paper. Let Megan Febuary plant the seeds; you will sow them when you are ready.

Note: This is an unsolicited review of a book I purchased at full price. I did not receive any compensation or free products in exchange, and any endorsements within this post are my own.

“The messy middle”: Pushing through the toughest part of memoir writing

“The page is indifferent to us—no, worse. The page turns from us like a wounded lover. We will have to win it over, coax it out of hiding. Promise to do better next time. Apologize for our disregard. And then, we settle into the pattern that we know. Three pages. Two hours. A thousand words. We have wandered and now we are back.”
—Dani Shapiro, Still Writing

Every memoir begins with passion. You start off energized, eager to tell the story that’s been living inside you for so long. Words flow effortlessly as you sketch out the opening scenes, capture vivid memories, and feel your project beginning to take shape.

And then—somewhere in the middle—the energy fades. The structure starts feeling unwieldy, doubt creeps in, and the momentum you once had seems like a distant memory. The excitement that fueled your early writing sessions is replaced by a gnawing sense of obligation, or worse, dread (the prospect of writer’s block is dreadful, to be sure).

If you’ve found yourself in this “messy middle,” you’re not alone. Nearly every memoirist hits a point where pushing forward feels overwhelming. But the good news? There are ways to get past it. Here are three strategies to help you regain focus and finish what you started.

1. Go back to your original “why.”

   When you began this project, something deep inside compelled you to start. Maybe you wanted to preserve family history, honor a loved one, or make sense of your own past. Whatever it was, reconnect with that original spark.
   
   Go back to your early notes or journal entries. Re-read passages where your enthusiasm was strong. Remind yourself why this story matters—not just to you, but to the people who will one day read it. Your “why” is what will carry you through the hard parts.
   
   
   

2. Find an Accountability Partner.

   Writing is solitary work, but finishing a book doesn’t have to be. If your motivation is waning, find an accountability partner—someone who will check in on your progress, encourage you, and keep you from abandoning your project.
   
   This could be a fellow writer, a trusted friend, or even a writing group. Set clear goals together, whether it’s a weekly word count or a deadline for finishing a section. You might even want to read just a sentence or two to a family member to get their take (and find some respite in connecting). Just knowing that someone else is expecting you to show up can be the push you need to keep going.
   
   
   

3. Accept Imperfection and Keep Moving.

   Perfectionism is one of the biggest culprits behind stalled writing projects. You might feel like your structure isn’t working, or your writing isn’t good enough, or that you need to go back and fix everything before moving forward. But getting stuck in endless revisions is a surefire way to stay stuck in the middle.
   
   Instead, give yourself permission to write poorly. Drafts are meant to be messy. The important thing is to keep moving forward. Every single word brings you closer to the finish line.

Don’t be discouraged by this inevitable “messy middle”—embrace it, and push through. As memoirist Dani Shapiro says in the opening quote to this piece, you have wandered…but WILL find your way back.

Putting the pieces together (aka memoir ‘making’)

During the design phase of a personal history book, I often spread pages out all over my office floor to evaluate the book’s flow. Similarly, in the early stages of a memoir—when writings may consist of disjointed stories and short reflections without any narrative arc—I will spread pages out on the floor to look for patterns. Sure, you can do this on a computer, but I find this old-school approach much more efficient (and satisfying)!

It’s a rare individual who decides to write a memoir and knows out of the starting gate the path their writing will take. No, it’s much more common to decide to write a memoir…then to wander—to wander amidst memories, to wander on the page, even to wander in one’s commitment to the endeavor as a whole.

When coaching my memoir clients, it can often be helpful to talk about ‘making’ a memoir rather than ‘writing’ a memoir. It’s a small semantic shift, but an effective one. Why?

Well, whether we call it imposter syndrome or insecurity, many of us (me included) may find ourselves staring down a blank page and letting our imagination get the best of us—and who doesn’t have thoughts in those moments such as, 

• Why is this so easy for everyone else?

• I read ______’s memoir, and it was powerful and clear—they certainly weren’t all over the place like me!

• Where the hell is this writing GOING?!

But ______’s memoir—hell, every memoir written by a human—was in its early stages all over the place. Disjointed. Lacking a theme or narrative arc.

Every memoirist has wondered where the hell their writing is going.

How to gain clarity on your memoir’s theme

By holding as your goal the idea of ‘writing your memoir,’ you are focused too soon on the end goal, in my opinion. In reality, you are writing towards your memoir. So: Write, then write some more; read, analyze, tweak; then write some more. Then, as you begin to uncover patterns, you can MAKE something of what you have written.

As William Zinsser recommends in this brilliant piece (I recommend reading the whole thing if you have time), begin writing by following the memories as they come to you. Keep writing—short vignettes, slivers of memory, feelings from your childhood, favorite stories you’ve told a thousand times…

“Then, one day, take all your entries out of their folder and spread them on the floor…. Read them through and see what they tell you and what patterns emerge. They will tell you what your memoir is about and what it’s not about. They will tell you what’s primary and what’s secondary, what’s interesting and what’s not, what’s emotional, what’s important, what’s funny, what’s unusual, what’s worth pursing and expanding. You’ll begin to glimpse your story’s narrative shape and the road you want to take…. Then all you have to do is put the pieces together.”

Admittedly, “putting the pieces together’ may not be as simple as it sounds—but it is straightforward and fun, like putting a puzzle together: the puzzle of your life. Not your whole life, of course (a memoir isn’t an expansive tome covering every autobiographical tick on the timeline of your life), but the aspect of your life that has revealed itself in this exercise as holding meaning. 

So, begin writing towards your memoir. One day in the future, I promise, you’ll be able to make it out of the raw materials you’ve penned. 

“I’m scared.”

Before I had even met with a particular prospective client, he told me has was scared. 

He had filled out a form expressing interest in writing his life story. I replied to him within 24 hours, but did not hear back from him until about three months later. At that time, I urged him to set up a free phone consultation, so I could learn more about the project he envisioned. He scheduled that for a week later, then did not answer the phone when I called.

Then he emailed me: “I’m scared.”

That’s it—two words, but two words that hold so much weight.

Have you ever felt nervous about undertaking a life review project? Whether it’s a reflective memoir, an extensive family history, or just a few short stories encapsulating your favorite memories, starting any personal legacy journey can feel daunting.

Working with a personal historian or memoir coach can help alleviate many of the most common fears.

A few fears that my personal history clients have told me about over the years:

Fear that their family members won’t be interested in their life story.

This is one I hear ALL the time. And you know what? It’s often the case…for now. Your family members are living their lives, and likely taking for granted that you—their parent or grandparent—will always be there. But your stories are the gift they don’t yet know they want. Writing them now—even if it’s for them to appreciate later—is giving them an unequivocal gift.

Fear that they won’t remember enough to write a memoir.

Memories can be elusive. Especially for folks who don’t often share their stories around the dinner table or in a journal, accessing those memories might seem like an impossible task. But we professional personal historians and memoir coaches have plenty of tools and prompts at our disposal to help! Consider using this straightforward and EASY prompt that is guaranteed to yield surprising memories; use your senses to help you travel back in time; or consider picking up a journal designed especially to stir memories, like this one from Beth Kephart.

Fear that they will have a hard time managing their emotions when writing about traumatic life experiences.

It’s a common refrain that writing about hard times can be cathartic. It can, but as Lisa Cooper Ellison writes in this post, catharsis is just the beginning. Writing about trauma is generally only worthwhile—and valuable, even healing—when we can make some meaning out of it. “Writing well requires an open heart,” Ellison says. “That means you must relive a small portion of the incident as you write about it.” In other words, you will relive some trauma if you write about it—but while there’s no way around that, there are ways to cope with it. Limiting writing sessions that cover traumatic experiences to a half hour or so may help; allowing yourself to write from a distanced perspective will, too. Some people swear by writing groups or trustworthy readers to offer them support when writing about difficult experiences; and others find walking this path with a therapist is necessary. Make sure to include self-care as part of your writing ritual, and be gentle on yourself—if it feels too hard today, wait until tomorrow. Though it likely is a scary endeavor, writing into our trauma can be life-transforming for many. (And remember: You can do all of this just for YOU…write in a private journal, either as a first step, or as the thing itself; no one else need ever read your words.)

Fear about being vulnerable.

Exposing our emotions is scary. Remember that you are in control of what makes it into the final draft of your memoir, so if something feels too exposed, you can always cut it. But also remember that it’s our vulnerability, often, that proves most powerful for our readers. “Revealing oneself is an act of radical generosity: letting oneself be seen allows others to do the same,” Robin MacArthur writes. “And this vulnerability creates connection.”

Are you scared of taking the first step in preserving your life story for the next generation? Set up a free 20- to 30-minute consultation to see if working together can help settle those fears—and get you on the path to preservation.

Why you need emotional distance when writing memoir

Have you ever wondered if enough time has passed for you to begin writing about your life?

“When is the right time to start writing my memoir?” 

“Am I too young to write my life story?”

Questions such as these miss the mark. There isn’t a ‘right time’ or a ‘best age’ to right your memoir. Rather, I suggest considering how much emotional distance you have from the chapter of your life you want to write about. 

I have worked with people who are writing about their lives from a vantage point where they have a LOT of perspective—an 80-year-old capturing his young adult experiences, for instance. And I have coached memoirists who are writing about fresh trauma—a 30-year-old exploring how she ‘found herself’ amidst the dissolution of her marriage less than a year before, for example. Is one of these situations better than the other?

There’s almost certainly a happy medium: writing about your life when enough time has passed that you have significant insights and perspective, but when not so much time has passed that the experiences no longer seem relevant or retrievable in your memory. But how do you know when it’s that time?

2 questions to ask yourself to determine if now is the right time to write about your life

1. Do I have enough emotional distance to be able to write about my life with clarity and insight?

   “I had to step away from my own emotions, from my embarrassment and fear and pain, far enough to get a clear view,” Scott Nadelson writes as he suggests a method many memoirists use: Pretend you are writing about someone else. “If I’d stayed too close,” he continues, “obeying the instinct toward self-protection, then I would have risked nothing, and nothing would have been at stake for a reader.”
   
   If you’ve ever read an entry from one of your old diaries, you know the emotions of which Nadelson speaks (I certainly do!). If you can’t elucidate your experiences without self-judgment or embarrassment, you might not be ready to write about them. 
   
   

2. Do I have access to the memories that will be the building blocks of my narrative?

   “The meaning of our experiences is constantly changing as we grow,” Megan Stielstra has said. So of course when you choose to write about a life experience will color how you do so.
   
   It may feel like you haven’t fully synthesized your feelings about a chapter of your life—and like you, therefore, should wait to write about it. Just make sure you aren’t waiting too long. You want to have full access to your memories, and in particular to the emotions that accompanied your actions, else there will be no immediacy to drive your storytelling, no detail to animate your words.
   
   

Know this: There is no right or wrong time to begin your memoir. If it seems like it may be too soon—because your feelings are too raw, or your perspective clouded—it just may be that you will work some heavy stuff out DURING your writing. That can be a powerful thing both for you and your readers.

One of my favorite memoirists, Dani Shapiro, writes thoughtfully about this balancing act in her essay “A Memoir Is Not a Status Update”:

“I’ve been doing this work long enough to know that our feelings—that vast range of fear, joy, grief, sorrow, rage, you name it—are incoherent in the immediacy of the moment. It is only with distance that we are able to turn our powers of observation on ourselves, thus fashioning stories in which we are characters.”

So let some time pass. Sit with your feelings. Let them simmer. Write about them—as sloppily and urgently as you want—in a journal. Turn to writing about them with intention when it feels like enough time has passed. (“But how will I know?”, you still wonder…and all I can say is, you just will; trust your gut—and know that if it is too soon, that’s why they call it a first draft 😉)

Further reading on emotional distance in memoir

If the topic of emotional distance in memoir interests you, here are a few other essays I recommend on the topic:

• “Dani Shapiro on the Disequilibrium of a Life-Changing Moment”
  “And so I was, I think, rushing the writing because…the pieces of myself were sort of strewn all around me and I was impatient to begin to put them together again.… But there was an urgency, I think, that would have benefited from slowing down a little bit. Not a lot. Again, not, you know, write this from the distance of your rocking chair someday, but from a place of that little bit of clarity of distance.”
  

• “9 Tips for Dealing with the Emotions When Writing a Memoir,” by M. Shannon Hernandez
  “Raw emotions usually emerge first, and sometimes we can leave them as is—and at other times we need to wrap them in love and understanding and softened tones, so that we don’t offend our audiences.”
  

• “Not Too Close: Emotional Distance In Creative Nonfiction,” by Connor Byrne
  “The first sign that a piece is too distant is an almost analytical tone, for example, “this happened because of this; I should have done this; this has had x effects on my life.” The writer has moved far enough away from the emotional reaction to what they’re writing about that they turn to an opposite strategy: looking at everything rationally, which often sacrifices a feeling of the piece being ‘genuine.’”
  

• “The Hard Art of Seeing Your Own Writing Through Rose-Colored Glasses,” by Mira Pitacin
  “I wrote my memoir nearly in real time, and writing about my own loss in the wake of the events did two things: exorcised the demon out of me, and let the reader know what it really felt like to experience these things in the moment, not seven plus years later, with a wiser, less stinging outlook that comes with time and perspective.”

Do you keep a writing ideas notebook?

So you finally find a stretch of uninterrupted time to write…and when you sit down, you draw a blank. Has that ever happened to you? This simple idea—keeping a notebook of self-generated writing prompts—will keep your ideas flowing.

I share a lot of writing prompts on the blog and in my annual course, and I’ve even written about how you can generate your own writing prompts. But I understand how—somehow!!—it never seems like a writing prompt is at the ready when you need it, right?

There’s an incredibly simple solution: Keep an ideas notebook. Don’t be fussy! Jot down a note the moment an idea bubbles to the surface on whatever you have handy—a napkin, a Post-it, the back of a receipt—then tape or staple these into your notebook. (Pick up a cheap lined notebook kids use for school so it doesn’t feel too precious to approach in this haphazard way!)

What kind of ideas am I talking about, you’re wondering? Anything that may jumpstart your memories or get your pen moving. Here are some real-world examples from my own life:

• As I run errands, I hear a song from my childhood on the car radio. I am flooded with memories and emotions. At a stop light, I snap a picture of the song name on the dashboard with my phone. That alone will be prompt enough to get me writing when I’m in the mood.

• Watching a movie with my family, a character’s reaction or words give me a strong sense of deja vu. Why? With no time to consider it, I text myself a short phrase to remind me of this feeling. Maybe one day it will be worth writing about (maybe I’ll even rewatch the movie to bring me back emotionally).

• I wake up from a dream and in that half-awake state I reach for the notebook I leave on my night stand to scribble a few words so I don’t forget. (Never—not once, and I’ve tried many, many times—have I merely told myself in that moment to remember the dream….and then actually remembered it later.) Dreams can provoke some surprising writing!

• Here’s a common scenario for me: Listening to a podcast, I hear something that resonates and feels like it was drawn from my own life. I grab a piece of paper and jot down the time stamp and episode name. Nothing else is needed, but a word or two about the theme of the conversation may be helpful. When I’m staring down a blank page, I can listen in to that select part of the conversation to get my creative juices stirring again.

Other things you might find yourself taping into that ideas notebook? Fortune cookie slips. Magazine articles. Quotes from friends. Random handwritten memories. People you want to call (trust me, sometimes the best way into a story of your own is to ask someone else for their version). A letter from a friend. A page from a datebook. 

You get the idea, yes? 

For me, the messier this ideas notebook is, the more inviting I find it! So what if pieces of paper stick out the sides, or if the notebook bulges unevenly?! That just means there are treasures awaiting—self-made prompts you know will move you, because you felt the stirrings already. 

How about this one?

If your kid’s half-used, spiral-bound notebook isn’t up to par (it’s what I used all last year, haha!), check out this one I’ve designed just for you.

Before you gift someone our Write Your Life prompts (or, “Who this gift is NOT for?”)

You want your loved one’s stories—how could that be perceived as anything but loving? (HOW you ask for them can make all the difference.)

I lovingly (and painstakingly) created Write Your Life over the course of a whole year:

• I took notes on what was working—and what wasn’t—with my personal history and memoir clients. 

• I read, reread, and annotated books on the craft of life writing, on how to write memoir, and on how to write clearly. 

• I paid for and participated in multiple classes from other companies to explore what resonated and what didn’t (video delivery vs. email, for instance; lots of elevated writing guidance vs. more approachable tips, as another example).

• I tested different approaches with a handful of volunteers, and really listened to (and incorporated) their feedback.

• I tapped into more than 20 years of writing and editing experience to distill what would work best for novice and aspiring writers.

The decisions I made along the way helped me create a year-long subscription of open-ended memory and writing prompts accompanied by straightforward tips, inspiring examples, and just enough encouragement to keep participants going.

And while I did NOT design Write Your Life for people who call themselves writers, I DID design it for people who want to at least attempt to write.

The weekly prompts demand some commitment. That commitment can be enjoyable and fulfilling, without a doubt. But it can also be challenging for someone who really doesn’t have any interest in writing!

So before you click “BUY,” consider who it is you are buying for: 

1. If it’s for YOU, ask yourself: Even if the prompts are inspiring (they will be 😉) and even if you can make the time (you can 👍🏼), “Will I write?”

2. If it’s as a GIFT for a loved one: Will they look at the prompts as a loving invitation to share their memories, or will they resent the ‘homework’ of needing to write? (If you’re unsure, maybe ask them first.)

Clearly I don’t want to discourage you from enrolling in Write Your Life. I created it with love and with the intent of helping people who couldn’t necessarily afford my personal history services. It’s my genuine hope that people enjoy it and find it fruitful!!

During my early market research, however, I read plenty of bad reviews and Reddit threads about gift recipients of Storyworth (the main player in the email-prompt-a-week space) not completing their subscriptions—in fact, many, many of them had barely answered more than a question or two even after a full year had passed. Here’s a sampling:

Over the years, too, I have had a number of clients who came to me after they felt they “failed” at Storyworth. (For what it’s worth, they didn’t FAIL—they were attempting to preserve their stories in a way that wasn’t serving them, that’s all; they all SUCCEEDED in sharing meaningful and fun stories during one-on-one personal history interviews, an approach many non-writers consider easy 🤗)

This is NOT a bash of Storyworth—in fact, their company is completely in line with my own mission and values, though we are aiming to serve parallel yet different audiences. Rather, it’s to show that writing is not for everyone—and gifting an expectation of writing to your parents, say, may come bound up with more guilt and pressure than you would ever intend.

With all that in mind, where do you fall?

YOU’RE READY!

If YOU want to write about your life—with thoughtful questions, helpful writing guidance, and plenty of low-pressure inspiration—and you’re ready to commit, click here to enroll in Write Your Life.

YOU WANT THEIR STORIES, but…

If you want to invite your parents’ stories, but you’re not sure if they’ll welcome all that WRITING (!), consider interviewing them yourself (it’s a rewarding experience!) or hiring me to interview them on your behalf. Schedule a free consultation to see how we might work together to preserve your family member’s stories.

YOU’RE CONSIDERING GIFTING

If you are THINKING of gifting Write Your Life to a loved one, but you’re still not sure if it’s a good idea, why not simply ask them what they think? Or, schedule a brief chat with me to weigh the pros and cons.

TEST THE WATERS?

If you really want to capture stories from your parent, grandparent, or other loved one, the best way is to ASK them about their life. Here is some related reading that may help you along, with no financial commitment at all:

• Essential questions to capture your parents’ memories

• All your kids need to interview their grandparents, including family history questions designed to promote intergenerational connection

• Fun questions to ask mom and dad

• 3 great first questions to get open a personal history interview

• Best practices for conducting family history interviews at home.

• Three easy ways to get your family stories

• How to get a parent who doesn’t want to talk about their memories to open up

• Four ideas for family interviews

• Tips for interviewing a pair of your grandparents together at the same time.

• How to conduct family history interviews over the phone