Last month, by request, I tweeted ((I’m @Keepapitchinin on Twitter. )) some suggestions for a newly called stake historian (commenters suggested that these could be useful for individual journal keeping). Here is that thread, slightly expanded in places where I don’t think I was clear.

–oooOooo–

Everything below can be summed up in this: Write today what you wish a local historian had written 50 years ago. Readers 50 years from now will thank you.

Keep it local. Write what no one else can; skip what can be found elsewhere. No need for “Stake members watched April Conference” with a summary of talks. BUT if there is a local tie, write that. It’s worth noting if a local member prayed or spoke, or if Elder X told a story about a local event or person (in which case, record some background beyond what appears in the Conference report). Also BUT: Consider recording local response to major events elsewhere. Did you send volunteers after a disaster? Did stake travelers witness something special elsewhere? Give brief background on event and keep your emphasis on local response.

Give specific detail. Include “who, where, what, when, why, how,” but go beyond that. Not “We had a ward dinner on May 15 and everybody had a good time” … Better: “We had a ham dinner with Sister A’s orange rolls, a ward favorite. Bishop B as MC kept us laughing [preserve one or two silly jokes], and honored our high school graduates [name them, with a relevant fact about their plans].” Include brief quotations by participants. Include a detail or two from a talk. Note that it was Brother C’s first solo part with the choir. Interview a child. Look for people to compliment, especially if they aren’t stake stars.

One respondent stressed the important point here that full names should be used (as mentioned below). For the brevity of Twitter, I only intended the letters A, B, and C to represent people – but yes, absolutely, full names are crucial.

Use full names at least once when referring to people. If it’s a child or exceptionally elderly person, consider mentioning age. If someone is a new move-in, newlywed, recently retired, consider mentioning that. Those brief mentions bring people to life in histories.

Tell stories, don’t merely record fact, as important as fact is.

What is a story? It’s

Plot: It has a beginning, middle, and end, and something has changed by the end. A report about a stake member shouldn’t read like a resume, a list of complimentary facts. Instead, tell a relevant anecdote. Tell about her life, or the event you’re writing about, in chronological order to show change over time. OR mix it up: Start in the middle at a dramatic moment, then go back to tell what brought him to this point in his life.

Variety: Consider telling it like a romance, a mystery, a Western, adventure, or science fiction. Even if that genre is only in your mind, it will influence your telling and give variety to your stories.

Expansion: If you’ve framed a story as a genre in your mind, and gotten in the right mood before writing, your story will be different from framing it in another genre. Example: Say you’re writing about a service project to clean up an overgrown city park. Thinking of it as a western might mean you write about it as if your people were heading into the unknown frontier when they tackle the overgrowth. Thinking of it as a romance might mean you write it as a demonstration of the love your people have for their city. Writing about it as a mystery might mean that you speculate about the odd piece of junk that turn up as clues to the park’s past. Thinking of it as science fiction might suggest you write about it from the point of view of some being unfamiliar with parks or service projects. Obviously some genres will work better than others, but playing around a little adds variety to your writing.

Characters: Back to people, people, people. Write about the people involved in an event, rather than about the event itself, if appropriate (and it almost always is).

Sometimes contemplative articles are good, when people reflect on spiritual events or growth or tough decisions. BUT local histories are generally best if you focus on the visible and audible details. (Future readers will read their own emotions and thoughts into events if you give them enough visible detail).

Consider writing as if your article were going to be filmed: What would the camera see, the mic pick up? That makes for a livelier story than when you dwell too long in someone’s head.

HOMEWORK: Pick models of good, brief history and see how these principles appear. The First Vision account in Joseph Smith–History, for instance:

1. It’s local: Joseph focuses on his town, his home, and events in the Grove. He doesn’t try to write a history of world religion.

2. It’s specific: Joseph wasn’t moved by “reading the Bible”; he was moved by James 1:5. An evil power doesn’t just generically frighten him, but “binds his tongue.” He wasn’t only surrounded by light, but by a pillar of light overhead that descended.

3. It involves people. Well, okay, Deity. How many characters are in this account, divine, infernal, human?

As for brief quotations from those characters, how about the power of the one he includes? This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!

Then at the end (v. 20), he quotes himself: “I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, ‘Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.’ I then said to my mother, ‘I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.’”

As for that story in v. 20, note its effect on the reader. Up to now, the story has been unrelenting in its pressure. The reader gets a break from the tension with v. 20 and its hint of wry humor. It’s a resolution that allows the reader to rest briefly before the next dramatic incident. Stake histories may not often have intense drama, but when you do push emotional buttons, give your readers breathing room. (If you were the historian of the Paradise fires last year, for instance, you would need to break up the life-and-death stories with something lighter occasionally.)

4. Joseph brings you into the Grove with him telling the story as it happened, one step at a time. That’s plot.

5. While this history includes reflections not visible to the eye (vv. 12-13), most of it is remarkably visible. It could be – has been – filmed repeatedly, because the details are there. Give your future readers the same gift: Show us your service projects, your dances, your celebrations. We’ll know what those events mean, if you give us the details to bring us into the story.

CONCLUSION: Not every event in a stake history will be dramatic or have lasting significance. But write it as if the story does matter. It WILL matter to descendants looking to know their grandparents, and to Saints wanting to know what Church life was like in the first part of the 21st century.

Write what you want to read.

(FIN)