This is great advice for history writers. My own method is formulaic in a sense that six elements should ideally be included.
1)Rich high quality photos, even if you have to re-create them with A.I.
2)maps, and place orientation
3)big picture overview of economics, politics, catastrophe
4)small picture, personal accounts diaries, newspapers, etc.
5)numinous object - what were people fighting for? Gold, salt, land, power, water, etc.
6)Timeline-the Nobel prize in economics one year went to someone who said, "If you want to understand something do not aske why it happened. Ask why it happened at that exact point in time."
Now I add would add a 7th - Sensory, especially smell.
What did the coal oil lamp and boiled cabbage in that small shack smell like? How did it feel to rub the brown goo from hands after handling tobacco leaves all day?
I hadn’t thought about including #5 in family history and that’s a piece of professional genealogy still left in me which taught to be distant from my subjects.
I probably didn't explain that well. I meant that in most eras there is a dominate theme of economic activity that can be explanatory for family history writing. We lost track of one line of family only to do a global search to find them in San Francisco in 1850. I.e. gold rush immigrants from Missoouri to California.
I look for the ‘spark’ of a theme emerging from my research to draw the reader in! For instance, crafting an opening sentence like this, may set the tone and create intrigue, ‘a young man from Wales experienced grief three times over in his lifetime’.
Good advice. My initial step is throwing facts onto the page like a dozen ten year old boys hopped up on Easter candy flinging mud at the neighbors clothes line.
When I am writing the first draft if I realise there is a gap in my knowledge or I need to confirm something with some research I just includes comment inline with my writing but put it in braces e.g. {check date of marriage}
Great advice for ALL writers regardless of experience
This is great advice for history writers. My own method is formulaic in a sense that six elements should ideally be included.
1)Rich high quality photos, even if you have to re-create them with A.I.
2)maps, and place orientation
3)big picture overview of economics, politics, catastrophe
4)small picture, personal accounts diaries, newspapers, etc.
5)numinous object - what were people fighting for? Gold, salt, land, power, water, etc.
6)Timeline-the Nobel prize in economics one year went to someone who said, "If you want to understand something do not aske why it happened. Ask why it happened at that exact point in time."
Now I add would add a 7th - Sensory, especially smell.
What did the coal oil lamp and boiled cabbage in that small shack smell like? How did it feel to rub the brown goo from hands after handling tobacco leaves all day?
I hadn’t thought about including #5 in family history and that’s a piece of professional genealogy still left in me which taught to be distant from my subjects.
I probably didn't explain that well. I meant that in most eras there is a dominate theme of economic activity that can be explanatory for family history writing. We lost track of one line of family only to do a global search to find them in San Francisco in 1850. I.e. gold rush immigrants from Missoouri to California.
I look for the ‘spark’ of a theme emerging from my research to draw the reader in! For instance, crafting an opening sentence like this, may set the tone and create intrigue, ‘a young man from Wales experienced grief three times over in his lifetime’.
Oooo I would read that!
Good advice. My initial step is throwing facts onto the page like a dozen ten year old boys hopped up on Easter candy flinging mud at the neighbors clothes line.
lol that metaphor feels like it comes from personal experience?
My mother had three girls and two boys. I was the one she worried about. She was a saint.
When I am writing the first draft if I realise there is a gap in my knowledge or I need to confirm something with some research I just includes comment inline with my writing but put it in braces e.g. {check date of marriage}
That’s a great technique to keep the momentum going