Questions worth asking, before the answers go
Every family has stories that only one person still knows how to tell. These are the questions that get them said out loud, and written down while there is still time.
Your Parents' Story
Your parents have told you the same five stories for thirty years. There is a whole decade in there they have never mentioned. This is how you get to it.
Questions to Ask Your Mom That She Will Actually Answer
The problem is almost never that she does not want to talk. It is that every question you have asked so far requires her to claim her life was interesting.
5 min read
Questions to Ask Your Dad When He Does Not Talk About Himself
There is a whole category of question your dad will answer at length, and a category that ends the conversation in four words. Most people only ever use the second one.
5 min read
How to Get a Parent to Open Up About Their Life
If the questions keep bouncing off, the problem is usually the setting and the sequence rather than the questions themselves. Here is the order that works.
5 min read
How to Record Your Parents' Story Before It Is Too Late
Nobody loses a whole life at once. The small things go first, and the small things are what make a story worth reading twenty years later.
4 min read
25 Questions to Ask Your Parents, and How to Actually Ask Them
Most people ask their parents the wrong question and conclude their parents do not want to talk. Here are twenty five that work, and the way to ask each one.
11 min read
Your Missionary's Story
A mission journal has about forty entries and enormous gaps. What actually changed them is almost never the part that got written down.
20 Questions to Ask a Returned Missionary, and How to Ask Them
Ask how the mission was and you get the version he has already told nine times. These twenty reach the part he is still carrying around loose.
7 min read
What to Write in a Mission Journal, and What Everyone Leaves Out
The entries are not the problem. The gaps are, and they are never random. They land on exactly the weeks worth remembering.
4 min read
Missionary Homecoming Gift Ideas That Are Not Another Frame
Almost every homecoming gift commemorates the mission from the outside. Very few of them ask him anything.
4 min read
How to Write a Mission History Without Starting From a Blank Page
The blank page is what kills this. Here is the structure, the order to work in, and what to gather before you write a word.
4 min read
Questions to Ask a Missionary Before They Leave
Everyone records the goodbye. Almost nobody records who they actually were the week before it, which is the half that makes the return meaningful.
4 min read
Your Veteran's Story
Most families reduce a veteran's whole service to one sentence. He will fill in the rest if somebody asks properly, and almost nobody ever does.
20 Questions to Ask a Veteran, and Where Not to Start
The reason he says nothing is almost never the reason the family assumes. It is that every question so far has been the one question he cannot answer.
6 min read
How to Record a Veteran's Story Without It Becoming an Interview
A camera on a tripod and a list of questions produces a performance. Here is the setup that produces the actual account.
4 min read
Veterans Day Gift Ideas for a Dad Who Has Everything
He does not need another cap. What almost no veteran has been given is the thing he would most like: somebody asking properly, and writing it down.
4 min read
Questions to Ask a Vietnam Veteran, and What to Avoid
The service is only half of what this generation carries. The other half is what happened when they got back, and it is the part nobody asks about.
5 min read
What to Do With Military Photos and Letters You Have Inherited
An unlabelled photograph has a shelf life of exactly one generation. After that it is a picture of a stranger, and no amount of care will bring the name back.
4 min read
Your Kids and Your Marriage
Your kids know you as parents. They have no idea you were once two people trying to decide whether to risk it on each other.
20 Questions to Ask Your Kids Every Year, and Why the Same Ones
The value is not in any single answer. It is in asking the identical question at six, at eleven and at sixteen, and reading the three together.
6 min read
How to Record the Things Your Toddler Says Before They Are Gone
You are certain you could never forget this. Every parent is certain, and by March not one of them can reproduce a single sentence.
4 min read
How to Write Your Love Story, Properly, Before the Details Blur
You have told the short version at dinner parties for twenty years. The short version is not the story, and the details underneath it are already blurring.
4 min read
Questions to Ask Your Spouse About How You Met
Answer these apart from each other, then compare. Couples who have been married thirty years routinely discover something they never knew.
3 min read
Anniversary Gift Ideas That Are Not Another Thing to Dust
At a certain number of years, neither of you needs another object. What almost no couple has is a written account of their own beginning.
3 min read
Your Own Story
You are the one who keeps track of how every family story is supposed to go. Nobody appointed you to that, and nobody has written yours down.
How to Write Your Life Story Without Starting at Birth
The people who finish one almost never set out to write a book. Here is what they do differently, and it is mostly about the order.
4 min read
How to Start an Autobiography When You Have No Idea Where to Begin
Nobody is stuck on chapter nine. Everybody is stuck on the first page, and the reason is that they are trying to open the wrong way.
4 min read
20 Life Story Writing Prompts, and What Each One Is For
Most prompt lists give you a hundred questions and no idea which ones are worth your Sunday. These twenty each do a specific job.
5 min read
What to Write When You Think Your Life Was Not That Interesting
Almost everybody who says this is comparing their life to a published memoir. That is the wrong comparison, and it is costing their family the story.
3 min read
How to Write a Letter for Grandchildren You May Not Meet
The instinct is to fill it with advice. Advice is the part that ages worst. Here is what these letters are actually for.
4 min read
Making the Book
Two decisions ruin most home-printed family books, and both are easy to get right once somebody tells you what they are.
How to Print a Family Book So It Does Not Look Homemade
The difference between a family book that gets kept and one that gets put in a cupboard is decided by two choices, and both are made before you print anything.
4 min read
The Best Paper and Binding for a Family Book That Gets Handled
Every binding is fine on the day it is made. The question is which one is still fine after thirty years of being taken off a shelf.
4 min read
How to Choose a Family Story Service: Nine Questions to Ask First
Most of these services look similar from the outside. Nine questions separate them, and the answers are rarely on the pricing page.
4 min read
How Much Does a Family History Book Actually Cost?
The number people compare is almost never the number they end up paying. Here is where the rest of it sits.
4 min read
A Family Book as a Gift: What to Give, and What to Wrap
The gift is excellent and the delivery is awkward, because there is nothing to hand over. That is a solvable problem.
4 min read
Storyworth vs Prime Life Stories: An Honest Comparison
We are one of the two things being compared here, so read it with that in mind. We have tried to write the version we would want to read.
4 min read
Remento vs Prime Life Stories: An Honest Comparison
There is one thing Remento does better than us and it is not a small one. Here is the whole picture, including that.
4 min read