Examples
Here is the same story at three stages: the conversation, the written chapter, and the photograph kept with it. Some topics also end with an invitation to record a short video.
A sample, written to show the product. The storyteller, the conversation and the photograph are invented; no member’s memoir is shown.
Stage one
Tell me about the house you grew up in.
Ridge Street. There were nine of us in four rooms - my parents, six children and my grandmother. I never once thought of it as small.
Nine of you in four rooms. How did the sleeping work?
The boys were in the back room, three to a bed, head to foot. In winter my father banked the coal stove last thing at night. The last sound I heard every night of my childhood was the scuttle going back down on the hearth.
That sound stayed with you. Was your father the last one up, then, every night?
Always. He was always the last one up. You know, I have never heard that sound since without feeling eight years old again.
Notice that nobody asked about a coal scuttle. Rosie asked about sleeping arrangements; the detail that ends up carrying the whole chapter arrived on its own, because there was a second question and then a third.
Stage two
Chapter Four
We lived on Ridge Street. There were nine of us in four rooms - my parents, six children, and my grandmother - and I never once thought of it as small. The boys slept in the back room, three to a bed, head to foot.
In winter my father banked the coal stove last thing at night. He was always the last one up. The last sound I heard, every night of my childhood, was the scuttle going back down on the hearth - and I have never heard that sound since without feeling eight years old again.
Rosie helps organize your memories. You review and approve the wording.
Everything in this chapter is something the storyteller said above. What changed is the order and the joins. Nothing goes into a memoir until the storyteller has read it, and any word can be changed.
Stage three, and a short video
After certain topics, such as Traditions Worth Keeping or People Who Made a Difference, Rosie invites the storyteller to record a short video for the family. This childhood-home story is not one of them; the frame shows what a video for one of those topics looks like.
A picture of the porch means little on its own. Attached to the chapter, with the storyteller’s own caption, it becomes part of the record.
When there are enough chapters, they can be assembled into a book: a cover, a contents page, the photographs in their places. You download it as a PDF - as many times as you like, at no extra cost - and you can print it at home or have it printed and bound properly.
The PDF is the part that matters most in the long run. It is an ordinary, widely used file format, so it is easy to copy, share among the family and keep in more than one place.
Downloading the PDF is included in the membership. A printed, bound copy is an optional extra purchase.
The conversation, chapter, caption and video frame on this page were written and drawn to demonstrate the product; the video is an illustration and does not play. They are not anyone’s real memoir. We do not publish members’ stories as marketing material - and if we ever want to, we will ask that member first and separately. That is written into our privacy commitment.
Ten minutes of talking is a real beginning.
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