“The House on Ridge Street”
Heard, not just read
The original recording stays with the chapter. A grandchild who never met him can hear the pause before the funny part, and the way he said “scuttle”.
Examples
From a spoken answer to a finished chapter
Here is the same story at four stages: the conversation, the written chapter, the recording, and the photograph kept with it.
Stage one
The conversation
Rosie
Tell me about the house you grew up in.
You
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.
Rosie
Nine of you in four rooms. How did the sleeping work?
You
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.
Rosie
That sound stayed with you. Was your father the last one up, then, every night?
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
The chapter written from it
Chapter Four
The House 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 three to a bed in the back room, head to foot, which is a thing you only find strange later.
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 once heard that sound since without being eight years old again.
My mother kept the good plates on the top shelf for company that almost never came…
The words are the storyteller’s own. What changed is the order and the joins - and every line of it can be edited before it becomes part of the memoir.
Stage three and four
The recording, and the photograph
August 1961
“That’s the porch we all sat on, every summer.”
The photograph, with its story
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.
And then, if you want one, a book
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 file that will still open in fifty years, on a computer nobody has designed yet.
About these examples
The conversation, chapter, caption and recording length on this page were written to demonstrate the product. 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.
Keep reading
Your first chapter is one conversation away.
Ten minutes of talking is a real beginning.
30-day free trial. No credit card to begin.