Autumn arrived here in Tākaka over the last few days. There are cool mornings to accompany the fresh apples, peaches, zucchinis and even (heaven) grapes growing at our house.
Today I want to tell you about five cool images, some possibly unexpected, that you can include in your memoir, life story or history.
This is an updated version of a blog I shared a year or two ago.
The rule is: if you can scan it, you can include it in your book.
So to take it back to the basics, you need to use a scanner or camera to create a digitised version of anything you want to include in your story.
You might own a scanner, often they come in printers. Or you might know where to scan things eg your local printers, or library (they have awesome scanners).
I’ve helped people include all manner of things in their books, alongside the text of their stories. Here are five examples:
- Recipes – one client asked me to write her life story for her family as she had terminal cancer. Her story was quite short. It included some photos that we scanned in, plus the handwritten recipe for a sweet slice she often made for her whole family, that they utterly adored. I love that her food can live on through her book.
- Poems – last year I finished a book that included a sweet little poem. We scanned that poem in at the end of the book.
- Sketches – One client I worked with had saved some pencil drawings that a Russian artist did of him when he was a baby on a sling on his mother’s back. At the time my client and his mother were both prisoners of war, so it was extra poignant that he still had those sketches and they could be included in his book.
- Diary entries – I helped an Italian grandfather write an entire book based around some old war diaries he found in a box of things his father left to him. We could barely read the handwriting in some diary entries, so we included the pages we could read, and typed the words out too. The scrawl of the handwriting brought something special to that book.
- Newspaper clippings – I wrote a book that was almost entirely based around newspaper clippings. My client had appeared in the media hundreds of times throughout his life. I padded it out with context.
You might want to sprinkle some of these into your own stories. They bring a book to life, alongside any photos you might want to include.
I hope this is helpful? Let me know what you’re working on?
And as always, if you’d like to work with me to write your story, check out six ways I can help you, from free resources to complete book package.
Write on,
Charlotte Squire
Charlotte Squire 