Planning & Organizing

Planning Your Book & Organizing Your Story
How do you eat an elephant? One forkfull at a time.
Your family history book project is much the same.
The way you’ll get some version of it done is by creating a plan and executing the plan.
Go in stages.
It’s recommended that you don’t try to write in one go a book longer than La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust which, according to Guinness World Records. is a 13-volume work with 9,609,000 characters. Instead, you’ll likely be happy with a book that tells your story...adequately.

Planning Your Book
Grab a cheap notebook or some blank paper and staples. We’re going to make a mockup of your book. Yes, this is arts and crafts but you need a way to make some early decisions about the chapters of your book and the subsections. Find some 3m Sticky Notes and a pencil. The Sticky Notes represent your chapter headlines and subsection topics. For example one chapter might be about your father. Grab a Sticky and write your dad’s name on it. Open up the mockup book and decide roughly where in your book your dad should be featured. Then do the same for your mom, and all four of your grandparents (or whichever characters will be in your book.
Don’t worry about finalizing your order yet...it will evolve with the story.

Next grab some more Stickies and start writing content and story ideas for each character. One story only per Sticky. Back in your dad’s chapter perhaps a Sticky called “Work / Career”. Another called “Hobbies”. Another “Awards & Achievements” and “Membership”. Be sure that each Sticky gets a headline or a punchline or both. Scribble those on Sticky Notes and slap them in. And there are likely some very specific and notorious stories about your father that simply must be written down. One story headline per Sticky and slap it onto the mockup pages in your father’s chapter.
Then do the same for your mom and grandparents and all the characters you’re covering in your book. This process will start the creative juices flowing and give you something to type into your Manuscript document.