Everyone has a story to tell
It is said that everyone has at least one good book inside them …
Apparently, research has shown that over 80% of Americans, for example, think that they have one … but very few actually get to the point of writing one – yet alone publishing it.
There could be lot’s of reasons for this … there are many skills in writing – it’s not just a case of being able to spell and put together sentences … not everyone has the requisite skills and patience.
Many people have the idea – the feeling – but leave it there. There never up pick up the pen, or approach the keyboard. Others start but then hit some sort of “writer’s block” and give up. For example, a friend of mine is an avid reader and I would often hear him say on putting a book down having turned the final page, something like: “It’s a good book, but I could have done better.” Indeed, he planned to “have a go” and prove it when he retired. When that time arrived, however, and he sat down to fulfill his ambition, he discovered that it wasn’t that simple. After writing his initial draft and a few “chapters”, he admitted defeat and gave up.
There are those who manage to get to the end of their opus, but are not convinced that it is worthy of publication and so leave it on one side. Sometimes, I suppose, we should be grateful to them for their decision. It may well be that what they have written is uninteresting and is “badly written” but, on the other hand, who can tell? Sometimes I have finished a book or newspaper article and thought to myself: “Well, that was a waste of time, except for one thing … when they said …”. In their shyness and unwillingness to risk embarrassment, they forget one thing … reading also requires certain skills and patience. One of those skills is to know when to question what you read – or even when to put the piece aside and admit that you didn’t find it worth reading.
A few may actually submit their manuscript to a publisher – but many of those are rejected. Only a very few ever manage to see their work in print, and some of those publish themselves – and, of course, the internet is very helpful in that respect … it’s easy to publish – or self-publish, just as I am.
To be honest, only a very few of the books that do finally end up in print are likely to be successful – to cover their cost of production, yet alone become a best seller. An awful lot of books are “remaindered”.
What’s more, even though not everyone has the makings of a writer, lacking the skills, experience and patience, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a story to tell – nor that other people won’t find what they have to say interesting.
Skills can, given the ambition, aptitude and sufficient application, can always be developed. (I was a school teacher – so, of course, I believe in the propensity for people to be able to grow and develop!) For example, another friend of mine decided that instead of trying to do it himself, he would instead enroll on a “writing course” and, apparently, he is having some success – obtaining good marks, comments and, more importantly, enjoying it immensely.
Even if someone doesn’t have the time, or lacks the inclination or patience to develop the necessary skills, there are still ways to tell your story, for example, through others.
In a way it is one of the reporters jobs to help people tell their stories and reach a wider audience. It can be done in a variety of ways … perhaps gathering the information by listening, reading, observing or whatever and then writing the account, either as a “ghost writer” or as themselves. Another technique is by an interview … asking questions, recording the responses, selecting the relevant information, transcribing , editing and presenting by the answers for publication.
One of my favourite podcasts at the moment is Witness by the BBC. As they say on their webpage it is “history as told by the people who were there.” Five days a week they talking to people who lived through moments of history to bring a personal perspective on world events. Some of those events I remember well … others, not so well and some were well before my time.
When I was a teacher in North London, I remember taking a History class. The regular teacher was absent for some reason, probably they were ill, and they had sent in work and my task was basically to just sit with the class whilst they went through it. The subject of the lesson was about the sinking of the Titanic, and the work set involved reading an account from one of the survivors … and I was impressed by the reaction of the class. As far as my schooling was concerned, my history basically stopped with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 – when James the Second fled the country and William of Orange and his wife Mary ascended the throne. With the Tudors and Stuarts there weren’t that many eye witness accounts available – so this approach seemed new to me. As I said, I was impressed at how the “personal perspective” was able to make the event more real, more relevant, to the class.
I noticed it again on another occasion when I was reading to the class the description by Christopher Brasher of the time when Roger Bannister ran the first “four minute mile”. The class were not an unruly class, but I had never known them before to be so silent, so engrossed with the material. Just as we were reaching the highlight, as Banister is stretching ahead, one boy, (who was obviously less sensitive than the rest), made a sarcastic comment … and the other turned on him and silenced him with “Shut up … we want to hear how it ends!”
As an aside: One of my favourite stories about Oscar Wilde has a similar “punchline” … when he was a undergraduate at Oxford every student had to take Divinity as a matter of course … and, apparently, on one occasion his tutor was convinced that he had not done his “homework”, so decided to test him by asking him to translate the story of St. Paul’s shipwreck in the Acts of the Apostles … from Greek into English. He chose the passage deliberately because it contains a number of difficult words including technical words. If Oscar had done prepared for the lesson, then it would surely be obvious. He took up his Greek testament and began to read, translating flawlessly. Eventually, the frustrated tutor gave in and told him that he could stop. “Oh no,” he is reputed to have said, “do let me go on … I want to see how it ends.”
The Middle School, (with pupils between 13 and 15), “adopted” the local Old People’s Home, that was located the other side of the school playing fields. Each Christmas they would organize a special Christmas Party, and put on some entertainment. Each year they would also organize some fund raising events to buy something for the home – one year a Hi-Fi system, another a television set, and so on. Perhaps, one of the more unusual activities was to organize a rota of visitors. Each lunchtime, a couple of volunteers would cross the fields and visit the home, sit and talk with the residents.
Every now and again, when their classes, (especially their history classes), touched on a suitable topic they might ask someone in the home some questions to get some additional information to illustrate a point or two. The residents usually enjoyed reminiscing and talking about things that they remembered.
This form of “Oral History” is growing in popularity. There have been many history projects where people have been interviewed by schoolchildren to obtain information about local history, or life during the war, ort something similar.
This week I came across something similar here in Kyrgyzstan – a project undertaken by the Historical Journalism class at the American University of Central Asia, (AUCA), in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan during the Spring of 2009. The project was performed, not by historians, but by students of journalism. No doubt future historians will find accounts valuable “primary sources”, but the students’ prime aim was to record the stories, the experiences, and present them for a wider audience before the storytellers were no longer able to recount them.
The class interviewed a variety of elderly people recruited with the help of a local charity, (Babushka Adoption), and the results have been published as both a book, (available from Amazon), and on their website, (http://www.centralasianhistory.org/) . Amongst the thirty three interviewees are: a shepherd, a farmer, a driver factory worker, an engineer, a teacher, a student, a Korean who was “deported” Central Asia as a little girl, a Kulak’s daughter, a “kidnapped” bride, someone described as a “Ladies man”, an army officer, a local “Party” secretary and a KGB officer … They tell about events such as: Urkun and both the First and Second World Wars, the collectivization of agriculture and “forced” settlement of the nomadic shepherds, the post-war reconstruction period, Stalin’s death, the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, independence and privatization as well as issues such as language, religion, the roles of men and women in society, school days, war experiences, migration issues, deported nationalities, agriculture, food, and entertainment.
Now, Oral Tradition is nothing new in Kyrgyzstan. For centuries the stories (histories) of the nomadic Kyrgyz were communicated means of oral tradition. They included a wide variety of legends and folk tales, songs and poems, and a number of longer works called epics – most notably the Manas Epic. During the Soviet period, however, people were careful about what they said … it could lead to the Gulag … which makes this project even more remarkable.
Whereas a perusal of archives, (documentary, film or otherwise), can give us much information about what happened and when, and also, perhaps, help us to understand why … the record of such interviews gives us an insight into how the people experienced life … they were, after all, living through history …
In my opinion, it’s well worth a visit!
For the record: The syllabus for the course and other supporting material is available on their website (http://www.centralasianhistory.org/) in case anyone wants to replicate the work.
Bishkek