Available now
Course type: Writing skills
Lessons: 6
Published: July 2021
W01: Words on the Page: The first step in writing anything ...
A wise person once said: “First drafts don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be written.”
These are the most important words we need to hear as we begin our writing journey. We might be planning to write a multi-person family history, a biography or profile piece, an autobiography or memoir, or an article, essay or short story. We might be planning to publish it as a book or ebook, in a magazine or family newsletter, in a blog post, or as a simple print-out for our immediate family members. Whatever our literary form and whatever our publication, we start by getting words on the page.
The six lessons in this course begin by exploring the literary big picture. Then we gradually narrow our focus until we’re discussing ways in which we can improve the quality of the words we’re getting onto our pages.
Course type: Educational & writing skills
Lessons: 5
Published: September 2021
W02: Our Ancestral Surnames: The greatest stories never told
When genealogists describe the origins of an ancestral surname in a family history or other piece of writing, they usually flip it off with a sentence or paragraph such as this:
The surname Drinkwater derives from a nickname, suggesting either that the original bearer drank water rather than ale or, conversely, was a drunkard.
This dry surname-origin description is easily forgettable. It’s a piece of lower-level "expository-style" writing, a description that merely expounds or explains. But what if we began the description in the following way ...
Course type: Educational
Lessons: 8
Published: November 2021
W03: Publish or Perish! What if I am hit by a bus?
Thinking about writing a family history or ancestral biography or a memoir, or perhaps a “how to” book or even a “mainstream-like” book such as a fictionalised family saga. Waiting until you finish writing the prose before you explore your publishing options?
BIG MISTAKE!
In fact, it could cost you lots of time and money.
What I've learnt through my own writing and publishing experiences is that the choices we make early in our writing journey help dictate the success – or otherwise – of our final publication.
For example, in the big picture, if we've found a great story and hope to interest a mainstream publisher, which genre should we choose? The answer might surprise you.
And as we narrow our focus, if we decide to self-publish a hardcopy book, why do we need to determine the likely weight of our publication before we "fix" the text-box size, the font style, and the font size?
All of these subjects – and many more – are included in the eight lessons of the Publish or Perish course. Each lesson deals with a narrow subject area, so you can return to the specific subject area after viewing the entire course.
Course type: Writing skills
Lessons: 10
Published: July 2022
W04: Words, Words, Words: The soul of our sentences
Every famous author has access to the same words, the same parts of speech, the same sentence structures that we have access to. They're famous partly because they have worked out how to use their words and sentence structures to maximum effect. Thus, the easiest way to empower our prose and to engage our readers is to improve our prose at the basic sentence level.
The Words, Words, Words course focuses on the "parts of speech" of the English language. It comprises ten lessons which explore nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and all of the remaining parts of speech. As you will learn, a simple word change - for example, a single verb change - can have a huge effect in terms of empowering our prose.
This course is the first of three courses that focus on the fundamentals of the English language. The second course is called Punctuation Packs a Punch! It looks at the different ways in which we can punctuate our sentences and the impact of these different forms of punctuation.
The third course, I came, I saw, I ... composed prose, explores "figures of speech" and other rhetorical devices. The title itself includes some of the figures of speech you'll learn about in the course.
Course type: Writing & Educational
Lessons: As added
Published: March 2022 onwards
WFFH 01: A Helpful Miscellany
This is not a "course" as such. Rather, these lessons were presented as seminars and webinars for genealogy organisations such as Legacy Family Tree Webinars and Unlock the Past. Each of the lessons will ultimately be expanded upon – or already has been expanded upon – for Writing Fabulous Family Histories courses. For example, most of the lesson Turning Dry Facts into Exciting Narrative formed the basis for the Words on the Page course and one section was used in the Our Ancestral Surnames course. These individual lessons are being made available now so you can benefit from the information itself before the course is completed.
NB. These lessons are only available to those with an Annual Membership.
Course type: Educational
Lessons: As added
Published: April 2022 onwards
WFFH 02: Zoom meeting recordings for 2022
Each month, Carol hosts a Zoom meeting in which she and the attendees discuss the writing topic of the day. These sessions are recorded and made available to Annual Members.
NB. These recordings are only available to those with an Annual Membership.
Coming soon
Course type: Writing skills
Lessons: ?4
Published: September 2022
W05: Punctuation Packs a Punch!
This is the second of three courses that focus on the fundamentals of the English language. It looks at the different ways in which we can punctuate our sentences and the impact of these different forms of punctuation on our prose.
The first course, Words, Words, Words, focuses on the "parts of speech" of the English language. The third course, I came, I saw, I ... composed prose, explores "figures of speech" and other rhetorical devices.