The Spreadsheet Stuff vs. the Person Stuff
okay so. by now you've got one memory picked out, maybe four sentences of it written down. good. this lesson is about a distinction i make constantly, probably too constantly, and it's this: there's the spreadsheet stuff, and there's the person stuff.
the spreadsheet stuff is names, dates, places. born 1931, married 1953, lived at such-and-such address. it's real information and you need some of it. but it's not a story. you can have a perfectly accurate spreadsheet and still have zero idea who this person was.
the person stuff is what they ate for breakfast. how they took their coffee, if they drank coffee at all. the truck they drove and whether they cussed at it. what they smelled like. that's the stuff that makes someone real on a page. the dates are just bookends holding the actual book up.
here's the thing — i used to mix these up constantly. i once sat down and wrote out a whole "family story" that was really just: he was born here, moved there, worked this job, died this year. i read it back and thought, this is a spreadsheet with feelings pretending. it had all the facts and none of the person. i deleted the whole thing and started over with one sentence instead. "he was always cold." that one worked, because it's a detail, not a data point. anyway.
how to tell which one you're writing
read your paragraph out loud. i mean it, actually say it with your mouth. if it sounds like something you'd fill out on a form, it's spreadsheet stuff. if it sounds like something you'd say to a friend at the coffee shop while you're waiting for your drink, it's person stuff. that's basically the whole test.
another way to check: could you swap in a different person's name and have the sentence still be true? "he was born in 1931 and worked as a mechanic" could describe half the men in that generation. "he kept a coffee can of loose change on the dash and would not let anyone touch it" — that's one specific person. nobody else fits that sentence.
a practical way to get more person stuff, at home
most of us don't have a stack of person-stuff details sitting in our own memory, ready to go. you have to go get them, usually from someone else, and usually not by sending a formal email that says "please share your memories of grandpa" because that email will sit unanswered for eight months. i learned that one the hard way with my own household.
what actually works is catching people casual. in the car. over breakfast. mid-errand.
my friend aidan is a good example. he tells everyone, constantly, that he can't write. we were driving back from a DI run a while back, just hauling a load of stuff to donate, and somewhere around the light on the highway he started telling me about a memory completely unprompted. i had my phone in my lap at the red light and just started typing while he talked. didn't tell him to slow down or make it formal, just typed what he said. that turned into one of the best pieces i've collected from anybody. and aidan still, to this day, says he can't write. he wrote it. he just didn't write it down himself.
so here's your practical version of that:
- pick one person in your family who has a memory you want. don't announce it as an Assignment. just have it in your back pocket.
- catch them somewhere low-stakes. car ride, dishes, waiting for food at a family dinner.
- ask something tiny and specific, not "tell me about your childhood." try "what did grandma's kitchen smell like" or "what was dad's truck like." specific questions get specific answers.
- if you can, record it or type while they talk. don't stop them to fix grammar or get dates exact. you can clean it up later. the goal right now is just capturing the person stuff before it evaporates.
- if you're driving, obviously don't be the one typing. pull over, or wait till you're stopped, or have them talk into a voice memo instead. i am not telling anyone to text and drive for the sake of family history.
one opinion, since we're here
you don't need any of this to be perfectly accurate to be worth writing down. if two people in your family remember the truck as blue and one insists it was green, write "the way we tell it is, the truck was blue" and keep going. the half-remembered version is still real, and it's still more alive than a correct blank page. accuracy is a spreadsheet problem. you're not writing a spreadsheet.
before next time
try to catch one person casual this week, no big announcement, and ask them one small specific question. type or jot down whatever they say, even if it's two sentences. that's plenty.