When I look back on stories of my childhood that are the most special or memorable I am surprised to find that the first to come to mind are quite simple. Stories of dinners at the beach in the summertime when my dad got out of work. Or hot dogs and beans every Saturday night at my grandmother’s with fresh cut garden cucumbers and tomatoes in the summertime.
When you begin writing your stories, you may be feeling pressure to only tell the grand stories. It is easy to think you should only share the big milestones or important events and that no one will want to hear about the day-to-day, but I challenge you to think small. Remember, the little things can sometimes be the most profound.
I believe that it is these “little things” that connect us more strongly to the past. A broad story will get the points across, but it is in the little things you will show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the story was real, and that a life was real.
As you journal your memories, are there simple minute details that will add to the impact of the story? Maybe something small no one else would know about, almost like your own personal easter eggs. Maybe something small that shifted everything else. Or something small that will help your family know these are your words.
Sprinkling your writing with the “little things” of life will help your stories be more authentic and feel more like a real-life lived and not just a fantasy.
Example using “The Little Things”:
When I miss my mom the most and need a physical reminder that she existed, there are two places I can go. The first and most obvious is her “footprint” - what my boys call the plaque with her name and years of her birth and death that is embedded in the ground of our childhood church’s memorial garden.
But there is another location, conveniently located close to the church for my occasional “feel my mom” pilgrimages. This second spot is a small beach near where grew up called Wind Mill Beach. While the windmill was there when we used to visit the beach as a child, it is actually the wooden split rail fence that separates the small sandy parking area from a nearby home that brings back memories of my mom.
Seeing this fence all of these years later stills makes me chuckle as I remember the day we were leaving the beach after an evening dinner picnic. While backing the car out of our parking space my mom accidentally bumped the fence knocking out a section of the cross fence. She was horrified, yet always able to go with the flow and make light of mistakes.
I remember us all hopping out as she parked the car to assess the damage. We were able to lift the wooden beam back into place with very little noticeable damage and leave the area without attention from others. To this day I see that fence and remember how good my mom was at not taking things too seriously. Even something as simple as a fence can serve as proof of my mom’s life on earth.
Do you see now how little things that seem unimportant can go a long way to making our story more powerful and meaningful? When I am beginning to think of my stories, I try to think of the little details that might get overlooked in a rush to tell the story. I often go back in after a draft to add in the little things that will be meaningful for my audience, again like little “easter eggs” for them to find in each reading.
Click the button below to listen to the related podcast episode The Little Things Make a big Impact!