I want to create a piece - but what? Please read and help if you can!

[ARGHtoAHHH]

Hello,

Any advice / ideas would be gratefully received!

A few months ago my uncle showed me a WWI medal he has which belonged to my great grandfather - of which very little is known.

Since then I have been researching this man, and he has a fairly interesting story. I have been in touch with people who knew him, managed to get a photo of him, found him in 2 census, found an entry in a vast Battalion Diary which outlined his wounding in battle, got his medal card, found an article that was written about him in a local paper, found and received a photo of his gravestone...etc etc.

I want to create some something out of this. I have no idea what. Some sort of book. Perhaps a scrapbook?

I want to be able to create something with this information and present it to my uncle, who turned 60 this year. He would love it. But I am at a loss on how to get all the info onto paper and make it look beautiful.

Please, does anyone have any suggestions?

Do you have a timeframe?

Sorry, that was a boring practical question

Is it a creative non-fiction project you are thinking of?

Hi Arsenic (or should say Freddy Kruegar ) thanks for replying.

No timeframe as such, no.

And yes, creative non fiction.

That was just my reflex 'what's the deadline?' question

If you're near London, City University do a short course that might help;

www.city.ac.uk/courses/short-courses/narrative-non-fiction

Or this book is very good (I thought);

www.amazon.co.uk/Arvon-Book-Life-Writing-ebook/dp/B005LBQM5K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412336723&sr=8-1&keywords=arvon+book+of+life+writing

But a scrapbook format sounds lovely

Thanks again Arsenic.

As much as I would love to go on this course, its too expensive. I can barely afford to get the book you linked!

I do however, work in an art college. They do bookbinding here. It could be a possibility that I could get a student to work on my thing (don't know what to call it) as a project or part of their qualification.

I like the idea of scrapbook but surely it will just look like I've glued everything together? I do have all the images on my computer, so maybe I could get it done digitally, somehow?

How would I set it all out? I want to lay out the story, and include all the images so would it just go:

bit of writing
relevant image

bit of writing
relevant image

etc etc

Not sure I am making much sense here. Its all jumbled in my mind...

Co-opting a student sounds good.

Or use old fashioned photo corners (is that what they are called??) to mount things in an album/scrapbook and give it a vintage look?

corners

You could print out pieces of text and mount those too?

That could be effective on a budget

Just googled photo corners - yes! thank you, thats a great idea. Will defo use that.

I also posted this in chat, had a few ideas there too, including maybe making the story into a poster. But I don't think my images are really up to scratch for that.

But yes, you're making sense. You just need to find a way to intersperse it.

Try it on the page until it looks right, maybe?

So is it better for me to print everything out (I don't have originals of anything), and manually stick them into a scrapbook, and write the story by hand?

Or should I do it digitally?

Good luck. It sounds an exciting project

X post.

I would do it by hand, if I was going for the vintage look, I think. But you could try the first page both ways?

(And make copies for yourself??)

Good idea. Think I should do the first page, in both styles, and see where that leaves me.

I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence right now though. Think it'll look shit.

I don't have that much writing, when I think about it. So it'll be a couple of sentences followed by a picture, followed by a couple of sentences followed by a picture etc etc - boring and very primary school, no?

You can write some more writing m'dear ;-)

It will NOT look shit. Do a bit at a time and let it evolve.

I know, you are right.

I seem to be doing what I am best at in the world; procrastination.