Posted by Christopher Stevenson
Let's talk about blogs for a moment. Everyone and his brother has a blog. Many are quite good, but few really capture the readers' attention and bring them back again and again. (Of the 75 feeds I have in Bloglines, I only read 10 or 12 regularly. How many do you read?) What makes the difference? Storytelling.
Today, thanks to the Associated Press, I found WWI: Experiences of an English Soldier. It's a blog that posts in chronological order the letters between William Lamin, a soldier fighting World War I, and his family in England. Each letter is posted exactly 90 years after it was written, so the story unfolds as the letters are posted. William's fate is revealed only through his own written words. Here's a sample:
3rd October 1917
Dear Jack
Just a line to let you know I’m going on all right. In my last letter I told you we was waiting for the lads coming out well that night I had to go up the line to help them out with the guns. we brought them part way in the lumber waggons on the way we had a smash a motor lorry ran into us smashed the wheels of the lumber wagon and tipped us all out but we only got a few bumps which we are used to. Three days after, we were called up the line again of course I went this time. We had to go to the front line were it was on the Menin Road no doubt you have heard about it. We were there for three days it was awful the shelling day and night. We relieved the KOYLI about 10 o’clock and what do you think Fritz came over about 5 o’clock next morning we had an exciting time for about one hour and a half I can tell you. but we beat him off he never got in our trenches he was about two hundred strong it was a picked storming party so the prisoners say that captured, they brought liquid fire with them and bombs and all sorts but not many got back we had twenty casuals and the captain got killed a jolly good fellow too. I was pleased to get out of it but did not feel nervous when I saw them coming over. No 1 in our section was on the gun and we used our rifles. Our Coy as to go before the general for the good work we have done. We have just been given a long trousers again as we have had had Short ones all summer. I hope you are going on alright as was pleased to hear you are keeping in good health, write again as soon as possible. I am always ready for a letter. I think the mug will be very nice for Willie
With best love
Harry
I've come to the party a year late, but have gone back into the archives to see how the blog began. I find it nearly impossible not to get engrossed in William's story. His letters are simple, but telling. I find myself in the shoes of his family, wondering what it must be like to be fighting the war. And I'm not the only one. Thousands of people are reading William's letters and are being introduced to WWI in a way that our high school history books could never convey.
There's power in storytelling. We can preach financial literacy and cite facts all we want, but the message can't be conveyed without a story. Be sure to share yours.
