Tell me about your experiences with Storyworth?
December 6, 2021 1:04 PM Subscribe
Considering purchasing a Storyworth—or perhaps a similar but different service—subscription for my family, and asking them to contribute to it over the next year in lieu of traditional presents (to me). I have some questions, though…
I've been thinking about whether a subscription to Storyworth would make sense and be useful to my family. For a couple of reasons, principally including one family member being diagnosed with a progressive disease that will likely foreshorten their lifespan, and the addition of a new child who they will be unlikely to have the opportunity to interact with when they're older, there's a interest in recording family history and stories. But I haven't really had much luck getting people to actually write things down in a coherent form. Storyworth seems, at first glance, like it might be a fun and useful tool.
N.B. we are already using Qeepsake to compile photos and memories about the kiddo for themselves and others to enjoy down the road, so that's not really a requirement here.
If you have used or considered using Storyworth, I'd be interested in your perspective! Some particular questions include:
I've been thinking about whether a subscription to Storyworth would make sense and be useful to my family. For a couple of reasons, principally including one family member being diagnosed with a progressive disease that will likely foreshorten their lifespan, and the addition of a new child who they will be unlikely to have the opportunity to interact with when they're older, there's a interest in recording family history and stories. But I haven't really had much luck getting people to actually write things down in a coherent form. Storyworth seems, at first glance, like it might be a fun and useful tool.
N.B. we are already using Qeepsake to compile photos and memories about the kiddo for themselves and others to enjoy down the road, so that's not really a requirement here.
If you have used or considered using Storyworth, I'd be interested in your perspective! Some particular questions include:
- Did it work for you / your family? Did people participate and enjoy it? What made it enjoyable, or would have made it more enjoyable?
- Conversely, what did you not like about it, or what made it painful to use, and why?
- What's the quality like of the book that you get at the end of a Storyworth subscription?
- How easy was it to use for people who are not especially technically savvy? Does it work well over basic email? (My family does email, but most are less likely to use a dedicated app regularly, so having something that allows questions and responses over email is fairly important.)
- Does Storyworth have an export option? How can you get data out of the service aside from in book form? Their FAQ is suspiciously silent on the matter of export/archiving.
- Did you use the built-in/provided questions from Storyworth, or create your own?
- Are there any other services comparable to Storyworth that you'd recommend instead, or have used instead? I'm passingly aware of:
- Saga - appears to emphasize audio rather than text, which could be fun, but I'm not sure that the end product would be as usable as a book. Interested in pros/cons from anyone who has used or considered it.
- LifeArk Family Diary - the concept of having messages that appear to a specific recipient at particular times in the future is rather neat, but would limit the utility to people who are around today (and there's only one kid in our family at present). Maybe it would be complementary to Storyworth? I have some concerns about the viability of the service into the future for decades to come, what happens if they go out of business or get sold or "strategic pivot", etc. The fact that the most recent post on their website is from Sept of last year doesn't exactly give me the warm'n'fuzzies, but maybe I'm being uncharitable.
- MemLife - free to use, which isn't necessarily bad but makes me wonder about the sustainability of the underlying business. Emphasizes that all data can be exported (great!). Seems more geared towards self-directed / autobiographical stories, but maybe not? Doesn't have a ton of reviews or other information online.
I have been doing Storyworth with my mom for most of this year, so I can't yet speak to the quality of the book you get at the end, but I can tell you about the experience.
It is SUPER easy to use, both to me as the asker and to her as the answerer. From her end, she literally just gets and email and types an email reply, as though she were writing to me. It's really that simple. I then get an email from Storyworth containing the question and her answer, which I can do anything I want with. I don't know about exporting everything, but I have it in my email to copy/paste or whatever.
I think my mom and I have both really enjoyed it; it has prompted her to talk about things I might not have asked about and she might not have thought to tell me about (a question about her first paid work led to stories about going to the garage with her dad on Saturday mornings and stopping at a diner on the way home, talking to the older men who hung out there, etc. It's a sweet story that doesn't necessarily "stand out" as something for me to ask about or her to tell me randomly).
They have a collection of questions that are quite generic and a lot that I didn't like or that seemed repetitious to me. But you can add your own questions, and I did a lot of that. So they ask things like "What was your mother like when you were a child?" and "How did you choose what college to go to?" and "Are you still friends with anyone from high school? How have they changed over the years?" The first one was fine, but my mom didn't go to college, and I know her high school friends very well, so the last one seemed less interesting.
I added a bunch of questions, some more abstract that I found online (What is a decision that you made in your life that you'd make differently now? What changed?) and some more personal to her (You were the first woman to graduate from the your vocational program. Tell me about the program and how you ended up there.)
You also get to rearrange the order of the questions whenever you want. So every Saturday I get a message saying "tomorrow we're going to ask this question" and I can change it, or I can go in and order the whole year worth of questions and just ignore the Saturday emails. That is worth paying attention to, because when you ask it to omit a question, it just bumps it to the end of the list, so it might come back around. (I omitted a lot of questions about faith and college, and they would have come back around if I hadn't added enough new ones.)
My mom is not a big writer, so one downside is that for some questions, if she's not inspired, I get one or two sentences out of her and that's it. She doesn't feel like a lot of the details are worth telling, or is not sure what details to put in.
But for others she wrote long paragraphs, and I think she felt empowered to share stories that matter to her but felt kind of silly or self-aggrandizing to bring up. I learned some lovely things about her, and some upsetting things about my extended family. It's been a really lovely experience.
Hope this helps!
posted by gideonfrog at 1:18 PM on December 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
It is SUPER easy to use, both to me as the asker and to her as the answerer. From her end, she literally just gets and email and types an email reply, as though she were writing to me. It's really that simple. I then get an email from Storyworth containing the question and her answer, which I can do anything I want with. I don't know about exporting everything, but I have it in my email to copy/paste or whatever.
I think my mom and I have both really enjoyed it; it has prompted her to talk about things I might not have asked about and she might not have thought to tell me about (a question about her first paid work led to stories about going to the garage with her dad on Saturday mornings and stopping at a diner on the way home, talking to the older men who hung out there, etc. It's a sweet story that doesn't necessarily "stand out" as something for me to ask about or her to tell me randomly).
They have a collection of questions that are quite generic and a lot that I didn't like or that seemed repetitious to me. But you can add your own questions, and I did a lot of that. So they ask things like "What was your mother like when you were a child?" and "How did you choose what college to go to?" and "Are you still friends with anyone from high school? How have they changed over the years?" The first one was fine, but my mom didn't go to college, and I know her high school friends very well, so the last one seemed less interesting.
I added a bunch of questions, some more abstract that I found online (What is a decision that you made in your life that you'd make differently now? What changed?) and some more personal to her (You were the first woman to graduate from the your vocational program. Tell me about the program and how you ended up there.)
You also get to rearrange the order of the questions whenever you want. So every Saturday I get a message saying "tomorrow we're going to ask this question" and I can change it, or I can go in and order the whole year worth of questions and just ignore the Saturday emails. That is worth paying attention to, because when you ask it to omit a question, it just bumps it to the end of the list, so it might come back around. (I omitted a lot of questions about faith and college, and they would have come back around if I hadn't added enough new ones.)
My mom is not a big writer, so one downside is that for some questions, if she's not inspired, I get one or two sentences out of her and that's it. She doesn't feel like a lot of the details are worth telling, or is not sure what details to put in.
But for others she wrote long paragraphs, and I think she felt empowered to share stories that matter to her but felt kind of silly or self-aggrandizing to bring up. I learned some lovely things about her, and some upsetting things about my extended family. It's been a really lovely experience.
Hope this helps!
posted by gideonfrog at 1:18 PM on December 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I gifted it to my dad a few years ago and he really enjoyed the experience and was so proud of the book. Had I known a pandemic was only a few months away, I likely would’ve foregone the included book and done a self-published book on Blurb adding in additional graphics and photos with the extra time I was about to have.
Dad was pleased with how the book turned out, but a lot of his answers were shorter and I believe they start each new answer on an odd page number so there were a lot of blank pages in the copy. Aside from my graphics snobbery, I would still highly recommend it.
In addition to me receiving the responses each week, I am pretty sure that within Storyworth I was able to set it up so that my siblings also received Dad’s answer each week. We really enjoyed the little tidbits that were unearthed each week.
posted by icaicaer at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2021
Dad was pleased with how the book turned out, but a lot of his answers were shorter and I believe they start each new answer on an odd page number so there were a lot of blank pages in the copy. Aside from my graphics snobbery, I would still highly recommend it.
In addition to me receiving the responses each week, I am pretty sure that within Storyworth I was able to set it up so that my siblings also received Dad’s answer each week. We really enjoyed the little tidbits that were unearthed each week.
posted by icaicaer at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2021
I think it depends on the recipient. A friend got for his parents - mom was all in, dad never bothered with it. If you think your family would participate, it’s probably a great idea.
posted by backwards guitar at 3:52 PM on December 6, 2021
posted by backwards guitar at 3:52 PM on December 6, 2021
My sister bought Storyworth for my dad. I bought one for my MIL. My dad likes writing but was busy with another writing project and so didn’t really do it. My MIL loved the idea, as did all the family and she did one answer that we actually saw. She tells me she is writing notes on all of them and will eventually put them all in.
I suspect both of them are taking it too seriously and if they just jotted down an anecdote quickly, it would be just as good.
I hope they both finish it. While the questions stop getting sent after a year, the person can still access the account to finish it and put the book together.
If I really wanted it done, I think I’d commit to trying to make time to phone/zoom and type while they talked and then let them edit. So it really depends on whether your relatives commit to it.
posted by AnnaRat at 1:35 PM on December 7, 2021
I suspect both of them are taking it too seriously and if they just jotted down an anecdote quickly, it would be just as good.
I hope they both finish it. While the questions stop getting sent after a year, the person can still access the account to finish it and put the book together.
If I really wanted it done, I think I’d commit to trying to make time to phone/zoom and type while they talked and then let them edit. So it really depends on whether your relatives commit to it.
posted by AnnaRat at 1:35 PM on December 7, 2021
I bought this for my mother last year and I just counted and she wrote almost 40 of the stories, tho they came in batches over the year (she would sit down and do 4-10 at a time -- sometimes putting in tons of effort and sometimes only writing a line or 2). After the year is over you have 3 months to edit and publish unless you pay $60 for another year of access. It was very easy for her to do...but she was frustrated with the lack of ability to format things. I suggested questions for her to answer from the list and she vetoed ones that brought up bad memories or weren't especially things that she wanted to share with the grands. Overall it was a pretty good experience and I feel like there is probably an audience for it...
A few other notes however,
1.) this was an easy gift for me since I didn't have to ship anything and with Corona I had to be distant for the holiday last year.
2.) While she was very excited about it in the beginning I think that she felt pressure to do it throughout the year and that translated into stress and resulted in me feeling a bit guilty for asking her to do this for me (it made it feel like a lot less of a gift)....especially because this year had a lot of inherent stress that wasn't really planned for. I have had to convince her that we would just publish what she got done and that it wasn't an assignment or requirement in any form and just meant to be fun.
3.) in retrospect I would do this again...but I would use boomerang or another program to automatically send the questions (I would love to have gotten these from friends and family and give several options to choose from) to anyone in the family that wanted to participate and then I would self-publish when we were ready instead of feeling the pressure to just "get it done" -- I like the idea of making it more of a group activity and sharing things together instead of just putting the pressure on one person.
posted by AnneShirley at 5:15 PM on December 7, 2021
A few other notes however,
1.) this was an easy gift for me since I didn't have to ship anything and with Corona I had to be distant for the holiday last year.
2.) While she was very excited about it in the beginning I think that she felt pressure to do it throughout the year and that translated into stress and resulted in me feeling a bit guilty for asking her to do this for me (it made it feel like a lot less of a gift)....especially because this year had a lot of inherent stress that wasn't really planned for. I have had to convince her that we would just publish what she got done and that it wasn't an assignment or requirement in any form and just meant to be fun.
3.) in retrospect I would do this again...but I would use boomerang or another program to automatically send the questions (I would love to have gotten these from friends and family and give several options to choose from) to anyone in the family that wanted to participate and then I would self-publish when we were ready instead of feeling the pressure to just "get it done" -- I like the idea of making it more of a group activity and sharing things together instead of just putting the pressure on one person.
posted by AnneShirley at 5:15 PM on December 7, 2021
I did something similar last year, except I did it all manually and for everyone on both sides of my family. Storyworth is actually pretty great because they have lists of sample questions available, and I copied a bunch of those as well as whatever other lists of family interview questions I could find. I narrowed it down quite a bit and emailed one or two questions out per week. I used a BCC mailing list so that people could reply to me but not spam everyone else too. Starting in about March, I also included some pandemic-related questions so now it functions as a bit of a time capsule of the first 9 months of the pandemic.
My original intention was to self-publish everything as a book but I quickly realized that's not something I wanted to figure out how to do, so in the end I just sent a link to the google doc where I had compiled all of the responses. The excellent thing about that is that I was able to give everyone commenting privileges, so they can comment as they read. And if there is anyone who wants to add responses later, I can add them easily.
I hope you find a way to get your project off the ground! I really loved learning things about my extended family (I'm new to my dad's side of the family via an Ancestry test, so there was a lot that I didn't/still don't know, but I also think that got a lot of people to participate who might have otherwise ignored my emails lol). Good luck!!
posted by hetobeto at 5:45 PM on December 7, 2021
My original intention was to self-publish everything as a book but I quickly realized that's not something I wanted to figure out how to do, so in the end I just sent a link to the google doc where I had compiled all of the responses. The excellent thing about that is that I was able to give everyone commenting privileges, so they can comment as they read. And if there is anyone who wants to add responses later, I can add them easily.
I hope you find a way to get your project off the ground! I really loved learning things about my extended family (I'm new to my dad's side of the family via an Ancestry test, so there was a lot that I didn't/still don't know, but I also think that got a lot of people to participate who might have otherwise ignored my emails lol). Good luck!!
posted by hetobeto at 5:45 PM on December 7, 2021
Response by poster: Really appreciating everyone's feedback!
I floated the idea to a few members of the family, and they seemed to think it'd be a great idea. So I think we're almost certainly going to give Storyworth a shot and see how it goes.
Still interested in anyone else's experiences as well.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:36 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I floated the idea to a few members of the family, and they seemed to think it'd be a great idea. So I think we're almost certainly going to give Storyworth a shot and see how it goes.
Still interested in anyone else's experiences as well.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:36 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
My daughter got me Storyworth last year for a Christmas present. I'm really behind on answering the questions; it feels like homework. If I don't like a question, I can reject it and choose a different question, which I've done a few times. Sometimes I write a short paragraph, and other times I write a lot and even attach photos. It will be interesting to see the finished book in the end, but right now it just seems like one more thing I have to do.
posted by Joleta at 9:51 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Joleta at 9:51 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
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My sister and I gifted my Dad with a Storyworth subscription and it ended up being well beyond our expectations. First, a caveat: My Dad is a natural storyteller at heart. He loves to spin a yarn and had childhood dreams of being a nature writer. He absolutely loved it.
Conversely, what did you not like about it, or what made it painful to use, and why?
The questions were a little repetitive at times, but overall, it was a great experience.
What's the quality like of the book that you get at the end of a Storyworth subscription?
The book was really lovely. It took me forever to do the final edits, but I'm glad I took the time (and extra expense) to add color photos throughout. It will undoubtedly be a family keepsake for generations. Personally, I found the layout stuff a tad limiting, but that's only because I'm obsessive over formatting. The templates are very easy to use though.
How easy was it to use for people who are not especially technically savvy? Does it work well over basic email? (My family does email, but most are less likely to use a dedicated app regularly, so having something that allows questions and responses over email is fairly important.)
My Dad is a retired coal miner whose full computer skills include email, Amazon, eBay, and his Bing search engine. It was very easy for him to use.
Does Storyworth have an export option? How can you get data out of the service aside from in book form? Their FAQ is suspiciously silent on the matter of export/archiving.
I cheated and copy/pasted the text into a word doc as I did the final round of editing. It was fiddly and time-consuming, but I have a backup copy this way.
Did you use the built-in/provided questions from Storyworth, or create your own?
We mostly used their questions, but Dad added a few of his own at the end.
Overall, my Dad was absolutely thrilled, it gave us some wonderful (and unexpected) family conversations, and he now wants me to order another six copies of his "published book" for family members. I'm not sure it would work as well for every family (or every family member), but we couldn't have been happier.
posted by hessie at 1:16 PM on December 6, 2021 [1 favorite]