Tell Me a Story Un-paragraph Journaling Challenge

For the recent Happy Be Scrappy Spring Crop at Just Cre8 I issued participants a 3-part Journaling Challenge called Tell Me a Story. Over the next little while I will be posting all 3 parts of this challenge on my blog, along with the layout I created for each. If you didn't have a chance to play along during the weekend crop, I encourage you to read the details here and give each challenge a try. There is an introduction which gives you a peek into each of the three challenges here.

This style of journaling is called the un-paragraph, and the details of the challenge as well as tips on how to use it are posted below.

Un-paragraph Journaling.

If you find adding journaling to your pages difficult, you’re in for a treat! A grouping or list of incomplete sentences, related bullet points, numbered lists and repetition of introductory phrases are quick and simple ways to add important details to your pages without feeling forced to write in complete, grammatically correct sentences. Journaling using an un-paragraph method can feel freeing and easier, yet still allows you to capture the important details that you want to archive for future generations.

For this challenge, I used a series of incomplete sentences, and added repetition by starting each phrase with a number or related word such as many or lots of. Despite being brief, this page’s journaling is serious and meaningful. I drive every day past the clinic that we used when we struggled with infertility before having our twin girls. I decided to create a page about my gratitude for that clinic and the wonderful doctors who helped us there.

I typed the journaling in strips and added them to the layout.

Journaling says:

Almost two years of wanting a sibling for Evan
Three awesome doctors
Many 6:30am appointments
One laparoscopy
Lots of tears
Three months of travelling downtown to Mt. Sinai
Many spoonfuls of Robitussen
Lots and lots of self-injections
One long awaited, high risk, but successful pregnancy!
Two beautiful daughters
Little sisters for Evan
Made possible by travelling through this set of doors
Thank you.

Here are some great tips for getting capturing details with un-paragraph journaling:

1) Find a commonality amongst the points you wish to make. For example, create one phrase for each person in the photo, or start each phrase with a number or numeric word such as many, lots of or too few. I used a numeric starter for the layout I created above.

2) Use a bulleted or numbered list. A layout about your child’s field trip could be journaled using a bullet point for each activity the class participated in.

3) A repeated word or phrase adds emphasis to a significant idea that ties your journaling together. The well known “Priceless” Master Card advertising campaign immortalized this method by repeating a dollar amount at the end of each phrase, then ending with the word priceless. You’ve probably even seen a scrapbook page that has used this concept for journaling. Repetition can also happen at the beginning of your sentence, for example, a page about learning to rock climb could include “we watched, we learned, we conquered”.

4) Don’t feel that simply because journaling is brief, it can’t be meaningful. You can add a lot of impact with your choice of words.

I hope you will give this a try and post your finished layout in the gallery and on this thread. Happy journaling!