What is a First-Person Narrative?

First-person narratives include stories, audio clips, recorded conversations, art, photographs, and more of a person’s story in their own voice.

What we are interested in is not a research paper or a reported piece; we are interested in your story, the way you would tell it to your friends or family. We are here to support you as you craft this work. We want to hear your voice. To that extent, we will work with you to make sure that the story you are telling is coherent and fully developed, but written, recorded, or created with your own style and tone.

How to Get Started

Get out a piece of paper and a pen and start with a simple brainstorm. Consider the following tips and questions as you think:

Own your experience and perspective. Think about the story that only you can tell. What makes your life narrative unique? What do you wish others knew about it?

Find your hook. What unique perspective do you have on the topic you are telling us about?

Localize the content. Why is your story important to Chambersburg and your local community?

Find your medium. Think about what format you want to use to share your story (writing, art, podcast, etc.)

Things to Keep in Mind

If writing, try to create a narrative arc in the piece in about 1200 – 1800 words and try not to cite too many things, although we welcome citations to local news stories or local organizations/people.
If recording an audio or video clip, write a script that can be read in about 5 minutes or less.

Nervous? Don’t Be. We Will Support You.

We will speak with you about the piece that you want to produce to help you generate the story you want to tell.

After you submit your work to us, we will provide edits and suggestions.

After you complete the edits, we will ask you for a headshot and a short biography.

After you submit your finished project, we will compensate you on an as-needed scale; you can choose to be paid up to a certain amount determined by the funds we have available.

If you are interested in creating a first-person narrative, please fill out this form.

OR

If you know someone that we should reach out to to write a first-person narrative, please fill out this form.