I've only been going at it for a few days, but while I've been failing cards and re-writing, I kept a list of "rules" that are gradually helping me write better stories. I've come up with 8. If you have any that have helped you, please share them! Or if you think something I posted is incorrect, please share.

1. don't use numbers. they are confusing
2. try to get the keyword in as soon as possible. get it near the beginning
3. Use things that identify closely with you - names of your pets and friends, TV shows and songs that you like
4. The more emotion that a story evokes, the more likely that you'll remember it
5. Avoid using the word "and" - make one coherent sentence. Often you will forget what comes after "and"
6. Might be repeating #3, but avoid the words "I" and "you", and replace them with more memorable people.
7. If possible, order the primitives in the story in the same order you write the kanji
8. Be concise. Use as few words as possible. Think of it as writing a poem: short (not using a bunch of superfluous words), emotional, and memorable.

My thoughts:

2: I find it's best if the keyword is either before or after all of the primitives, or is repeated several times. Which one, though, doesn't seem to have much of an effect.

4: I agree. Also the more unusual or vivid the image. Really, you can just go down the list of memory biases (Wikipedia's list) and pick anything you can cause to be present in a story.

6: Eh. I'd actually avoid memorable people unless you commit to using them consistently in certain contexts, as if they don't map to primitives they'll introduce a useless point of focus.

7: Useful, but more effort than it's worth to do consistently, especially on some kanji.

8: I really don't agree, personally. I think at some point a narrative becomes too long, and it's critical to not introduce points of focus that don't lead to the character, but unless you're a much better writer than I am my experience is that focusing on concision leads to generic and non-memorable stories in many cases.

I'd add: "try to associate a mental scene or picture". Don't just leave your story as a set of words, try to see it.

There's no way I'm bucking the system where I am now, but it might actually be best to just scrap Heisig's story-system entirely and work based on memory chains. Just an offhand thought, all liability disclaimed, try at your own risk, etc..

~J

[Katsuo]

Rather than "writing memorable stories", I'd approach it from the point of "imagining memorable images". Then just make a few written notes to jog your memory in case you mentally mislay the image.

Images could be a single picture, or a cartoon-like sequence (i.e. a story).

One advantage of using images is that you can make all kinds of fantastic and impossible yet memorable things happen in your mind.

Another is that Images can be language-free, so that you don't need to keep swapping between Japanese and English when trying to recall a kanji.

Having said that, writing-based stories can work well for some characters.

I think your number 4 (including emotional content) is especially important. Also, involving yourself in the story should help to strengthen the emotions. (But you should not become one of the primitives, e.g. do not change the "person" primitive to yourself.)

The three things that helped me most (I know about 3,500 kanji now) were:

1. Change some of the primitive names to your own taste, especially turn abstract ones into concrete.

2. Regarding keywords, think what are your main associations with a keyword, and try to work one of them in if possible (but don't lose sight of the main meaning).

3. (Most important) Read a book on memory techniques.

Finally, of course, regard the process as fun rather than a chore.

Katsuo Wrote:3. (Most important) Read a book on memory techniques.

What book do you recommend?

[Katsuo]

Unfortunately I can't recommend any particular book as the one I used is long out of print. But I presume that other memory books cover similar ground, and there must be free material on the Internet too.

(The book I used was "Jonathan Hancock's Mindpower System -- A Step-by-Step Guide to Improving your Memory". Googling, I see somebody gave it a rave review here.)

I think even for this method different things work for different people.

I agree with some points but not with others.

My story creation process:

1) Read the keyword, whats the first thing that springs to mind? Can you make a story around that?

If I see "Agreement" I think of people shaking hands after finally coming to an agreement. I struggled with it because I used "Forcing agreement by imprinting your foot on their flesh" and agreement never conjured images of forced agreement or using agreement more like compliance. Now that I changed it to people agreeing to stop landing on the moon, I recall it far more easily.

2) I agree, don't use numbers unless they are not important. I sometimes put statistics into stories, like some of my stories including "Dwarven Throne Room" (dont ask) that was the climax of dwarven engineering and required them to shift 1,288,392 tonnes of soil out. The primatives are climax + soil but numbers work for that. They don't work for 1 2 3 etc, and I think 一 is the hardest primative to use.

3) Keyword can be anywhere for me. I try to link the elements so remembering one part of the story lets you think backwards as well as forwards, but I think in many stories the keyword comes at the end. Surpass for example, Heisigs example is something like "Two parades running from one town to the other trying to surpass each other" - surpass comes at the end. I don't think it matters.

4) Don't start stories with "Imagine", they probably won't be memorable. For example, "vegetable", if I say, imagine a hawk sitting in a tree watching vegetables grow, or whatever, you are not gonna remember them because they are not related, "imagining" they exist isnt gonna work, they need to be part of the story (I used kitten (claws) prancing in the vegetable patch stomping on the flowers and being chased up a tree by an angry farmer - so if you remember vegetables as being tree, you remember the kitten was chased up the tree, then you think why, cos he stomped on the flowers... its all connected)

5) Don't put seperate sentences in, make sure it always flows. Ground = soil + scorpions. If you have it as "Here's a patch of ground. Oh, and some scorpions are running around.", you won't remember, but if you link them together (such as the at Ground Zero, only scorpions can survive story), you will.

6) Make as many primitives of your own as you can. Mine seem to work far better than any in the book.

7) Make people primatives! They are the -best-. Don't worry with some imagination you can make them fit into any situation - I chose Medusa ages ago, which is sometimes drawn without a top line, which I took to be Severed Medusa Head. Now, if I can fit that into stories then you can fit anything in. There were a few kanji with medusa but then nothing... until I just hit Valve. Made of water, pickaxe (heisig gives it elbow), severed medusa head... yes, the dwarves flood their mine cos they heard there was a monster in there, waited for it to drain, went down and found the medusa slain, cut off its head with their mining pickaxes and took it out as a trophy.
I suggest for kanji with 2 characters in, fancy dress! I was worried when Jack the Ripper and Captain Hook ended up in the same kanji, but it was just good old jack in fancy dress, ripping people up with his hook...

8) Be wary of short and sweet, but don't introduce confusing parts for the sake of it. Sometimes peoples stories on here are just a single line, "Something is Something that Somethings" being the most common formula. Sometimes it creates an image that sticks immediately (ie. A ship with towels for sails makes for a mediocre vessel), but sometimes it doesn't (numerous examples if you hit study and look at some stories...at random: A scribe writes down the words spoken by a snake (i.e. a lawyer)) It doesn't always create a vivid image of events. Recall the kitten prancing in the vegetable patch that gets chased up a tree. I can picture that so clearly that im never going to forget it. Condensed ones aren't always stories.

9) Scan ahead and improve on primatives. I changed claw (vulture) to kitten.

10) Don't use body parts, if possible. Heisig uses Hand, Fingers, 2 Hands, Arm, Elbow and they are ALL so confusing, especially since you end up screwed and having to say "He grabs it in his fingers" only to come back and think, was it with his hand? Or two hands? Arrrrrrghhhhhh.
An example is "Pay", which contains fingers and elbow. I thought about having an arm wresting match and loser pays, but I had elbows on the table and fingers interlocked... and I thought if I came back to it wouldnt it be hand instead of fingers? Or maybe two arms since theres two arms on the table.... In the end I had fingers and pickaxe, with dwarves playing that great bar game where you flick a dagger back n forth between your outstretched fingers, except using their pickaxe. Pickaxe, fingers, no mistake.

11) If a story doesn't stick, you shouldn't try to memorise the story that didn't work for you. If you fail it more than once then consider changing the story.

12) re: primative order... don't worry about it too much. I don't. Eventually you will realise which primatives usually go where, and the few that don't often end up with the story suggesting it anyway (turkeys in a tree implies tree below). 目 and 見　are the most difficult to position I think, but after reviewing kanji loads of times I don't think of the stories any more (for the ones ive reviewed loads), as soon as I see the keyword my brain draws the kanji in my minds eye. When reviewing I hit Yes even if the order is wrong, cos my mind seems to sort itself out after a while. Take it with a pinch of salt mind.


I love rambling on forums, sorry. Good luck!

Great feedback, Wizard! I found the most helpful of your hints is to not fight with what your brain naturally tends to think of when you see a keyword - I've been looking at the keyword first and writing down words and images that immediately pop up, and then fit the story and primitives to that initial image. It works wonders

Your #5 sounds a lot like my #5!

although im only hitting 300s, i really try to get my stories in a dictionary definition kind of thing.

Eg

I look at the word, and check the dictionary meaning if need be but first, a quick e-dict of the actual kanji itself just so that i grasp the what keyword Heisig is really after. Then I try to somehow create a definition of that word in my OWN words, and i see whether or not my definition fits with the primitives given. If they dont fit, then i slowly change and shift my definition of the word until it is as close as possible to the kanji with its primitives.

eg
A riot is where people with the same thoughts come together. People with the same thoughts are kind of like people with all their TONGUES HOOKED together.

So my definition here is "people with the same thoughts come together" because that is how i view a riot (though this definition of riot actually differs from the raw dicitonary meaning, but i couldnt care less cause i view riot as that).

one that i LOVED was not by me
マク Membranes (thin layers of connective tissue) are the *part of the body* that decompose first (i.e., before the organs, ligaments, bones, etc.) after one dies and is buried in a *graveyard*

this is a perfect example of what i prefer. The actual scientific definition of membranes that decompose first (i.e will see the graveyard first).

Although in most cases it is not that easy so I still suck balls at stories.

I posted some of my thoughts way back when here http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=867

Somethings match up, some don't. I've learned we all have our own learning quirks. I'm BIG into picturesque stories. I need to see it in my head. So I avoid one line stories unless they're vivid. So yeah, mine start with "picture this" or "imagine this" which disagrees with a suggestion above. We're both right (and wrong).

I'd contend that the keyword at the beginning still works best (sort of like being given the first line to a song, then the rest flows out of you).

I agree about using more people based characters if you can. Superheroes are really good from what I've experienced, although any larger than life character can work.

Anyway, good thread and good advice.

I guess the best thing to do is to spend some time finding what works for you, and exploiting it. I find giving my own keywords for primatives lets me create tons of solid stories very quickly, so now I am jumping in and renaming everything that by flicking ahead I can see myself struggling with.

So far it's working great;)

Good call on making your own primitives. I found myself doing it "on accident" without even trying, it's that much better. Often I'll follow the model of 博 and turn one part of a kanji into a primitive. So I sometimes think of "fold" for 斤 (sure makes 祈 easier) and "each" for 夂.

There are also some more ridiculous ones. The left part of 勤 is "Communist Popeye", who eats his cabbage so he can gain strength to work on the collective farms with diligence. 監 is "Hurricane Katrina".

What are some of the crazy primitives you've made?

I'm not sure how "crazy" it is, but I suppose it's an insight of how my weird-ass mind works.

Like you, I created my own primitive out of 博 (Which is Doctor, and he's s smart doctor because he knows TEN SPECIALTIES). If you take away his 10 specialties, he isn't very smart is he? He becomes a STUPID Doctor

So for 薄 (dilute), my story is as follows: The idiotic doctor thought that putting FLOWERS in WATER would dilute their smell!

Yeah, I'm sure that would only work for me, but I think that's we all need to do, as Wizard said: find what works for you and exploit it, even if it doesn't make much (or any) sense.

Nukemarine Wrote:I posted some of my thoughts way back when here http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=867

Somethings match up, some don't. I've learned we all have our own learning quirks. I'm BIG into picturesque stories. I need to see it in my head. So I avoid one line stories unless they're vivid. So yeah, mine start with "picture this" or "imagine this" which disagrees with a suggestion above. We're both right (and wrong).

I'd contend that the keyword at the beginning still works best (sort of like being given the first line to a song, then the rest flows out of you).

I agree about using more people based characters if you can. Superheroes are really good from what I've experienced, although any larger than life character can work.

Anyway, good thread and good advice.

Hmm In any case i'll definitely need to develop a new way of making stories because im running out of methods of convincing myself that
"this keyword means this, so logically converting this meaning ==> these primitives apply".
Because I don't know if you guys feel this, but i feel like if i use Heisigs stories i'm merely *memorizing* the story, and since memorizing is memorizing i think to myself "hey i may as well just memorize all the primitives for each respective keyword and draw it as it is i.e "Whole "Umbrella over King" This is why i avoid Heisig's stories as much as possible.

Do you guys feel this too? or is it just me.

liosama Wrote:Hmm In any case i'll definitely need to develop a new way of making stories because im running out of methods of convincing myself that
"this keyword means this, so logically converting this meaning ==> these primitives apply".
Because I don't know if you guys feel this, but i feel like if i use Heisigs stories i'm merely *memorizing* the story, and since memorizing is memorizing i think to myself "hey i may as well just memorize all the primitives for each respective keyword and draw it as it is i.e "Whole "Umbrella over King" This is why i avoid Heisig's stories as much as possible.

Do you guys feel this too? or is it just me.

I'm simply echoing what others have said, but it holds true for me:

a)If I don't have a clear mental picture that I can imagine in my head, then they story simply won't stick (well.. I'm getting a 50% failure rate with stories that don't have clear mental images. Some of the stories here make sense 100% logically, but that doesn't mean you'll remember them)

b)You need to work the story around your first mental impression. As others said, without looking at the kanji at all, and simply the keyword, see what pops into your head. What I do is just look at the keyword, and all the images that immediately come to mind without thinking of anything at all, I write down. I then look at the primitives, and only then do I start to create my story. Doing anything else results in working against the grain of your brain (ooh, I can rhyme!), and thus creating a craptastic story that'll be forgotten within the week.