I'm new to RTK, and I'm just now at kanji #165 or so. I'm wondering if I would be doing myself a service or a disservice if I ignore Heisig's mnemonic stories and replace them with my own. Heisig says to stick with his stories for the *primitives*, because they are used many times throughout the rest of the book. I've been doing that so far.

But for the majority of the kanji--the non-primitive kanji--is there any danger of confusion in using my own stories? Some of Heisig's ideas and terminology are a bit dated and strange at times. (Actually, I really LOVE the stories on this site; there's always a few good ones to choose from on each kanji)

Apologies if this is an obvious, repeat question.

I didn't use a single one of Heisig's stories. I didn't use a single one of my own stories, either. I just shamelessly yanked them all from the study section here, and it turned out fine in the end.

I second that. Some of the people on this site are really gifted at making the stories. They're almost always better than the ones in the book. I've made very few of my own stories, because others are so much better than I am at making them up.

Do pay attention to what kinds of stories work for you, though. If you find that certain patterns or types work better, you may want to rework some stories to fit your patterns. For example, I have an easier time remembering stories that have the keyword before the primitive words, so I'll often rework stories to get that.

zardoz73 Wrote:Heisig says to stick with his stories for the *primitives*, because they are used many times throughout the rest of the book.

Does he? I got the impression that mostly he doesn't bother to come up with stories for primitives, because you get so much reinforcement of them anyway. Anyway, IMHO the thing you need to be cautious about changing are the keywords (for primitives or kanji). Heisig's stories are no better or worse than many of the ones people have suggested here.

I just had to review the 298 Keyword and this thread seemed to be a good place to congratulate Kurisu for his

100 STAR STORY

(the 100st star given by me of course

because this story is absolutely hilarious and helped me remember that the primitives have to be on top of each other and not next to each other.

101 now.