There is no indication in the database, and no means to do so within the current interface to differentiate whether a story came from your own mind, or whether it was copied from another user. There were a few discussions about this months ago. It is quite tricky. You could edit your own story, and still used an idea you saw somewhere, would that count as your own or not? To keep track of this there would have to be a checkbox, say, that the user checks to say "this story is based on a mental association of my own, and not suggested by another member's story, or anything else that did not come straight to my mind".

Technically it's possible to compare edited stories, and find how many stories are being copied. Once I tried to write a script that matches the original author for a story and I was surprised to see a great number of private stories were duplicates of the published ones. But many are edited, so you need some kind of string comparison that accounts for small differences. Then you could run some stats but that would give you numbers which would be estimates at best.

I think the ones that work better according to Heisig, are the mental associations that come to your mind without any external suggestion. But often times you can draw blanks doing this. Instead of being frustrated, using other stories can be nearly as effective.

Something to keep in mind is that you may also simply spend more time or give more attention to a story of your own. It's something I often think about with this website and the coming Trinity : if the program automates too many tasks, then the user is less likely to pay attention. So there's the danger of clicking "copy story", read it once, and move on and thinking that was enough.

I think most efficient is a combination of both, use stories available if one didn't come to mind within a minute or so, but then adapt the stories with your own memory associations. The shared stories are there to "spark" your imagination, I think that's the main difficulty people have and where it helps. Often if you are stuck in the "logic" brain mode, mental associations don't come easily. Tony Buzan explains that in his mind maps book and gives some simple mental association exercises to do a "right brain/visual side of the brain" warmup...

Heisig's technique for memorization is nothing new. It is his application of those techniques to a systematic study of kanji which makes the system what it is.

The "Ars memoriae", written in 85 BC, describes similar techniques to remember lists of items or speeches. In this case the items are memorized in order using the memory of a physical journey, placing each item along the way. We dispense with the journey as kanji aren't usually complex enough to warrant one but of course that could be used too.

The point of these techniques is that the memory must make sense to you. Just copying and pasting stories is replacing rote memorization of kanji with rote memorization of stories, which makes no sense. I am not far along into the course (15% or so) but I have previously disregarded stories from the book in favor of my own. For example, to me 呈 is not some king having birds come out of his mouth (eh? never understood that one) but rather a king spitted and cooked upright (mouth above), presented/displayed to a gang by their leader. 鉢 is not a bowl in which I mash books to a pulp (god forbid! love them too much), but rather a giant golden bowl in a palace in which people drop books for a book exchange. These stories resonate with me and so are easy to remember.

Of course you have to be careful; don't change keywords, and if you encounter a keyword later that conflicts with one of your stories you will have to rework the original story.

The easiest stories to remember will be those that excite your imagination. They may be gruesome or obscene, but they're meant for your own personal use, not for others to look over and criticize. They don't have to make sense to anyone but you, and they have to be memorable (of course). If you find you have problems remembering a character, often that will be because the story behind it is not memorable enough. Make it more intense, change it entirely if needed. 車 should never be "a span traversed by a stick" but an actual story or at least a clear visual memory. To me it is the long span of a day, spent driving down a straight desert road in a car. I am still careful to see the road as a visual element of a line so I don't confuse myself and start including 直 or the bottom part of 道.

That doesn't mean you can't use other's stories. Just be sure they form a natural association for you, modify them slightly if you need to, or even rewrite them entirely. There aren't any rules except that it must work for you, and it must work reliably.

I suggest you take a trip down the local library and see if they have any books by Dominic O'Brien. His books on memory technique are quite good and sure to provide you with insights on how to better remember anything. The techniques to memorize kanji make a lot of sense after that.

I tend to find that I'm pretty successful using other people's stories, but to do so I need to sit back and come up with a full visual image for it in my own mind.  I actually kept track of my time last night, and it looks like even with using other people's stories for a good number of kanji, I still spend ~3-4 minutes/kanji.

One major problem I've discovered, though, is stories where certain elements are left out, or where you miss them as you read the story.  I've found many memorable stories here that are missing elements (or are perhaps using an association for a primitive that I haven't used.)  Because the story is so immediately memorable, I often miss this.  It does become very obvious the first time you do a review and are left with a big void in your memory.  You know there was something else in this kanji, yet you feel like you've already traversed the whole mental image.

Some stories are too logical and may give you the false impression that they will work great. Any story that sounds really logical should be taken as a clear "WARNING" sign. You're very likely using the wrong side of the brain, and the image, if anything came to mind, will not last more than a few days. Hence Heisig's recommendation to steer away from the temptation of "normal" stories. That's one kind of stories that can look immediately appealing, and can be misleading too, because chances are you WILL see an image in your mind, but it's something so mundane, that the image itself will not have been linked to the primitives in any way.

Maybe one way to explain this is the well-known fact that the brain filters out lots of material from your attention. If you take the same walk everyday to the bus, you no longer pay attention to the houses, the shops, etc.

scrout wrote:

I still spend ~3-4 minutes/kanji.

That sounds about right. Om average I spent 5-10 minutes per kanji for the second half of the book. I didn't have this site, and I was often staring in the dark and drawing complete blanks.