So this is a three part question:

At first when I began doing Heisig, my cards (the old fashioned kind) would have the kanji AND the story on one side, and then the keyword on the other. It seemed that you would need to remember the stories and the character based on a keyword, to remember them both. But Heisig suggests that you keep the story along with the keyword. It seems like this is kind of giving the answer away, but I think I know why he suggests that. Before I say my opinion, I wanted to hear what other people think about on is why you should review Keyword+story=>kanji rather than Keyword=>Kanji+story. In other words, why you don't need to memorize the stories themselves.

On a similar note, when during the review process (with an SRS) should you add a story to a certain card? Obviously, you don't need to add it to every card, but only to the ones that you have trouble with. Do you think after one failure? Two failures? What about with an older card? Would it be better to add the stories as soon as you review the card, or is it better to wait until after your reviews for the day are finished (i.e. mark the card and move on)? Any opinions on the best method? I'm using Anki, btw.

Finally, regarding stories, what makes a good story? Sometimes, i think with the stories I make, I just try to pack all the elements (primitives and keyword) together a way come up with an image that links all the elements of the kanji together-more of an image or a concept than a story. I think i may be trying to shortcut the story making process too much, but I can't really figure out what exactly it is that makes my stories that don't work differ from the really good stories on this website that do. Obviously, the only test of a good story is whether it helps to remember the kanji or not, but I think that good stories probably have something in common. What is that exactly?

Thanks for the help!
Benzhi

Last edited by Benzhi (2008 November 30, 3:48 am)