The Art of Writing an Event Report

Having an event report—a written and published account of what happened at an event—is helpful in many ways.  An event report preserves history for future generations, tells a story of great deeds that happened, encourages participation to future events, and at the least, is a filler for your local newsletter or website.  Sometimes these reports are written out, sometimes they aren’t.  Writing out an event report is something easily accomplished with a little know-how and some effort.

Crafting a good event report is telling a story; your story.  With some determination, some skill, and some ideas anybody can write a report of a past event down on paper and get it published.  Writing an event report is easy to do once you have an idea on what you should write down and present to the rest of the populace.

I first started writing event reports when I couldn’t find historical items from more than three years ago in my local group.  I was planning the tenth anniversary of our barony and was looking for ideas on what activities to have, and, figuring that delving into the past was a good start I explored many avenues… and found nothing that was helpful.  Besides dubious apocrypha and some old event notices I didn’t have much to go on.  I told myself that day that things had to change.

"Crafting a good event report is telling a story; your story."

How to Get Started

Write your thoughts down on paper, preferably at the event; what do you want to write about, what interesting things are happening, and so forth.  Keep notes of what is going on, fun things that you have heard or seen, and other items that would be interesting to future generations.  You can quickly get started by creating an outline of what you want to write about—this serves as a “cheat sheet”.  This outline you create is simply a tool and often times you will see sections move, separate, or even get added to other sections during the actual writing process.  This is perfectly fine, as the outline is simply a tool and not the final product.

Writing your initial thoughts and ideas down in a notebook is preferable to an electronic device.  Not only does this help preserve the medieval atmosphere of an event by not using technology but also it takes longer to write something down on paper and you are more likely to put more thought and effort into it.

What to Include in an Event Report

When writing an event report you may want to include key items to help make your story a more useful and interesting one.  Items that are particularly important to include are:  Awards that were given out, tournament information (such as the style of the tournament, who won, and the entrants to the list fields), the storyline of the event (if any), what competitions were going on and who won them, any feast information such as the menu or entertainment, any historical basis for the event (most notably if it is based off a local level historical activity or perhaps one from history), and any memorable happenings such as a new squire or the elevation of a Peer.

 You can include other items that you find interesting as the above are just ideas and what I usually include in event reports.  Adding these items in to your event report help tell your story and give as much information as possible so that somebody who didn’t attend the event can learn what happened and perhaps be inspired.

Where to Get Your Resources

Besides your own personal notes of the event there are many resources to use when writing an event report.  From missives, websites, and even Facebook or your local Email groups; good information is out there to find—you just have to explore.

Sometimes you will find a missive from the Royalty or the Autocrat for the event.  These items sometimes have good information for you; who won a tournament or what happened.   Another good source that I use often is the Awards page on the kingdom website.  If awards were given, even for a baronial level event, this is where to find them and the recipient’s name.  Another source that will help you is the event copy.  The event copy will tell you what was planned, when and where the event was held, and who was the Autocrat.  Although this information may differ from what actually happened the event copy is a great place to start.

Don’t be afraid to ask the Autocrat of the event if there was a storyline involved with the event or if the event was based off a historical (either world history or group history) activity.  Sometimes the storyline of the event gets lost in translation at an event and asking the Autocrat for more information is always a good idea if the story wasn’t clear.

Crafting the Event Report

I usually start by writing out a rough plan and work from there.  Many, if not all, of my event reports are done chronologically as I have found that is the best way to talk about what happened.  I go from the opening court to the final court and write about everything in between.  I write out an outline and work from there.  Your outline is only a tool, so feel free to move things around or add or subtract from the outline.

"Your outline is only a tool."

Start writing.  This advice seems simple enough, but all of those great ideas go to waste if you don’t start writing it.  Compose your first draft and don’t worry about spelling errors or wrong grammatical choices.  Your rough draft is just that, rough.  The goal is to get your ideas and thoughts onto paper as soon as possible.

When you think you are done with your rough draft start going through your document and fix those blunders; odd sentences, grammatical mistakes, and fix those spelling errors while you are at it.  From here, you will find that you want to add something else, combine sentences or paragraphs, or perhaps delete some instead.  Take the time to rework your rough draft and do it well.

You will go through this process several times; trust me on this.

After you think you are done send the event report to a friend to have them look over it.  By this time you have looked over the event report a hundred times and will want a new set of eyes to look it over for you.  After your friend sends the document back to you with remarks and corrections, make those improvements and put the document away for a day—sleep on it.  The next day take a look at your work and decide if you need to go back again and fix more errors.  If not, congratulations—you are done!

Thoughtful Inclusions to Any Event Report

Adding something other than just the raw information or story in an Event report is a good idea.  From photographs to quotes the inclusion of these items adds extra character and style to any written report.  Including these items turns your event report from bland to exciting.

Include Names.  The correct spelling of a name, along with a title (such as Lord, Master, Prince, and so on) is always preferable.  These people worked hard to pass their names through the College of Heralds or get those titles and should be honored thusly.  Take the time to look up the correct spelling of their name, such as on kingdom websites or even on their Facebook page or other missives sent.  Also, when mentioning them for the first time in a missive I usually include their full name.  for example, Lord Charles Woodward the Wooden Headed is mentioned several times in a missive, after the first time I refer to him as Lord Charles Woodward.  This is simply so that we know which Charles is being written about, but we don’t necessarily need to know his full name.

Including Photographs.  For smaller events, such as baronial level activities, I include between three to five photographs if possible.  These photos can usually be found uploaded to Facebook or can be attained from your friendly local photographer who was at the event.  Always be sure to include who took the photograph and some information about the photo that your present.  For example:  “Baron Halfdan bestows the Order of the Gules Claymore, an award for service, to Lady Angelique at Selviergard’s Yule.  December 7, 2016.  Photograph by Charles Woodward the Wooden Headed.“  If the photograph was submitted by a person and you do not know who took the photo, replace “Photograph by” with “Submitted by.”

When adding photographs try to choose something interesting that fits in with the story you are telling.  Good placement in the document is key as well.  If you are talking about baronial court try to find a picture of somebody receiving an award in that court—don’t use a photograph of the tournament.  The photographs that you use will help tell the story so finding a good one that fits in to the event report is important.

Including Quotes. Sometimes I like to include quotes, usually at the beginning of the event report and sometimes near the conclusion of the event report itself.  Adding a quote, or several quotes, adds extra flair to your event report and, when done correctly, looks amazing.  A good quote is usually one or two sentences, but depending on what is being said you might decide to add another sentence or two…keep it short.  You can usually get quotes in three ways:  snippets heard at the event, gleaned from post-event missives, or creatively faked quotes.

Quotes heard should reflect the idea of the event or exemplify something that happened.  Doing this type of quote means you need to be listening and you need to have a pen and paper with you to capture the sentence.  Write down the quote as accurately as possible and write down the name of the person speaking.  It is an extremely good idea to get the person’s permission to publish the quote—not necessary but defiantly a good idea.

Quotes gleaned from post-event missives is quite easy; simply find a sentence or two that conveys the feeling of the event.  The person writing it is the person that you are quoting.  I have done this many times with my event reports even if it is from a missive from myself either as autocrat of the event and have even used a quote from the “thank you” missive from the Queen of the West.

Creatively faking a quote is fun and this is something I will do from time to time especially if I want a quote but forget to write them down or didn’t hear one at the event itself.  For one event report I came up with a quote that I could have said and added that to the event report (even though I didn’t say it but probably thought it) and it turned out to be a quite nice addition to the event write up.  Faked quotes should always follow the rules of the other quotes you use: it shouldn’t be embarrassing to any individual and should only exemplify and glorify the event.  Additionally, faked quotes should only be “sourced” as from you, or an unknown person, or even from a “forgotten document lost to time.”

"Quotes should reflect the idea of the event or exemplify something that happened"

A note on using quotes:  do not quote something that was said in private or that could be considered rude or embarrassing.  These items should not be included in the event report as you are trying to write about the best possible aspects of the event.  Only use positive, fun, or quirky quotes that help advance the ideas of The Society.

When to Write an Event Report

It is best to start writing the event report as soon as you can as you can write about an event easily while it is still fresh in your mind.  Helpful tricks include taking notes at events, writing things down in a notebook when you get home.  Plan on writing an event report no more than two weeks after the event.  No worries if the event report will not get done by the time a newsletter is published; take your time to create something noteworthy.

Who to Send the Event Report To

Once you have completed the event report, now it is time to share it.  The first person to send it to is the local chronicler for inclusion into your local newsletter.  Your Chronicler will thank you.  Additionally, sending the information to a historian, either kingdom level or local level (or both is always good).  This ensures that the information is saved for future generations even if for some reason it wasn’t included in the newsletter.

Always keep a copy of your event report.  I usually save mine not only to my personal computer backup hard drives as well.  You could also save them to a blog to save it online if so desired.  Backing up your event report is important as sometimes your work may not appear in a publication or website and if you have a backup it is much easier to resend the information than to rewrite it again if needed.

Conclusion

By writing event reports you preserve your local history and help to ensure that the Chronicler is happy.  Rest assured that your contributions to The Society are noted and appreciated.  It may take some work in the beginning to craft that event report but the end result is always the same; an event report you can be proud of a great resource in the future.

Do you need to be the Autocrat of the event to write an event report?  Not necessarily.  In some cases the Autocrat may write out a report and publish it so check with the Autocrat of the event to see if they were going to write something out.  If you have a smaller group, you may already know if event reports are being written or not so go ahead and write them with style.