Prompts are the foundation of the storytelling journey
Remento is a storytelling platform that transforms voice recordings into a professionally written, hardcover book. It's designed for families who want to preserve personal stories without asking anyone to write them down.
With Remento, the storyteller receives weekly prompts to share memories by speaking. The system turns these spoken memories into edited, written stories. Later, they are printed into a full-color, hardcover book that can be shared with future generations.
How to add prompts in Remento
Prompts are added and managed from the prompt page of your Remento project. You can build the queue in any way that works for your family. Here’s how prompt selection works.
You can write a completely custom prompt. Just click "Write a prompt" and type your own question. For example, “Tell me about summer 2020 at East Grand Lake.” This is ideal if there’s a specific memory or time period you want to hear more about.
You can select from Remento’s suggested questions. These are drawn from a list of the most frequently answered prompts across the platform. They’ve been shown to consistently unlock detailed stories.
You can generate personalized questions by answering a few brief questions about your storyteller. Based on your input, Remento will recommend prompts tailored to your storyteller’s background, relationships, and life events.
You can also choose from a large bank of expert-crafted prompts. These have been developed by Remento’s in-house team and refined through use. They cover a wide range of topics. An example might be, “What’s the best thing you ever purchased with your childhood allowance?”
Each of these options can be used individually or together, depending on what matters most to your family.
Using photos as story starters
Remento also supports photo-based prompts. You can upload a photo, edit the accompanying question, and add it to the prompt queue. For example, you might upload a photo from your parents’ wedding day, then write, “What’s happening in this photo and what makes it so special?”
Photos work especially well with older storytellers. They often bring back memories that aren’t easily retrieved by general questions. Images create immediate emotional context, which leads to richer stories.
Managing the prompt queue
Once you’ve added prompts, you can rearrange their order by dragging them up or down the list. You can also click any prompt to edit its wording, swap the attached photo, or revise the framing.
If you want to begin recording immediately, you can choose “Send now” or “Record now” on any prompt. This lets you bypass the weekly scheduling system when needed.
Prompts are delivered one at a time. Storytellers receive them by email or text, depending on their preferences. From there, recording is simple. No login is required. No app is needed. One tap begins the process.
What makes prompts work
You do not need to find the perfect prompt. The value comes from steady participation, not from getting every question exactly right. Prompts work best when they are specific, emotionally grounded, and open-ended. The goal is not to extract information, but to invite reflection and memory.
Over time, prompts help build trust in the process. Storytellers become more comfortable. Stories become more detailed. The book begins to take shape.
And when the final printed version arrives, it will be clear that every story started with a well-placed prompt.