I often hear people say, “I feel like I have a story to tell.” Then, they go on to share how they don’t know where to begin, what to include, how to organize it, etc.
In today’s episode, I walk you through some clear steps on how to get your story down (and it doesn’t mean starting with your birth story!). Here are some highlights:
- don’t hold back, get it all down
- look for patterns and themes that might group your stories
- don’t worry about chronology or time
- capture feelings as well as what was happening
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[00:00:00] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is the MESH.
[00:00:08] I feel like I have a story to tell. I hear this quite often from people when they find
[00:00:15] out that I'm a writing coach and in today's episode of The Written Compass, I want to
[00:00:20] support you in some very clear practical ways that you can start to tell your stories,
[00:00:25] to get your story down and start to send it towards what might be a potential chapter or a book.
[00:00:32] So excited you're here, let's get started.
[00:00:38] Hello everyone! I'm super excited to be here, another episode of The Written Compass.
[00:00:44] How are you? How are things going? How is your writing going? What are you working on?
[00:00:49] I always like to hear from people who had someone recently say,
[00:00:53] hey I've been following your podcast. It's really been supporting me. I don't even know where to begin
[00:00:58] to tell you what's been going on with my words and my writing but they have felt inspired. So
[00:01:03] what is standing out to you? What are you working on? I always want to hear. And don't forget if
[00:01:08] you ever want to get connected and just have a really low stakes way to be in the flow of your
[00:01:13] writing, then make sure you head to our Writing as Healing community, shanaheartman.com
[00:01:18] slash writing as healing. And it's just a really nice way to have some support on a weekly basis for
[00:01:25] kickstarting your week, being in your writing flow. If you remember a couple episodes ago,
[00:01:29] we talked about writing as a tool for healing and that space is for that. And then of course,
[00:01:34] as always if you are ready to start to head towards a publication of some sort, whether
[00:01:40] that be contributing to one of our collaborative books or your own book in particular, we definitely
[00:01:45] want to talk to you. But in today's episode, it is all about how to tell your story. So part of
[00:01:53] what a lot of people who are just writing to write or starting to feel that tug around writing their
[00:01:58] book, they'll often say like, I feel like I have a story to tell. I feel like I have things to
[00:02:02] share or I recently met someone and they were talking about how everyone they kind of run into
[00:02:09] says man, you really need to get your story out there. People really need to hear
[00:02:13] what your life has been like and what your journey has been like. And then typically what happens
[00:02:17] after they have that initial like excitement is they go on to share, they don't know where to begin,
[00:02:22] they don't even know how to start that. They certainly don't have ideas about, you know,
[00:02:27] how would they put it in a book? And then all of the publication questions and all that good
[00:02:31] stuff. So in today's episode, I really want to kind of walk through some clear, hopefully
[00:02:38] aligned steps. You get to take what resonates and leave what doesn't on how to get your story down.
[00:02:44] And the most important thing that I think people when they start to go, I want to tell my story
[00:02:49] is they feel like they need to go all the way back to the beginning and like their birth
[00:02:54] story. And if you're anything like me, my mother calls me every birthday, my birthday is
[00:02:58] January 11th. I won't tell you the year I was born. But let's just say I'm Gen X for sure.
[00:03:05] And she says, depending on the time of call, right about now I was walking around the hospital,
[00:03:13] right? And she goes into like telling and retelling my birth story, which I love in a door.
[00:03:17] And I will not be writing about that. That is not where I need to begin. So a lot of people think
[00:03:24] when they tell their story, they need to start back at the beginning, the beginning of their
[00:03:29] life, the beginning of you know, wherever the beginning means for them. And I just want to
[00:03:34] kind of lovingly gently remove that that's a bit of a myth. And that is not true. So where
[00:03:42] is a good place to start? So first is just remembering we want to when you're feeling
[00:03:47] that tug to start to write things down or start to share your story, or maybe you've already
[00:03:52] been writing things down, we want to just get it down, right? Get it all down whatever it may
[00:03:58] be. And really don't hold back, don't sense of yourself. And one day you may be writing about
[00:04:04] something in one particular part of your life. And then the next day you may be writing about
[00:04:09] something that happened, you know, three minutes ago. So whether it was 15 years ago or three
[00:04:13] minutes ago, just continue to get it down and don't hold back. That is kind of step number one.
[00:04:20] Now, as you are beginning to write, you might start to notice or I want to encourage you
[00:04:26] to start to notice next step is to start to look for patterns and themes around these stories that
[00:04:33] you're sharing. So let's say I have a memory of maybe how we used to begin every soccer game when
[00:04:40] I played at East Carolina University. There were certain things and parts of that that are
[00:04:45] really important to my story. And we used to do this warm up drill, we kind of called it
[00:04:51] organized chaos, where everyone was sort of doing their own thing or in pairs, but we were all doing
[00:04:57] it together at the same time. That makes sense. So it was organized and it was not. And that idea
[00:05:04] of organized chaos is something that has become kind of a pattern or a theme for me and how I
[00:05:10] approach a lot of things in life. And so if I'm seeing myself kind of writing some stories
[00:05:17] that I'm noticing, there's something about these things that seem to link together,
[00:05:22] then I might start to try to notice what those patterns are. I might start to give them a little
[00:05:27] bit of a name or if you're someone who's visual, a fun thing to do is to kind of color code.
[00:05:34] So maybe with my organized chaos idea, maybe I highlight those stories and I wouldn't highlight
[00:05:41] all the words because visually that would be overwhelming to me. But you do you, I might
[00:05:46] highlight the beginning or the first couple of lines or if I gave it a little title, I might
[00:05:50] highlight the title in let's just say a yellow color, right? And you might start to see, hmm,
[00:05:56] okay, there's all these yellows, hmm, there's all these greens, hmm, there's all these blues.
[00:06:00] And that might indicate some groupie that could happen where things start to form and create
[00:06:07] a little bit of shape. So first step is don't hold back, get it all down, write something,
[00:06:15] write it often. The second is to start to very loosely look for patterns and themes. And I think
[00:06:21] you can do this as you are writing so you don't need to feel like I've written all the stories,
[00:06:26] I've shared all the things, I've done all of my experiences, they are down and then go back,
[00:06:31] you can kind of do it, you'll start to feel it as you are writing. And then the next step
[00:06:36] and the next tip really is don't worry about chronology, don't worry about time. This does not
[00:06:43] have to go in a chronological order, this does not have to go in a age order, if that does not make
[00:06:51] sense. Now, as you are pulling things together, creating patterns, themes and starting to group
[00:06:56] your stories and experiences, if you notice that part of that theme is, hmm, this is like
[00:07:03] early childhood or adolescence, this is early adulthood, right? This is middle age, this is later.
[00:07:11] If those make sense and those feel aligned, then certainly use that as a grouping, but it is not
[00:07:15] a have to. There are plenty of books and examples where they are the stories are
[00:07:21] thematized not by chronology, not by time, not by age, but simply by the lessons or
[00:07:28] the kind of overall so what that the person writing about them was experiencing at the time.
[00:07:37] And then my fourth and final tip is to really make sure you're capturing the feelings
[00:07:42] as well as the play by play or the what's happening. So I've talked before on this podcast
[00:07:48] about play by play versus color commentary, and I've kind of used the analogy of a sports
[00:07:54] caster. And usually there's someone who gives the play by play and tells you, you know,
[00:07:58] the ball went from Hartman to Smith from Smith to Johnson, right? And tells you what is happening
[00:08:03] on the court on the field, etc. And then usually you have the color commentary person who's
[00:08:09] giving the story, giving the details, giving the dialogue of what that player said before
[00:08:14] the game or something they noticed during the game or some historical element about them
[00:08:20] as a person. We want to ultimately we're offering the reader an experience, we want them to feel
[00:08:28] what we want them to feel or maybe what we were feeling in the moment. So you want to make sure
[00:08:32] as you are writing just in terms of the type of writing and the details is that you're capturing
[00:08:38] the feelings it's not so much about when we say we want to tell our story. It's not so much
[00:08:43] about the play by play of the experience that's important and can be powerful. But it's what
[00:08:50] happened because of that or how we felt or what we were experiencing, how we label that and see that
[00:08:58] now that is really going to draw the reader in readers will put their own story in it. It's
[00:09:05] not that we our story is exactly the same as someone else's and maybe they've experienced,
[00:09:10] you know, some heartbreak or tragedy in the ways that we have. But the feeling that has come from
[00:09:17] it or what we learned from it, that's really what's going to draw the reader in. So you want to make
[00:09:22] sure you're including that. So how do we get our story down? Right? First of all, letting go of
[00:09:28] the myth that you have to start at birth or some particular time in your life. It's not about
[00:09:34] that. But I want you to first don't hold back, get it all down. Don't censor yourself. You
[00:09:39] don't need to worry about what needs to happen or what gets included or not in the final chapter
[00:09:44] or book or whatever you are working on. Second is as you're writing, I like to do this as I'm
[00:09:50] writing, start to look for patterns and themes that might show how these stories group together
[00:09:56] in some way and do whatever you need to do to label those. Don't worry too much if that's
[00:10:02] an accurate label or not at this moment. Someone else can support you in that,
[00:10:06] but just start to label them and make sure you can understand your labels.
[00:10:10] And then don't worry about chronology. Don't worry about time. It doesn't have to go in order. You
[00:10:15] don't have to go sleuthing and remember, okay, and this happened in sixth grade or this happened
[00:10:20] when I was 13 and this happened when I was 14 and so on and so forth. It's not so much about
[00:10:25] time. It's again about the story and the experience. And then finally, to go along
[00:10:29] with that we want to make sure we are capturing our feelings as much if not more so than the
[00:10:35] play by play of what is happening in that particular element of our story. So these are
[00:10:41] just some simple, I hope, impractical tools on how you can start to get your story down.
[00:10:47] I'm curious what of these you have used before or what of these are resonating with you? Which
[00:10:52] ones do you want to try? And certainly I want to hear about it if you do try. I want to
[00:10:56] hear what worked for you, what other things you realize were important. This is not an
[00:11:01] end-all be-all list. These are just some things that as we've worked with clients, as I've done my
[00:11:06] own writing, we have found very helpful and supportive in getting our story down and telling
[00:11:11] our story. So I look forward to hearing from you and seeing what resonated as always. We want
[00:11:16] you to share this with people who you want to hear their story. So thank you so much for
[00:11:21] joining me today and I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode
[00:11:27] of The Written Compass. If you are enjoying this content, do me a favor and go and review the podcast.
[00:11:34] This allows me to share and get these messages out to the people who really need them, who we want
[00:11:39] to read their books in the future. You can also go and share your thoughts and tag me
[00:11:45] at shaynaheartman underscore on Instagram. Again, this is just a way for us to get
[00:11:50] connected and share the writing love. And if you know that you are ready to write your
[00:11:56] book, that message that's been burning inside of you for a long time, then I want to talk to you.
[00:12:02] My team and I want to talk to you. Head on over to shaynaheartman.com and click work with us.
[00:12:07] From there, you'll see an application to explore and see if writing your book is your next best step.
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