What’s Our Story?

It seemed appropriate to end the “What’s -?- Story?” posts with one aimed at actually writing one.

Maybe you’d like to tell your story, be it in a short post or a long book, or something in between.  But you’re not quite sure where to begin.

First, give some thought as to who’ll read your story: your audience.  Family and/or friends?  Your blog, social media, and/or website followers?  The public?  Do you want the story to be narrated by yourself or would you like to present it as a tale of fiction?

**  Determine your audience.  Decide how to relate your story.  **

Next, pick up a pen or sit at the keyboard, an audio recorder, or a combination thereof, and start.  Record what you’d like your story to entail, what to share and how to communicate it.  Is there a message?  Do you have something you’d like people to learn about or from?  Are there life lessons?  Or maybe you’d simply like to entertain?

**  Start by summarizing your story/life into three-four sentences.  That’s your focus, your description . . . your blurb, as it were.  **

Do an outline and don’t worry about the flow; you can determine how it should progress (timeline/timeframe) later and delete and rearrange accordingly.  In terms of incidents and events, and memories, you can always consult with family members and friends.  Their remembrances may vary and that’s a good thing—it’s called perspective.  Maybe you have some journals/diaries stuffed in drawers?  They’ll help tweak memories.  Old photos?  Use them, if only to fine-tune recollections.

**  Write down critical/essential junctures (two, five, ten, twenty) in your life that are crucial to your story.  They’ll help shape the narrative.  Whether you use them all is ultimately up to you.  **

If your story leans toward heartrending or sad, or tragic, you may want to add a few happy or cheering moments/events.  I don’t know about you, but I’m a “sobber”, a multi-tissue-box kinda gal.  It’s tough on the eyes and nose to always be bawling and blowing.  Prompting a laugh or two—even a smile—is a welcome break.

**  Give thought to what you’re sharing and why.  Maybe it’s a personal purge.  Nothing wrong with that.  Maybe lessons you learned would help others.  That’s noble.  Contemplate how tragic/emotional/funny/life-changing the story should be . . . how much you want—and are willing—to reveal.  **

This post could easily go on for several pages or be divided into a few. There’s a lot of “advice” to be provided re outline steps, narrative, writing “rules”, and the list goes on (and on).  Perhaps I’ll do that at some point but, for today, I just wanted to provide some food-for-thought ideas re you getting started on your [amazing] story.

[Looking forward to reading it!]

Author: tylerus

I'm primarily a writer of fiction and blog posts, and a sometimes editor and proofreader of books, manuals, and film/television scripts. Fact-checking and researching, organizing and coordinating are skills and joys (I enjoy playing detective and developing structure). My fiction audience: lovers of female-sleuth mysteries. My genres of preference: mysteries (needless to say), women’s fiction, informative and helpful “affirmative” non-fiction. So-o, here I am, staring up a new blog for aspiring and established e-Book writers. The plan: to share the (long) journey of getting to this stage, and share "learnings" and "teachings". There's a lot I hope to accomplish with this blog, but it may be a while before that happens as there's a lot on the ol' plate - taking care of Mom, working full-time, and attempting to get another book in the Triple Threat Investigation Agency series written (never mind blog postings and other writing projects). It's very challenging and it's all good. As I like to say: teeny focused baby steps are just as effective as long forceful strides. It may take a little longer, but we will get there. View all posts by tylerus