What’s Your Story About? (Some Notes between Posts)

I love this LinkedIn post from Justine Hart. I have a few blog posts of my own along these lines planned over the next month (as it relates to memoir and personal narrative), so for now I'll just observe that the problem Justine observes in scripts is precisely what Vivian Gornick spends so much time exploring in her book. Writing often suffers (especially writing about the self) when the author declines the tricky work of unearthing the fundamental "about" that is buried beneath a basic chain of events.

I respect the autonomy of writers who believe that a chronicle of events is the whole story: "Here is a river in my life, and here is how I jumped over it." Sometimes that truly is all they want or need to tell.

At the same time, a lot of the really transformative, memorable storytelling doesn't settle for reporting cosmetic alterations to a physical situation ("I was on the south bank; now I am on the north bank"). Instead, it seizes the occasion presented by the river to investigate and challenge the writer's relationship to themselves and/or to the larger world. The story tracks how attitudes and awareness evolve in conversation with that river. ("I thought I was a wolf who was hungry for deer and had lost the scent, but it turns out I am a fish who just needs a little algae", or "I thought I wanted to get a suntan in that meadow, but now I see that I resent having to rebuild the cabin my neighbors burnt down, and the thought of crossing the river to relax distracts me from doing work I don't want to do.")

Like I said, I plan to dig into this stuff more in the near future. Meanwhile, if you are a communicator of any stripe, reflect on a time when you looked more closely at an experience instead of taking it at face value. What was that process like for you, and did you notice a difference in how someone you shared that story with responded?

And remember: deeper writing like this isn't only more rewarding for readers; it's often more rewarding for you, too.