Just say what happened (like it’s that easy)

It’s the hardest thing in the world for me to tell stories. 

Wuuuut? You’re a writer though. 

I know, right? It’s been a very strange thing to find this out.

I mean, when it comes to recounting things verbally, forget it. I developed into a writer largely because my conversational prowess has never been high on the list of gifts. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to tell stories on the page and am finding it equally daunting, but for different reasons. I’m recounting some powerful experiences that I hope will eventually come together as a memoir and, I have to say, the process is a bit like stacking up pages of glorified notes. The language is (according to my inner critic) lackluster. Sentences are truncated. Tenses don’t match. References are inconsistent. There isn’t a metaphor in sight. I’m not even sure that they hang together as stories. 

And yet the handful of people I’ve shared these pages with have gobbled them up and are already hungry for more. They refer to my meanderings as stories, and to me as a storyteller. It’s hard to believe, given how little relative effort—apart from the hours put in clacking away on this keyboard—this is taking. 

All I’m doing is saying what happened. It’s weird how impactful it is proving—to my readers and to me. 

When a tale appears

On reflection I see this happening all the time in Soul Writing groups. We writers craft glorious metaphors, journey deep into feeling, ride trains of thought through a day or moment. We paint landscapes of our backyards, still lives of the geodes on our shelves, watercolors of our dreams. This makes sense: with ten minutes or less to write from a prompt we just heard, usually we start in the middle of a thought, or with an object three feet away. And gosh is it gorgeous.

And, sometimes, woven through all this rich imagery and head-spinning wisdom, appears a memory. A story. We listeners are treated to a tale from the first grade school bus, an anecdote from the previous afternoon, a recounting of a sibling’s wedding, a series of scenes from a deathbed. The story has a beginning, middle and at least points to an end. We learn what happened, then what happened next, then what happened next. 

We are a celebratory bunch, but I tell you what, whenever this occurs—whenever an intact memory pops through onto the page—the crowd goes particularly wild. 

We love stories. Why? 

Beauty and wisdom aside, it’s the unadorned truth of what happened that connects us soul-to-soul. When we ourselves want to be seen, we look to stories. We look for a scrap of humanity to corroborate our own. We look to the truth of someone else’s experience to braid into ours, strengthening the fiber of our being, assuring us we’re not alone. Nothing I’ve found does this quite like memoir.

Yes, there’s beautiful writing, there’s lyrical writing, there’s complex writing, there’s well-structured writing, there’s cinematic writing. All of this is good writing. 

And there are stories that come through in plainly as we can tell them. This—no matter how lyrical or complex or beautiful or well-structured or cinematic—is stunning writing. We’re stunned by the story, not by the style.

This is within reach for all of us who long to write. All we need to do is say what happened. That’s it. 

But it’s so. Freaking. Hard. 

I long to be comforted by the relative simplicity of the task at hand. All my readers (and my soul!) are asking of me is to say what happened, and yet I find myself gripped by my lifelong habit of doing anything but. It’s always been far easier to coast over my own experience and get right to the lesson. 

I mean, look at what’s happening here, what almost always happens in my essays: I offer a tidbit of experience, and then decide that I’ve said enough, back up a few thousand yards to take the broader view, make connections, present analysis, proffer advice. Anything, anything but sitting a moment longer with facts and memories and regrets and cringes. Anything but continuing to wade through the grief of lost people and chances—or even revisiting moments of sheer delight or triumph that will never look quite that way again. 

Plus, as in life, the true stories don't always end (or even begin) the way we’d prefer. We can’t make ourselves more noble or kinder or better looking than we were in that moment. When we say what happened we’re actually surrendering control over the narrative. Which seems easier on a practical level: we’re not managing or even conjuring anything. We’re simply transcribing. Still, it’s not an attractive prospect to not be fully in command of the story being told.

I think that’s why my critic judges this kind of writing particularly harshly: calling it flat, inconsistent, and all that other mean stuff it said up there. It really doesn’t like not being in charge. It’s threatened by the potential exposure. The critic, our original protector, ramps up at the first sign of vulnerability and man, there are fewer more vulnerable things than presenting the court with an unabridged transcript.

So why do we do this? 

Why should we even try? 

Why should I? 

Because I know these stories are what you want to hear from me. It’s definitely what I want to hear from you. In addition to all of the other astounding stuff that comes through, the morsels of story are the treasures for which we’re mining with all this practice.

I think too that the stories are what we ourselves need. They’re gathered in our fascia, bunching our organs more tightly together than they need to be, yanking our muscles in slightly odd directions. What scene, once it’s out of you, will help your body relax, hang looser? 

Today, I invite you to sit down at the page, set a timer, and tell me something that happened. That Thanksgiving, that cross-country drive, the first time you stepped on a caterpillar. You might have one top of mind. Otherwise let your body tell you. Close your eyes for a couple of minutes, scan your inner world. Let the story step forward. This, it will say, this is what needs to be told. 

And tell it. 

There’s never any need to do this alone! Join us at the next Mini-Retreat, or give your voice a little more space in the upcoming June series.