Telling your story - 2.0

        I suppose it happens more often than I realize. An idea I explored in a previous post, a tiny seed I scattered in hopes that it might take hold in at least a few minds has apparently landed on skeptical soil. I don’t know how widespread that doubting doubt may be, but based on a couple recent email conversations I feel the need to elaborate. If I’m going to turn you off, I want to at least make my case before you leave. So let’s see if I can fill in some of the blanks.

The last time out I explained what I thought were the virtues of telling your own story. So let's go back to the beginning of that rationale. Do you have a reason to commit any part of your personal story to the printed page…….whether on the back of an envelop or in a handsome paperback book? If you can’t think of a good argument for doing that, why bother? If you have better ways to spend your time, please carry on.

On the other hand, perhaps your reluctance is a matter of age. If you are 30 or 35 I hope it is too soon to be telling your life story. But if you have reached your October or November Years, and have a story to tell, it might be time to create that legacy-gift for your loved ones. Chances are some of them are already wondering what has made you the way you are. 

Yet even if that late-life condition describes you, what reasons might you have for putting your story on paper? Would an honest accounting of your personal life-journey hold the promise of a best-selling “tell all” book, with the possibility of a lucrative movie deal to follow? If so, that might be a good reason to move ahead.

On the other hand it pays to be realistic. In all likelihood our story, yours or mine, won’t attract that kind of attention. More to the point……how wide a distribution do you want it to have? As I explained in that earlier post my autobiographical effort was a very personal thing, frank and unembellished…….offering the reality I felt my loved ones deserved to know about me, without dwelling on every secret in my closet. And though it was meant for them, I was surprised at how much I learned about myself in the process.

So, assuming you have identified your reason(s) for telling your story, and the audience you have in mind, how would you proceed? Let’s consider that possibilities.

First of all, what do you want your story to tell that intended audience about you? Many published autobiographies are written to glorify the subject person, to build them up, and make them seem more appealing. Others are meant to strip away the superficial to reveal the “real person,” warts and all. Those extremes, and all the possibilities in between, are perfectly valid motives. It’s no one else’s place to judge the reasons you have in mind, but it is important that you know what they are. The vignettes you choose to create the life-portrait you want to paint of yourself will be determined by the purpose of your telling.

In my case I was telling a story intended to be read by only a few close family members. (How I managed to limit its distribution was explained in the first ‘Telling your story’ post.) The point is I was speaking to people who know me well. My telling would not be an ego trip for their benefit. I wanted to be as realistic and honest as possible. Those were the factors that dictated my story-telling choices.

To digress for a moment, setting out to create a fictional, novel-length story is a daunting task…..complex and time consuming. The writer must imagine the general thrust of his or her story, and the characters who will bring that story to life…..fleshing them out into real people the reader will believe. And all the while each piece of the story, from beginning to end, must fit together with all the other pieces. You start off knowing that you must carry on, if you stick with it, for months, even years. And there will certainly be times when you ask yourself if it is really worth the effort.

Telling your story in a vignette format, an anthology of brief, free-standing recollections, is something very different. Once you have decided what your story is meant to illustrate……whether you are a hero or a failure, very smart or not-so-smart, lucky or star-crossed, etc (most of us are a blend of all those and more)…….your task will be to choose and put in a written form snippets of your life that support your case. A collection of those applicable life incidents, those individual bits of evidence, assembled in a coherent whole will be your story.

Caution…..that is not the time to be in a hurry. As you choose and tell of those moments, the “snippets” that mean the most to you, take the time to understand why those particular incidents, often unremarkable at the time, have remained so compelling. Be ready to help your reader grasp what you believe are the lessons learned or the truth revealed in each episode. As you do that, you will be reliving those lessons all over again, remembering what you may have forgotten.

That in fact is one of the most appealing parts of telling a story in a vignette format. I did not, as I do in writing a novel, set out to imagine, from beginning to end, the story I wanted to tell. Instead, I closed my eyes and revisited specific times, places, and people I had encountered on my long journey to now…….moments that for some reason have stayed with me.

I was retrieving memories of childhood, school days, and adolescent times……soaking up feelings and impressions……remembering how they felt and their impact on the timid kid I was in those days. Simply stated, my research was choosing which of those recollections best illustrated the ‘me’ I wanted the reader to know.

In the course of those pleasant mind-travels I kept bumping into scarcely-remembered ways I had changed over time……outgrowing the old me and becoming someone new. Those were the transformations I wanted my few readers to understand……how I had changed and why. 

Truth to tell, I was surprised to find how much of me had been lying dormant in the corners of my mind. Sweeping up all that mental litter and bringing it out into the light day was something I should have done long ago.

Finally, on a practical level. Limiting your actual writing efforts to one remembered incident at a time…..a page or two or three……makes the writing process manageable. In the beginning you don’t have to be overly concerned about the chronological order of those pages you are creating. Those individual pieces can be arranged in any order you want when the time comes to create a finished product. 

       In the meantime, enjoy your meandering in the past, and while you’re there make the notes you will need to create an account of the moments you are visiting. Before long you will have gathered the raw materials you need to tell the story of you……the way you want it told.

       There you are. Telling your story that way is easy and enjoyable. I'm guessing both you and your readers will be glad you gave it a try.