When you decide to write your story, your first thought in mind should always be yourself. I know, know. You're probably thinking, but what about the reader? The reader most definitely matters if you want to write an engaging book that other people will enjoy and want to buy, which most writers do. However, when it comes to writing your particular story, before thinking of the reader, think of yourself.
Keeping yourself, meaning your truth, in mind while writing, allows you to show up authentically in your writing. Whole and true.
When writers prioritize others i.e. family members, friends, coworkers, future readers, etc. in their writing, they often censor themselves. They don't say how they really felt in a specific situation or how something really went down because they're worried about how someone else will feel when reading it, or even how someone may perceive them. What happens though, is that by prioritizing others before themselves, the writing falls flat in many places and feels inauthentic, almost as if the writer is holding back, because honestly, they are.
Your job as a writer is to think of yourself. Prioritize you and the authenticity of your story. This is how healing takes place and this is where your power lies. When you take the time to remember certain elements of your life's story, you heal through the process of sharing it.
Think of it like this, “how can you imagine if you don't know how to remember”
(Benny Starr).
We cannot imagine a future beyond our past experiences if we don't have the courage to remember our past. Not the watered down version or gaslit version others have tried to sell us, but the honest, raw truth.
Once you are centered in your life's story, then and only then, should you think about the reader.
An author coach, like the Silver Bangles author coaches, will take your authentically, truthfully, powerfully written, raw story, and transform it into a manuscript that will be engaging, easy to follow, and impactful for readers, all while maintaining your authorial voice.
How, you ask? Well, they do this by identifying themes in your life that can be transformed into a personal narrative. Whether you are writing your life's story or a sci-fi about a group of high-schoolers traveling through time, your story needs an arc, dimension, and details details details! An author coach can guide you through the process of remembering the depth of an experience and not just the surface of it. While you heal through the process of writing your story, an author coach helps you structure your story around a central theme or time period to build dramatic story structure in your memoir. A structure that is based in your authentic truth, but that is written as an engaging, detailed, almost-visual narrative rather than a mere recounting of your life's experiences.
Once your book gets onto bookshelves and into reader's hands, the second bout of magic happens. The impact on the readers. The beautiful thing about reading about someone's life is that you realize how connected we truly are. Life stories unite us in our shared humanity. We all have a desire to be seen and understood; memoirs have the ability to do that, including the one you will write.
Summer J. Robinson
Publisher. Filmmaker. CEO. Building Silver Bangles Productions, a multidisciplinary storytelling agency committed to telling and elevating stories that inspire Afrikan diasporic intergenerational healing. We do this through book publications, TV, Film, and Documentary productions, programming, and education (classes).
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