Great advice reframing why your story is worth telling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

There is a useful book from 2024 by Jami Attenberg titled 1000 Words: a writer’s guide to staying creative, focused, and productive all year round. On page 35, there is an essay about reframing titled Your Story Is Worth Telling (which you can find in a preview at Google Books):

 

“I have written one memoir, and before I began I had to ask myself, truly, if my story was worth telling. We all wonder sometimes if our story is worth telling. If it’s worth writing these 1000 words, let alone seventy thousand of them. I can’t tell you what the reader will think of your story, but I can suggest a reframing of your narrative of the writing of it.

 

Stop thinking of it as the story of you and instead start thinking of it as the story you have to tell. How can you, in the writing of it, make it interesting? What will your approach be that will make it feel different or special? Will it be an innovative structure? Will it be in the most gorgeous breathtaking language? Will it be in the timing of it all, where you sink emotional moment after emotional moment. Will it be written in a hooky, addictive, page-turning style? Will it be rich with captivating cliff-hangers? How can you tell it in a way that has never been told before? How can you write a wholly unique story?

 

Life is a series of moments, some bigger, some smaller, and that’s it. You can hang them together like forgotten Christmas lights left up year-round; or like beloved memorabilia secured on a refrigerator, maybe a postcard from long ago or a photo booth strip; or like flyers tacked to a community board in a café, advertising services or looking for lost dogs; or like signs promoting opposing local candidates stuck side by side in competition on neighbors’ front lawns; or like drying clothes pinned to a line, flapping in the wind beneath the sunshine. Your job is to arrange these moments into a beautiful or captivating or intriguing display.

 

Stop thinking of it as your life. Start thinking of it as a story. Your story will be interesting because of how you tell it.”

 

The Publio de Tommasi painting came from Wikimedia Commons.