Write A Way: Journey to Creativity
:
Your Story takes Shape
By Sandra Lee Schubert
What makes up a life story? Many elements come into play when crafting your tale. A life has an overarching theme. You may have to step back to see it. Are you like Barack Obama and made a success of yourself from humble beginnings? Were you born to a famous family and had fame thrust upon you like Drew Barrymore? Are you a product of emotionally dramatic and needy parents?
You may have seen
Susan Boyle's
performance on Britain's Got Talent. Her appearance is one of the most viewed videos on YouTube. Her story is a classic rags to riches kind of story.
Before the show Britain's Got Talent shot her to instant stardom, her story was unknown. Born with a birth defect, she was teased as a child. At age 47, unemployed, and mourning the loss of her beloved mother, she was at the bottom. After just one appearance on TV she went from a dowdy looking middle-aged woman with overgrown eyebrows, to becoming well-tweezed leather wearing media sensation with a great voice.
Is
Susan Boyle's story
remarkable? Yes and no.
Maybe you can relate to being an average looking person. Or, you are unemployed. You could be mourning the loss of someone you loved. These are the everyday events of all of us. Susan, in that regard, is not remarkable.
What makes Susan remarkable is her willingness to step out into the world with
her story.
It is an "every person" story.
We each have our own to tell.
What is important about Susan's story is that we claim how our stories our told. We just have to decide how we are going to tell a tale that is unique to us.
Each member of your family will have their own version of a family story. Stick to yours even if it may not be 100% accurate. It's not about the details it is about the essence of what you recall. The feeling around your story can be just as important as those details.
As example, maybe you remember eating chicken the day your beloved pet died. You recall the chicken was too salty and a bit dry. It is the lingering saltiness you remember when your older brother bursts into the kitchen to say the dog just ran into the street and under the wheels of the neighbor's car.
The moment is seared into your memory.
Except for one thing; the memory is not accurate. Your mother remembers the day clearly because it was Tuesday and she had just served leftover meatloaf smothered in mashed potatoes. You had been goofing around with your sister and spilled too much salt on your potatoes. Your mother was making you eat those salty potatoes just as you heard the screech of a car and your brother ran into the kitchen.
Somehow it is salty chicken that replaced your mother's meatloaf and potatoes. Maybe it was the beige of your brother's sweater that stuck in your mind and the dryness of the chicken was the blood draining from your face as your heard the dramatic news of your dog's death.
What is important here in the story is the
loss of your dog.
If you worry too much about chicken or beef you may lose the essence of the pain of loss.
Don't get bogged down in details first. Begin writing and the maybe go back and fill in the pieces. The important thing is to
start writing.
Creative Writing Prompts for Telling Your Story
Create a Memory List
Start jotting down familiar family/friend/life stories ideas. Don't spend a lot of time on the details just yet. It could look something like this:
- Aunt Sue calls me "Pickle" because I loved eating the ones she bottled.
- My brother used to hit me on the back of the head every time he came in the kitchen.
- My first dog ate my father's new slippers at Christmas dinner when I was ten.
- We ate pot roast the first Sunday of every month.
- We used to make popcorn and watch the Sunday night movie.
Get the idea? This exercise will start jogging your memory for stories. Begin keeping a list of memories to use again and again for future
life stories.
Copyright © 2010 Sandra Lee Schubert. All rights reserved.
What sorts of memory snippets came up for your? Share with the rest of us.
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