If You Want to Tell a Better Story, Just Look in the Mirror
People have been telling stories for a long time. Your earliest human ancestors told stories to pass on knowledge. They used them as a way to understand their surroundings and their lives.
Stories are proven to convey a message, teach a lesson or pass on information and history.
You might want to teach your children a life lesson. Maybe you want them to stop leaving their rooms messy or to get better at doing their other chores.
Perhaps you have a presentation you have to give at work. Maybe you’re writing for pleasure or for a living.
In all these cases, you need to look no further than the mirror to write a great story.
What Story Are You Trying to Tell?
You might be telling a story that has little relevance to your life. Even so, you’ll be able to take your own life experiences and weave them into the story.
This makes your content relatable. Your audience can identify with you as a real person, even if the story you’re telling has unbelievable characters.
Look in the mirror. Look at yourself and your successes and failures.
What personal experiences have you had that you can include in some way in the story you’re trying to tell? Look to your life for inspiration and ideas for new stories and make any story more human.
Incidentally, this works with fiction and nonfiction alike. It works best when you create a narrative from your personal experiences. Don’t be shy about painting yourself as an imperfect person. That’s what other people will relate to. Please talk about your failings, your conflict, and how you overcame it.
Does Your Audience Know You Very Well?
If your readers or listeners know something about you, mention it.
This is another way to make your story carry weight. You are connecting with your audience. Again, you don’t personally have to be a character in your story or your message. You add positive and negative life experiences to give your content a feeling of reality.
Whether your audience knows you or not, try to turn your life’s lessons into narratives. Make these lessons into stories in and of themselves. Then tie them into the central theme or major plot of your bigger story.
This makes you more relatable and real to your audience. It also means quicker and easier writing because you’re working from a place of experience and familiarity..
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