PERSONAL ESSAY | THE NARRATIVE ARC
The Importance of Telling Our Own Stories
The most powerful story we can tell is our own
I sat at my desk, staring at an email, wondering what to do. It was hard enough to find the courage to share a story about a traumatic childhood experience, let alone be told my experience wasn’t valid and that I was wrong for calling what I went through traumatic.
My hand trembled as my finger hovered over the delete key, and the quick beats of my heart sounded like a woodpecker angrily pecking at a tree. The butterflies in my stomach were frantically looking for an escape route, and my breathing was choppy and fast.
I wasn’t sure what to do, and it felt like a dense marine layer of fog had settled on my brain. I was beginning to spiral down a black hole of doubt, wondering how I could have mistaken myself for a writer.
It’s alarmingly easy to devalue ourselves, and often, it doesn’t take much to trigger a downward spiral of self-doubt. There is no shortage of disgruntled people who make it a point to discredit or degrade our personal experiences because they didn’t align with theirs. I’ve received several angry comments in response to stories I’ve written, and I can tell you that it never gets easier to read.
I believe our stories matter. They express who we are and what we’ve been through, giving others our take on the events happening to us. When others devalue or discredit our experiences or attempt to make us feel ashamed or guilty for telling our stories, we must remind ourselves that our experiences matter.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a story about retiring early, selling our home, and hitting the road in a 21-foot teardrop-shaped travel trailer. Unsurprisingly, I received a few comments from angry readers telling me that not everyone has the means to retire and that I was a horrible person for writing about it when others were struggling financially.
Recently, I wrote a story about a traumatic event in my childhood, and a few days later, I received an email from someone telling me how furious he was because my trauma wasn’t nearly as bad as his. In no uncertain terms, he advised me to shut up and get a life.
While situations like this give me pause and momentarily cause me distress, I always come back to the reality that my experiences are mine to tell, and I have both the privilege and right to tell my stories.
Whose stories do we tell?
As a writer, I love both the art and craft of storytelling. To tell a story well takes time, practice, and skill. Learning to show rather than tell what’s happening in a scene is one of the hardest things to do, and it takes much more work.
Because I’m also an editor, I have the privilege and joy of reading many stories. I’ve noticed that people often choose to tell stories that aren’t their own. It’s easy to do. If you fancy yourself as a writer, you will begin to frame your experiences in real-time. Something dramatic will happen, and our writer’s brain kicks in, and we begin formulating how we’ll write a story about it.
It’s also much less vulnerable to tell a story about someone else’s experience than sharing our own. I’d much rather stay on the fringe of emotion rather than dive into the pain from a past trauma. Talking about a hot topic (LGBTQ, religion, abortion, etc) unrelated to my life is much more comfortable than expressing my experiences in a way that opens the door for others to pass judgment.
As easy as it may be, I am not a fan of writing other people’s stories. Those stories are not mine to tell. It’s legitimate to relay an experience that involves someone else as long as we are talking about the impact of that experience on us. But it’s another thing to tell us what that other person was feeling, thinking, or experiencing.
For instance, I cringe whenever I read a story written by a man telling readers what’s in a woman’s mind. Sadly, you don’t have to look far to find these stories. If you are a man, you can’t know how a woman feels in any given situation unless that woman tells you.
Another example of ‘othering’ is a straight person writing about LGBTQ experiences.
If you’re relaying a story about your interactions with a queer person and how you felt about it, great. But if you’re using a single interaction with someone who’s gay as a jumping-off point to tell readers about how LGBTQ people act or think, or you’re using that information as clickbait for your story, I’d advise you to leave it alone.
As a queer writer, I don’t enjoy reading a straight person’s take on how we queers act any more than I appreciate reading a man’s take on what makes a woman happy. I would also caution against relating experiences that happened decades ago by using terms that are offensive in today’s culture.
Saying something to the effect of, “It was a different time back then,” while freely using the N-word or one of any number of disrespectful terms for being gay simply isn’t acceptable. Trust me, there are more nuanced ways to tell a story.
It’s important to mention that the term ‘queer’ was considered derogatory until recent years, when the LGBTQ community systematically reclaimed it. That said, it’s not the best look for straight people to use the term freely.
The bottom line for me is that I value telling my story, and I value reading your story. Stay away from telling another person’s story or from using a person’s race or sexual orientation as an anecdote to make your story more interesting.
Our stories are valuable
Writing can be a cathartic, therapeutic experience. I’m often amazed at how liberating it is to write about my childhood trauma, coming out late in life, or my neurodiversity struggles. And I have repeatedly seen that sharing what I’ve been through resonates with others and often frees them to tell their own stories.
Words matter. Context matters. Respect matters.
Over the years, I’ve learned to not only value my stories but those of others. When I write about my coming out experience, I say very little about what my children experienced because their stories are not mine to tell.
If I write about my neurodiversity, I remind myself not to generalize or write in such a way that it seems like all neurodiverse people experience the same things. When I edit a story I’ve written, I specifically look for things like this.
When I write stories about retiring early and the things I’ve learned, I now mention that I’m aware we are very privileged to have had the means to do what we’ve done. I want to remain respectful to those struggling financially while valuing my experiences and choices.
Telling our stories is valuable because they become a legacy of experience while sometimes helping others process and tell their stories along the way. Telling our stories is often healing and allows us to move forward rather than being stuck in the past.
The most powerful story we can tell is our own.
Drama, drama, drama
Most writers know that drama, tension, and trauma sell. It takes skill and practice to learn how to tell stories well. It’s much easier to look around and write about someone else’s drama than to work to become a good storyteller of your experiences.
It is easy to play up trauma to garner interest in your story. As editors, we often refer to this tendency as “trauma porn,” and we work to make sure we aren’t allowing those pieces to slide through. Trauma for the sake of views isn’t a wise choice.
The question I ask myself before I start a new story is, “Why would someone want to read this? Is there value in for them?” This has been a good barometer when writing about my trauma. If I’m convinced of anything, I’m convinced that a great writer can create a fantastic read about something as benign as a trip to the grocery store.
I love it when I stumble across a captivating and beautifully written story. Those stories make me want to work harder to become a great writer. How about you?
In a world that seems to be slipping off its axis, let’s learn to tell vibrant and intriguing stories that are ours to tell. Let’s encourage others to share their authentic experiences. Let’s collectively widen the lens through which we view the world, allowing others to own their stories and be free to tell them.
©Kim Kelly Stamp, all rights reserved.
Many thanks to Debra G. Harman, MEd. and Darren Weir for your editing suggestions which helped bring clarity to this story.