How to offer your readers hope and life

 

“You think you’re just telling a story. But the truth is you’re bringing life.” (Donald Miller)

 

Bringing life! Wow!

 

Today we’re continuing with our recent series on “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait” (Wilkie Collins). I hope you’re enjoying this series. I am. It’s the stuff writers enjoy.

 

Why should writers make readers cry and laugh? Because that’s how you hook readers. It’s like a magnet—you make them want to keep reading. And that’s how they find out what you’re offering them.

 

That’s right—I said what you’re offering them. They read for more than entertainment. Readers are looking for what they can get out of your story.

 

Let’s zero in on “make ‘em cry” and what it can do for readers. (If you missed earlier posts about make ‘em cry, click on the links below.)

 

Think back to one of your most painful experiences and let me ask you a question: Wasn’t that when you learned some of your most valuable lessons?

 

Think back again: Weren’t your hardest times the stuff of turning points? Second chances? Personal victories? Spiritual growth? Maturity?

 

Let me ask another question: Did someone else’s story help you get through to the other side of your pain? I have a hunch you can say “yes.” Maybe it was a friend’s story, or a story you read in a book or in the Bible or a Bible study. Or saw in a movie. Or read on Facebook.

 

Now it’s your turn to pass on your story to others who need hope.

 

“Beyond the beautifully strung together words

we leave on the page,

we also leave behind

concrete proof that we survived.”

Ellen Blum Barish

 

You see, God might be doing something bigger—something broader and deeper and higher—than only in you. He can use your experience to help others, inspire action, and increase faith.

 

Make ‘em cry.

Tears are a universal language.

Tears connect people.

Tears allow people to share an experience.

 

“I felt a strong pull . . . to write my story,” says Jennifer C. Steele, “so I began the process. It was by no means easy. I had to re-live all of the hard memories again. I had to process emotions that I thought were long gone. I felt deep sadness and anger and experienced the loss at the same intensity as I did when it first occurred. I wanted to quit, numerous times.

 

“But that little voice that kept saying, ‘your story is going to help someone like you’ kept me going over and over. . . .

 

“Each person that I have shared this story with has told me they could relate in some way and has thanked me for sharing.

 

“If you feel like you have a story inside of you that needs to come out, don’t be afraid to share it.” (Jennifer C. Steele, author of One Step at A Time)

 

Avoid over-the-top, frenzied drama. Avoid exaggerating. Avoid pity-parties and wallowing but be honest in admitting your emotions.

 

To paraphrase Larry Brooks,

make your readers happy they are not there,

but grateful to feel what it was like to be you.

 

“Don’t waste your trials,” my son-in-law said in a sermon. “God might allow something hard so you can encourage others. . . . Use your problems as an opportunity.”

 

Make yourself vulnerable. Write about your hurts.

 

“Your story should incorporate some joy. But pain is the Great Teacher,” writes Donald Miller.

 

“By bringing meaning to the pain, you bring meaning to the pain of the world. This is why people need story.

 

“They want to know they’re not alone. Others suffer just like them. They want to know their suffering has purpose, that there is hope, redemption. . . . You think you’re just telling a story. But the truth is you’re bringing life.” (Donald Miller, “The Meaning of Pain”)

 

Related links:

Make ‘em cry

Make ‘em cry along with you as you cry

How and when to write the seared, charred, blistered parts

 

Tuesday Tidbit: Your words matter

Here's your 15 seconds of inspiration,

your Tuesday Tidbit:

Your words, whether spoken or written,

are powerful:

Donald Miller

Make ‘em cry

You want your memoir to bless others, right? You want it to comfort, encourage, and change readers for the better.

But your memoir will not impact others unless they read it.

After all your effort to write your memoir, how do you get people to read it?

You must make a way for readers to get into your story—

to join you in your story—

to make them care—

to make them want to keep reading.

How do you do that? By including emotions.

“The heart is always 

the first target 

in telling purposeful stories. 

Stories must give listeners 

an emotional experience 

if they are to ignite a call to action.” 

(Peter Guber)

You bring emotion into your story by following Wilkie Collins’ advice, “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.”

Last week we covered “make ‘em laugh,” and I hope you’ve had fun writing humor into your rough drafts. Humor is important—readers will give you only so long before they decide whether they like you and your story—so if you missed last week’s post, check it out.

This week we’ll look at “make ‘em cry.”

Sometimes people wonder—mainly men, I suspect—why we should include sorrows and struggles and angst in our memoirs.

The reasons to include the hard things are many:

“Our sufferings and pains are not simply bothersome interruptions of our lives.” (Henri Nouwen)

Often during the hardest times, we learned our most important lessons.

Difficulties can get our attention.

They can make us cling to God.

They can give us a holy discontent over things that are not right in our lives.

Sorrows can be the stuff of turning points and second chances.

They can lead to personal victories.

Furthermore, sharing our struggle benefits readers. When we make ourselves vulnerable and write about our hurts, readers recognize they have something in common with us.

That, in turn, serves as an invitation to enter into our stories and learn lessons for themselves through our experiences because:

“…Stories can be a stand-in for life, allowing us [readers] to expand our beyond what we could reasonably squeeze into a lifetime of direct experience.… We can take in the stories of others who escaped life-threatening situations without taking on the risk … [and we have] an opportunity to try out solutions.” (Peter Guber)

So there you have yet another reason to share painful parts of our lives:  We offer readers experience, wisdom, and choices. We can point them to God.

“Your story should incorporate some joy. But pain is the Great Teacher,” says Donald Miller. “By bringing meaning to the pain, you bring meaning to the pain of the world.  This is why people need story. They want to know they’re not alone. Others suffer just like them. They want to know their suffering has a purpose, that there is hope, redemption.… You think you’re just telling a story. But the truth is you’re bringing life.” (emphasis mine; from Joe Bunting's blog post, The Meaning of Pain)

Things that made you cry shaped you. They gave you a story to tell for the benefit of others.

If you want readers to see how God brought beauty from your ashes, they have to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel the ashes with you. You have to make ‘em cry with you.

If you write your memoir well, you will bring the story to a hope-filled, satisfying resolution. You will accomplish what Donald Miller calls “bringing life.”

So how do you make ‘em cry? It can be a tough assignment.

First, be honest. Avoid exaggeration. Your reader needs to be able to trust you.

Second, practice what Bill Roorbach calls Method Writing, a spin-off of method acting.  (from his Writing Life Stories)

Here’s how method acting works: Before the curtain rises, the actor remembers a time in which he experienced the emotion he needs to act out. He spends time reliving that emotion so that when he steps on stage, he is gripped in that emotion and succeeds in playing his part.

Method writing, then, requires you to step out of the present and into the past. If you’re writing about a tragic event, take time (make time) to remember the event and rediscover the emotions you felt.

In the midst of reliving that situation and emotion, ask yourself:

What was at stake? What did I have to lose or gain?

At the time, how did I envision that this situation could change my life?

What were my fears, my hopes, my prayers?

When you are caught up again in that event and emotion, get it onto paper.

Your “emotion should be so realistic and gripping that the reader can’t help but feel it too.…” (Becca Puglisi)

To paraphrase Larry Brooks, make your readers happy they are not there, yet grateful to feel what it was like to be you.

Emotion: That’s how you make a way for readers to join you in your story, to make them care, to keep them reading.

"Our best stories 

evoke an emotional response, 

touch a deep cord, 

and motivate action and change." 

(Peter Guber)

OK, are you ready? Go make ‘em cry!

Write Tight

The wise old guideline, “write tight,” means to cut extra words.

Write tight: Be concise.

Avoid wordiness.

Economize.

Streamline.

Trim fat.

Remove jumble.

Cut off dead wood.

Declutter so your readers won’t get bogged down and give up on your book. As The Grammar Girl says, “Readers don’t want to rummage through a messy verbal flea market to discover one or two sparkly gems of information.”  

“Vigorous writing is concise,” says William Strunk, Jr. “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Joseph M. Williams says, “Some words are verbal tics that we use as unconsciously as we clear our throats,” words like actually, particular, really, certain, virtually, individual, basically, generally, and practically.

He gives this before-and-after example:

“Productivity actually depends on certain factors that basically involve psychology more than any particular technology.”

Williams offers this revision: “Productivity depends more on psychology than on technology.” (from Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace)

Remove redundancies such as: I repeated again, he shrugged his shoulders, John gave her true, accurate facts, Eliza served various different appetizers, Teddy ate each and every piece of chocolate.

Often (but not always) you can cut “that” from a sentence. Here’s an example: “I know that you are busy but I think that this is information that you need to know.”

"Prune out all the small words that qualify how you feel and how you think and what you saw: 'a bit,' 'a little,' 'sort of,' 'kind of,' 'rather,' 'quite,' 'very,' 'too,' 'pretty much,' 'in a sense,' and dozens more," writes William Zinsser. "They dilute both your style and your persuasiveness."

"Don't say you were a bit confused," Zinsser continues, "and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident." (On  Writing Well, Fourth Edition)

The Grammar Girl says:

“Keep an eye on the verb ‘make’ when it us used in constructions such as ‘make a decision,’ ‘make a correction,’ and ‘make use of.’ Here’s an example of a bloated sentence:

“‘Seth Bullock will make a decision tomorrow about whether his calling is hardware or law enforcement.’

“Change ‘make a decision’ to ‘decide’ for a leaner sentence:

“‘Seth Bullock will decide tomorrow whether his calling is hardware or law enforcement.’” (from How to Write Clear Sentences, by The Grammar Girl)

What clutter would you remove from the following sentence? (Leave your revision in the comments section below.)

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” (Elmore Leonard)

Often “try to” is another phrase to delete; note the Leonard quote above and the following: “Try to recapture the wonder of being a child.”

How would you revise the next sentence? 

"The good thing about it is that it's one I can complete in fairly easy segments."

Look over your current manuscript. Read it aloud because your ears will hear what your eyes overlook. Then, cut out the clutter and tighten it up.

If you write tight, your readers will appreciate your story’s fast pace and clarity. Instead of stumbling over piles of words and phrases, they’ll focus on your message.

You’ll enjoy these additional articles on writing tight: Jody Renner on Uncluttered Prose (She includes before-and-after examples.)

How to Write Clear Sentences, by The Grammar Girl

At Sharon Lippincott's blog, agent Harry Bingham tells of cutting 70,000 words from a manuscript "to tease out the amazing story that lay buried within. The shorter and more focused the manuscript became, the more appealing it grew."

“When you read a great book, 

you're reading an author 

willing to cut 

thousands of words.”  

Donald Miller