Stories are connection

I’ve been down a rabbit hole about stories this week.

I had a 1:1 call with a newish client about her book outline on Monday and I’ve started to be quite specific about how to add stories into your outline, which is by its nature a skeleton so rather dry and sparse, and why it’s important. I’m also fired up about stories after seeing people connect in person last week with an author whose book I helped bring into the world earlier this year.

It turns out that I am developing a couple of things that I talk about (read: bang on about) a lot – I guess a proper content marketer would call them pillars of content. And, if you’ve been around here before you’d know that those topics are developing a writing habit BEFORE you launch into a big project, such as writing a book AND stories are the key to writing a good book.

Stories are connection

There is a reason that storytellers are powerful members of communities through the ages. Not only do they maintain the historical record and thread between generations (how many of us are finding that we don’t know the things about our families that we’d love to know), but stories entertain and thread connection between the readers and listeners. Stories remind us of our common humanity, that the things that we are going through are not just our own experience but there is wisdom and comfort in talking things through, in shushing the mind monkeys, mind gremlins that take over telling us that it’s just us.

Stories are everywhere. We might tell ourselves that we don’t read (at all, enough?) but we are consuming stories listening to podcasts, radio broadcasts, songs, watching box sets, in conversation. Stories are part of our social selves and how we learn. To survive we must learn new things and our brains are constantly gathering information but facts on their own are less likely to stick than facts that are woven into a story. Attaching images and emotions (aka story) to a fact makes it much more likely to be something that our brain remembers and shapes our future thinking. According to psychologist Jerome Bruner, if facts are put into a story, we’re 20 times more likely to remember them. Stories also cover all learning modalities – the imagery helps visual learners to remember them, the words you use appeals to auditory learners and the emotions and feelings hook the kinetic learners. (Thanks to Lead with Story by Paul Smith for most of these stats.) Essentially, stories make facts sticky for our brains – and that’s just what you want if you are writing a book to build your business and grow someone’s knowledge of what you can do to help them and how you do it.

But our current societal focus on championing and focusing on our original, individual, unique self is potentially robbing us of the richness of sharing, of connection, of living side by side. Share your story? That’s scary. Who wants to read it anyway – surely they’re too caught up in living/documenting/sharing their own “best life” to read about yours? Or you don’t want to show the cracks – surely it’s better to show up talking about nailing parenting or with your latest designer purchase because you make six-figures, even if you’re ignoring some of the other bits along the way and not sharing those things that form connection and community. (I don’t know about you but I’m after genuine connection and I’m not connecting with the constant travel and shopping – the realness of life is where I’m at.) Whatever it is, we fear sharing our real stories, we are so disconnected that we fear judgement for sharing too vulnerably – and what are we missing out on as a consequence?

You need more stories

 Without fail, I usually feedback to any author that there need to be more stories. Actually, I can think of one or two who are happy in their identity as storytellers, but most manuscripts I edit have feedback along the lines of “I’d like to see more of you in here” or “You’ve shared stories of lots of clients which is great but what I’d love to see, and what I think will connect you to your readers, is a personal story or two”.

As I wrote earlier, I think we often worry about not being seen as perfect. When we style ourselves as the leader, corporate vision has us thinking that showing up with our mistakes and messes isn’t acceptable. That we won’t be able to sell ourselves and our services if we share where we fall short from time to time.

I’m not saying we lead with this – but lifting the curtain and showing what’s behind it from time to time isn’t going to sink your business, but it might just draw some people to you who are looking beyond the shiny, not attracted to the you-need-to-make-at-least-six-figures-to-be-successful chat that is all over the online space at the moment.

There is a place for sharing some of your lows, alongside your highs, in your business-building book. These stories show that you have journeyed the same way that your readers have, that you can help potential clients because not only are you qualified to help them in your field, but you’ve also been there and done the work and trod the same path.

Your tone can switch from teacher-like and scholarly in a moment when you add in more stories and read your book out loud. And your tone can build a gulf with your reader or it can build a bridge that brings clients to in person events – they know enough of you from what you share online to have a genuine connection with you and want to meet you and potentially take that next step to working with you.

An author story to reframe

I chatted with an author client recently about the feedback she is getting about her book. She mentioned one of the things that isn’t sitting quite right with her is that people are saying how easy to read her book is and how fast they are reading it.

Is this a negative statement? It was feeling negative to her – people are finding it easy to read her book, surely that means that her book is not important enough if they’re reading it in one or two sittings. The chapters that aren’t hard to read, that means that they mustn’t be that useful, right?

Here’s a reframe for you. A book that is easy to read, a book that you read in one sitting, is READABLE. Is compelling. Keeps you turning the page. Is useful.

How many nights have you stayed up way too late reading to finish a novel that has grabbed you (or watching another episode of whatever you’re watching on Netflix)? Why are you doing that? Because you want to know what happens next. How many business books have you kept reading like this? Not many, I’m guessing.

I think that this comment is maybe the best feedback that you can receive.

People are READING your book. They’re not just buying your book. They’re READING it. How many books do you have on shelves, waiting on your eReader that are unread (and may stay unread)?

People telling you that they bought your book is great. People telling you they read it? Even better!

Everyone has stories

You might now be thinking about writing your own book but worried about whether you have the stories to connect with people. A little brainstorming, a little prompting and your stories will be found. Don’t let this be another fear that holds you back from starting your own book writing project.

You know the fears. They come up all the time as you show up anywhere.

• “Why would anyone want to read what I have to say?”
• “So and so has already said what I want to say.”
• “I’m not interesting enough to write a book.”

The fear probably shows up with those types of words.

They’re just not true.

What these fears highlight to me is that you might need to do a little more work on your ideal reader who you are looking to attract with your book to your world.

Are you ready to do that work? To dive in even though you might be scared?

Spoiler alert: Every author-to-be/author is scared. At multiple points along the journey. It’s a thing that you’ll just have to get as comfortable with as you can and why having someone like me in your corner to help you reframe, to ask you questions to help you find your story, can be invaluable for making sure that you write a GOOD book and not a bad one (that will hurt my soul).

I’m here. Get in touch.