Cynthia Morris

I was in Lisbon when the total blackout hit the Iberian Pennisula, removing power from all of Spain and Portugal for the better part of a hot April day. This was interesting! Nothing like this had ever happened to me. Of course I would write about it.

I made notes that day and night to capture the sensual experiences of being without phone or light or access to my rented apartment. I wrote a draft of the story back in Denver.

But then I blundered into territory my clients and I always stumble into. I was three pages into telling the details of the blackout – trams stalled in the streets, all shops dark and locked, no cell phone access at all. Three pages in and still was not even close to getting to why this mattered.

What went wrong? We all think our stories are good – and they are! These tales are interesting to us, but are likely only mildly interesting to a reader. I’ve identified the problem. It’s a case of anecdote versus story. Here’s an example.

Anecdote versus story or boring versus life-changing

Anecdote: On the way here, I saw a performing monkey! It grabbed my beret and put it on and played the accordion! It was so funny!

Story: On the way here, a performing monkey grabbed my beret and played a song on the accordion. The song was the one I always have in my head when I think of my French life. All this time I had been in love with France, thinking the song and the beret made me more French. But my facade was easily taken on by a street monkey. I had never felt so cheap and superficial in my life. Now I question the things I love – am I such a cliche? Or was the song a sign? Did my beret hold the song about Paris but also all my hopes and dreams?

Do you see the difference? A story has a deeper meaning, something more important to the narrator than ‘isn’t that funny?’

We tell anecdotes to fill time and space and share an experience we had. We write stories to understand something on a deeper level and to convey some meaning to the reader. As writers, we have to work to excavate the meaning.

The blackout story was just an anecdote. Until I dug deeper for a reason to tell this story, it wasn’t worth continuing. I was bored adding up all the ‘and then this happened’. (If you get bored writing, chances are your reader will be bored reading.) I didn’t have the bandwidth to really delve in to discover what matters, why it matters to me, and how it might matter to you, the reader.

People telling anecdotes mostly just want someone to hear their story. People writing stories want to move the reader with a new insight, feeling, or idea. They want to be moved themselves.

If you are stuck in anecdote territory, wondering if it’s interesting to a reader, dig deeper.

Three ways to make sure your stories aren’t boring

Check into your values. What is meaningful for you in this story? I couldn’t find many of my values honored in the blackout story. But the piece about speaking Portuguese while in Lisbon? I had at least 8 values in that story. Writing it felt alive and meaningful.

WAIT. After you’ve pecked at the story a bit, take a break. Ask yourself Why Am I Telling this story? Why does it matter to you?

Who cares? When we get stuck, we often think, who will find this interesting? Who cares? If you know who you are writing for – and you should – it will be easier to know if your reader will care and if so, what they will get from this.

What do you want for the reader? Why MUST they read this story?

When drafting my novel, I had to cut many major chapters. Whole sections! I loved these scenes. But they were merely interesting, not essential to the novel. Editing skills are as important as drafting skills.

Get your copy of Her Lisbon Colors here. 

I hope this has helped you to improve your storytelling skills. Please let me know what this illuminated for you in a comment below.

Clients come to me because they want to write a book or articles for their work. They’re smart, soulful, and bursting with inspiration. They have lots of ideas and papers everywhere. They are ready to put their ideas into shape, but they don’t know how to get organized and get started. I get it!

There are two major aspects of writing that I help people with, and they may surprise you.

Left-brain systems understanding

Ironically, one of the main skills I bring to my coaching clients is structure. It turns out that my genius zone is helping people organize all those ideas and papers into smart, soulful books that make a difference in the world. Clients often say I have a laser-sharp focus and ‘hit the nail on the head’. I see what they don’t. This comes out when we’re brainstorming and I’m helping a client synthesize their many ideas into a coherent whole.

It’s so fun to help them bring their ideas into shape. The clarity they get allows them to get their ideas down much more quickly. But that’s only half of the work.

Right-brain empathy

If writing were merely a matter of organizing our ideas and materials, it would be much easier. But writing is one of the most vulnerable and scary things we can do. We’re called to be honest, to be generous, and to bring language to what we care deeply about.

Three main monsters stand at the gate, preventing us from entering our genius zone of writing:

• fear of not having something to say
• fear of merely repeating what is already out there and
• fear of not being a good enough writer.

Writing a book takes time because we need to deal with these so they don’t keep harassing us and making writing a misery. No one is immune to insecurity about writing – not even my smart, accomplished, and soulful clients.

Coaching skills are real

My coach training taught me how to serve my clients by actively listening, staying out of my own story, and moving them inward to understanding and outward to action on their goals. I cannot emphasize enough that the training I started in 1999 and continue to this day is why I can succeed with my projects and help my clients succeed with theirs.

In all my work, I use my left and right brain capabilities. Designing and leading retreats, writing books, and coaching others to realize their creative dreams bring all of me to the table. I LOVE that. Empathy, organization, and seeing both the big picture and the details are the skills that make writing a book—or anything—possible.

What monsters linger at the gate to your writing joy? Share them in a comment below. 

I’ve shared a lot more about how to get organized here. 

Writing a book is messy, even for seasoned authors. Wrangling your material into cohesive shape is real work. There will be times when you sag with despair and cry out “This is a mess!” Rest assured. This is normal. This is not a function of your ineptitude, the lameness of your book or your inability to pull it all together. It’s part of the process of writing a book. Take a deep breath and trust yourself. Let’s look at how to sort this mess out. Be patient; it might take some time.

Depending on where you are with the process, it might be helpful to print the book up. Many of us are writing in one long on-screen document. Scrolling can be a nightmare, and rolling back and forth can contribute to your feeling of chaos. If you have a draft, even a shaggy draft, print the whole thing. Make sure that the pages are 1.5- or double-spaced, with page numbers at the bottom. Reviewing a printed copy makes it so much easier to see the whole. When I went through my printed draft, it was clear that the table of contents needed to be reordered.

With your printed manuscript in hand, step away from the computer. Take your notebook and pen with you. Your plan is to make a “punch list” of things to work on next. This is a term borrowed from the construction industry, where there’s a walk-through of a house before it’s finished or before a sale. The punch list includes things to fix or work on. Make a punch list for your book. You want one list that you can work through methodically later.

Now, back to the messy draft. Read through everything you have written. This read-through is for the purpose of seeing the whole, for distinguishing what’s working and what’s missing. Read like a teacher who wants to help the student make this paper as good as possible. Put check marks, smiley faces or stars next to things that are working. Add to your punch list as needed. Avoid getting caught up in wordsmithing: if you see sentences that you want to revise, underline them or circle words you want to change, but don’t get caught in the details now. Include the bigger things to work on, not the details. These could include:

• Revise chapter two.
• Add examples for chapter ten.
• Research for chapter four.
• Brainstorm ideas for images in the book.
• Identify passages that need to be fleshed out.

Your punch list will likely be long. Don’t despair. It’s good to have an objective list of things you can work on. The draft will still be messy, but now you have marching orders of what to improve. This kind of list serves as a project manager.

Once you’ve made the list, you can organize items into categories. My recent punch list includes:

• to write
• to do
• weave throughout
• to consider
• plan of action

For each writing session, go to the list and do some of the tasks. Check them off the list to feel a sense of progress. Address as many items on your punch list as you can in each sitting, but know your limits. Notice when you feel “done” writing—you might be getting impatient, rushing and lowering your standards to make progress. The list can also keep you from feeling ambushed by emotions that may arise when you sit down to write. You are just working your way through the list. You might go through this process many times, at least once for each draft. It’s okay—it helps you to know what to do and when.

Excerpted from The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book.

Here’s a punch list I made in Notion for my novel-in-progress. I have whited out the details to avoid spoilers.