How Expressing Your Writer's Voice Helps Readers Claim Theirs
The power of self-expression
This week, I listened in awe to courageous voices.
Writers. Who are like you and me. Except that their recently published books earned invitations to speak at a writers’ festival. In front of a live audience of thousands.
Books about trauma.
About mental illness. About war. About homelessness.
On the subjects of love, courage, and grace, among others.
How did these writers manage to get to this stage? Through a lot of hard work and writing practice, I imagine.
But mostly by claiming their voices. And owning stories, their own and those that came to them.
Despite being published authors, they spoke about how they faced all the usual suspect thoughts that tried to foil their writing game.
Who am I to write this?
How will readers respond?
Is it any good?
Their self-doubts sounded so familiar to me. The lament of every newbie writer.
However, being the creative cowboys these writers are, they rode roughshod over fear. They took the reins. They galloped and stumbled until they brought their herd of ideas home.
And they had the published books to show for their courage.
The stories waiting to be told
One question the writers were often asked:
Why did you write this book?
The common answers:
Something happened to me (or some story came to me).
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I thought it might help/inspire/validate someone if I wrote about it.
The writers were driven. And willing to put in the time and slow slog to tell the stories well. Because they mattered to someone.
Because there was something unspoken that needed to be revealed.
Their motivation didn’t vary much with the subject matter. And there was a wide range of book topics represented.
Some were memoirs, with writers telling stories from their own lives.
Other books revealed forgotten figures of history. Like the story of the invisible and brilliant wife, hidden behind a famous author/husband.
And many stories were fictional and poetic, concocted in the writer’s bright imagination.
What telling our stories does for readers
And what reader response most moved the writers when the story went public?
Not surprisingly, hearing that the book hit home with readers.
Readers felt (finally) heard or seen.
Witnessing in their readers:
The healing that happened.
The relief that came from letting go of the burden of silence.
The clarity when a writer articulated their mess of feelings.
One writer reached out with a hug in the booksigning queue to the reader who wept at seeing their story told.
The stakes are even higher if we’ve been through some trauma and then find a writer who speaks for us.
Apparently, the research is showing that, when faced with trauma, the language centre of our brain shuts down. As a result, we lose words. We lose our story. We lose part of our power.
So when a writer speaks for us and brings to life our story, she helps make us feel seen. She becomes our voice, and that encourages us to own that voice.
When we’re seen, we start to see
Why is claiming our voices so powerful?
When our voice is heard and we’re finally seen, we can start to see.
Who we are, fully. Who we’ve been. Who we can be.
We see a different way ahead. A fresh path. Possibilities.
A new story to tell ourselves about our experience.
I learned again at this writers’ festival about the enormous power of words to define or free us. And what a privilege and responsibility it is to use words well and craft stories that can transform and heal.
How we need to speak up for the silenced and encourage and support writers with words worth sharing. How we need to hear each other's voices.