About Responding to Life

What is a story? The simple answer is a series of actions with outcomes or consequences. But more than that, stories hinge on turning points – when something important to the characters (or your “I”) changes.

In this lesson, you’ll identify and respond to your own changes to create a story.

Story Arcs and Obstacles

For some people, a story amounts to a bunch of stuff that happens, not unlike the explosions and car chases in action movies – the more exciting the better, maybe nonsensical, but so what? For others, a story simply involves talking about yourself and what’s happened to you.

The action may never stop, which does feel real. But effective storytelling relies on a story arc: a beginning, middle, and end for the actions you’re recounting. Determining where a story begins and ends requires your “I” to direct readers, letting them know what has mattered to you and continues to matter.

Think of heroic quests or Survivor.

The most straightforward story arcs involve overcoming obstacles. A hero goes on a quest, facing dragons. Or contestants on a reality TV show like Survivor compete. Silly as it seems, the gameplay of Survivor – swimming out to a giant wicker cage with your team, releasing keys to unlock puzzle pieces – is a stand-in for confronting real obstacles.

As any Survivor fan knows, it’s the relationships among the contestants and their backstories that drive the action. There’s a social game, too, in which players keep adjusting to changes regarding who to work with or vote out. But what keeps me hooked is the way contestants reflect on their own decisions. The stories they tell about themselves evolve as the game evolves, like life.^[1]

Turning Points and Change

Another key ingredient: interpreting change.

Personal storytelling pushes you to respond to everything: daily events, media, art and pop culture, transformations in your own circumstances. Human events roll forward in time, even if your writerly voice can flash between past and present or into an imagined future. The only constant is change.

Observing your life as it passes emphasizes the inevitability of change. However, another ingredient is required for effective storytelling: interpretation.

Beginning – middle – end. The changes that make the biggest difference create a “before” and “after” in the way you perceive yourself. These turning points are often the impetus for a story. They lead your “I” to question your response to a change and how it has affected your sense of self.

Maggie Nelson’s nonfiction narrative The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial, for instance, opens with such a turning point. Everything she’d previously assumed about the unsolved 1969 murder of her aunt is cast into doubt:

“We have every reason to believe this case is moving swiftly toward a successful conclusion.

These were the words spoken by a detective from the Michigan State Police, in a phone call to my mother, one afternoon in early November 2004. After hanging up with the detective, my mother called me and repeated the message.

His words stunned me. As she said them I watched the hallway of my apartment tilt slightly downward, as if momentarily flirting with the idea of becoming a funhouse.” ^[2]

Not every turning point is so dramatic. Yours could be quitting a bad job, leaving home to go to college, or becoming a parent. The storytelling trick is to describe changes in your life that pose new questions. The “before” and “after” then become the foundation for a complete story arc.

Q. How does this lesson build on the previous lesson?

The previous lesson encourages paying attention to specific details in the world around you. In “Responding to Life” you’ll harness your descriptive skills and vividly captured moments to interpret a personal change, giving it meaning as a story.

Q. What if I can’t think of any personal turning points?

The “Dream First” activity here prompts you to come up with turning points through pop songs, books, or other cultural touchstones – a place to start.

If you’re still having trouble, ask yourself why. You may not believe your changes are worthy of attention. Or they may have been forced on you. While it’s harder to write a story when your “I” is a victim of circumstance, the questions you ask about what happened are compelling. They put you in charge as a storyteller.

You may be ashamed you haven’t done more to change your life.

You may be ashamed you haven’t done more to change your life, an all-too-human response. Yet consider the regrets you might have about something you decided or didn’t do. As author Daniel Pink notes in The Power of Regret:

“Open the hood of regret, and you’ll see that the engine powering it is storytelling…. Our capacity to respond to regret, to mobilize it for good, depends on our narrative skills – disclosing the tale, analyzing its components, and crafting and recrafting the next chapter.” ^[3]