Can Writing Your Own Story Change Your Life?
Try it!
Recently I did a library event for EMBOLDENED: On Finding the Fire to Keep Going When All Seems Lost with wonderful Sydney bookseller, Lynne Allister.
She asked me if writing the book had changed me in some way. It was a fabulous question because in the book I share how I drew on the stories of amazing real-life historical women for inspiration in healing from a traumatic event.
Putting what I had learned into writing, and sharing it with readers in a way that they might benefit too, cemented in my mind all that I had learned and how far I had come.
Writing down our stories can have powerful healing effects.
Rather than memories going around and around our heads, when we write down our stories we commit to facing them and sharing the lessons we learned in a way that others can understand.
The very act of doing this allows us a sense of perspective about what we have experienced. Instead of existing only in our heads, the story now exists on paper. Sometimes this is exactly what we need in order to let our past go and to move forward.
An important element in fiction writing is what is called a ‘character arc’. The arc refers to the journey the main character makes from the start of the story to the end. That arc is broken down into both an external journey – the character travelling from London to New York for instance – and the internal journey they make.
In coming-of-age stories, the internal journey usually starts from innocence or naivety and ends with the gaining of wisdom. To create dramatic tension, writers will give the main character a burning desire for something –to find their lost child for example – and then add forces and characters that work to prevent them from fulfilling that desire.
It’s in overcoming these forces that the character achieves both their external goal and becomes somebody new by the end of the story.
One of the reasons we love to read fiction is that in experiencing characters make their internal and external journeys, we learn about ourselves.
This is why reading books can never be replaced by other forms of entertainment such as films and games. Fiction writers take readers into the internal world and thoughts of their characters. We come to understand why they make the decisions they do, and ask ourselves if we would do the same.
A helpful exercise to reinforce lessons we have experienced is to reflect on our own journeys in terms of character arcs. We can recall something that happened to us and map the external and internal journeys we made.
Looking at our lives this way can elevate our self-respect and strengthen our self-belief that we can overcome difficulties and find solutions to problems, because we have done so in the past.
It can also change the direction of our lives by taking advantage of the neuroplasticity of our brains, which don’t know the difference between what is real or not when we are imagining something vividly.
For instance, remembering an argument we had weeks ago with someone can cause our heart rate to rise and adrenalin to pump through our veins even though the offending party is long gone from our lives. Likewise, thinking about something pleasurable that could happen in the future can make us feel good in the present.
Writing a story about something we would like to experience in the future is incredibly empowering.
To do this, we can think of our starting point as now and imagine where we would like to end up, and predict what external and internal character arcs we will achieve, and imagine what challenges we might face and how we will overcome them.
Just as a professional golfer visualising hitting a hole-in-one and hearing the applause of the crowd before he or she has even swung their club can increase their chances of winning a game, so too can we increase our chance of gaining something we want by positively imaging the result beforehand. In other words, we can place ourselves as the heroes of our own stories and that truly can be life-changing.
Try writing down your past and imagined future stories and see what happens!
Did you know I've written ten historical fiction novels and two non-fiction books? You can find out more about my writing at belinda-alexandra.com.
HAVE YOU JOINED ‘BOOK CLUB WITH BELINDA AND NATASHA’ YET?
Book Club with Belinda and Natasha is a free online book club hosted by bestselling authors Belinda Alexandra and Natasha Lester along the theme of ‘History, and other beautiful and fascinating things’.
Each month we host a live interview with a guest author whose book we have chosen as ‘The Book of the Month’. We let members know who that author is in advance so they can read the book and have their questions ready. (Members don't have to read every book every month but can dip in and out as they please. The idea is to share the joy of books - so no pressure!)
We also encourage members to post on our group page about books relevant to the theme that they have loved.
UPCOMING EVENTS
SYDNEY
❦ SATURDAY, October 21st
Secrets & Scandals: The Allure of Uncovering Hidden Pasts
Thank you for reading, if you do decide to write your story, I’d love to hear about it! I’ll be back again next week looking at courage and confidence.
Until then be kind to yourself,
Love Belinda XX