Being a writer is hard. Being a writer who tells stories that make society uncomfortable enough to change is even harder. Wanting to create art that heals humanity is an honorable calling. But if you do not take steps to protect your own heart while you pour it out onto the page, you will break it.

Stories That Can Change the World

When we say that storytellers have the power to change our world for the better, we are serious. But in order for your stories to carry the kind of impact that can change the world, you must be writing about what really matters.

We teach you how to wield this kind of healing power with your writing at One Brilliant Arc, and this month we are talking about how to do that by writing with intimacy: writing closer to the heart to unlock the true power of your words.

Why does writing with intimacy matter? Because words that come from the heart hit harder than empty words.

The stories that can change the world aren’t the generic stories that make us feel warm and cozy inside or the ones that anyone else can tell by mashing together a few popular tropes in the shape of the 3-Act Structure.

But I’m going to be honest with you: when I tried to write like that for the first five years of my career, I burned myself out. I’m still trying to find the bravery to put my raw heart on the page like that again.

Why Intimate Writing Is More Powerful

The reason we take the risk of writing so personally even when sharing those words hurts us is because it works. Our stories are more effective at making an impact when they come straight from our hearts. There are three specific factors that make writing with intimacy more powerful:

1. CONNECTION. Stories do their healing work in people’s hearts when they go past readers’ ears and get under their skin. Writing with intimacy transforms your work from surface noise to something readers can latch onto. Your words stop being merely words and start being words written especially for them. If you want your writing to make a difference, you must go deeper than the surface level to connect with readers in a way that makes your words unforgettable.

2. RESONANCE. Especially in the age of AI, we as a society are sorely missing humanity. We are surrounded by a deluge of content, but little of it gets under our skin to make a real difference because so few stories truly speak to our humanity. If you want your words to resonate with readers, you must write in a way that reminds them of themselves. The most effective way to do that is to write from your own humanity.

3. RELATABILITY. When you really write, people recognize themselves in your words, creating connection and resonance. If you write from your raw humanity, straight from the heart, your words will connect stronger with readers because they will relate to what you are saying. None of our stories are exactly the same, but all of us walk through similar human experiences: the joys, the heartbreaks, the struggles, the confusion, the love, the mess. When you write with intimacy, your readers feel seen by your words. Your story becomes their story, and now they care about your writing personally.

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While intimate writing is more effective at touching people’s hearts and healing the ways that the cruelty of our world has broken them, creating this art costs something of you. If you want to be the kind of writer who can tell these world-changing stories without hurting yourself, you have to be prepared for the battle.

What You Need To Be Armed and Prepared

Writing for yourself is therapeutic. Writing for the world is a labor of love. Writing stories that help readers feel seen, heal hearts, change minds, and make the world a better place requires you to step fully into the deepest darkness and brutalities of the world with your eyes and heart wide open. You must feel every hurt entirely. Look at every ugly, broken thing in yourself square in the face and refuse the instinct to sugar coat the truth. Then, you must trust that in baring your soul to the world, people will not react cruelly or use any of your most vulnerable truths against you.

Writing stories that matter means pouring your real, raw heart out onto the page, then giving those words to the world and saying,

“This is me. Please be gentle.”

And our world is very rarely gentle.

Every writer knows how scary it feels to share their stories with anyone. The sheer terror you feel every time your cursor hovers over the “publish” button? The sick feeling in your gut you get when you think about real people reading your words? The irrepressible urge to disappear under a blanket fort, change your name, scrub yourself from the internet, and never show your face in public again? That’s your body’s natural response to the danger of baring your soul to the cold world.

However, we cannot ignore the real danger you open yourself up to when you trust the world with your raw soul. You cannot open your heart up to every possibility of intentions from humans who choose to be harsh and expect to still be whole by the end.

You cannot wade into this battle against the darkness without being properly armed.

I don’t want you to be as naive as I was and end up getting burned out when there is more good you can do for the world. So let me encourage you to make a battle strategy. How will you show your heart to the world while still respecting your own well-being? What kind of emotional boundaries must you have in order to make a genuine impact through your writing without letting yourself be burned?

Start building the kind of armor you should bring to the battle. I have discovered some of these things the hard way over my career the past 12 years. Here is not an exhaustive list of everything you should arm yourself with, but the points are a good place to start.

These are things that you owe yourself before you press the “publish” button on any piece that exposes your tender heart to the world:

• SENSE OF IDENTITY. The world will try to bury your unique identity. The publishing industry in particular will convince you that unless you write the most marketable story, your writing is no good. If you don’t fit into the same box as the most average blueprint of monetary success, your story will be unacceptable. You need to be strong enough to stand on your unique identity. Because if you cannot be true to yourself, then you will be doing no one a genuine service and the work will not be worth the sacrifice. Refuse to be talked into shrinking yourself into their boxes even when they tell you that doing so is the only way forward. Refuse to sell your identity for any promise of material success. Do not become unrecognizable to yourself.

• HEALING. Writing is an incredible tool for processing pain and trauma. Whether we like it or not, if we are writing honestly our deepest pain will eventually start showing up on the page. Some of us are healing through our writing. Then, we offer the world our stories so others can find the same healing we found. This is one of the greatest powers for good that comes from writing with intimacy. Sadly, not everyone in the world will respect your wounds. Some will use the information you share against you to attack you in your most vulnerable places. Don’t open yourself up to this risk until you are fully healed. Don’t give bullies a chance to attack your open wounds. Wait until they have scabbed over so you can keep the poison of their barbs out. This doesn’t mean the cruelty of others will hurt less, but it does mean they will do less damage.

• LEGACY THAT IS MORE THAN WORDS. Putting your personal, one of a kind story down in ink is a powerful legacy to leave for yourself. But what legacy are you leaving for yourself in the real world? And is your life off the page as true to yourself as your life on the page? Sometimes, we can get altogether overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotions we carry through our writing. While the darkest griefs have a tendency to spark the most powerful words, we need real world joy to remind us of the more beautiful perspective. Take time to cultivate relationships that remind you of the best in humanity. Be present in real life moments so you can relish the joy in the little things. Make sure that you anchor yourself in a full life so you don’t get lost as you explore your own soul.

• PHYSICAL HEALTH AND MENTAL WELL-BEING. Hustle culture convinces us that we must sacrifice our own well-being for the sake of the grind if we want to see success. But the truth is that your creativity is dependent on your mental and physical well-being. Have you eaten today? Gotten enough rest? Moved your body and gotten blood flow to your brain? Touched grass and breathed fresh air to renew your inspiration? Had a conversation in the real world that helps you ground your story in reality? Rarely, writing is the best support for your well-being, even before you meet your other basic needs. Sometimes the muse arrests you and you must strike while the iron is hot, thus other basic tasks must wait. But if you do not tend to these tasks that keep your mental and physical health in check, you will end up burning out faster. If you are feeling blocked while sitting at your writing desk, likely, you have not given your body the fuel it needs to function optimally.

• PURPOSE. Why are you doing this? After all this mental and emotional drainage, the struggle of fighting against the whole world to be yourself and make a career in the arts when everyone said it was impossible, why do we keep doing this? If you want to survive a career dedicated to healing the world through stories, you must have a WHY to keep you going. Who are you telling these stories for? Why is it worth you being brave and sharing your real self with the world? Unless you have a purpose behind the work, you won’t be able to persevere through the most painful moments or the most discouraging days.

Writing the kinds of stories that can change the world requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice. Telling the truth about what it means to be human in this world requires brave vulnerability. But making a difference in the world for the better through your art doesn’t mean you have to abandon yourself.

💬 Let us know what you think!

• Did I forget anything? What things would you add to this list?

• Do you relate to this fear of being vulnerable in your writing? What kind of response have you experienced from people when you have shared something personal?

Leave a comment

➡️ Want free, safe, trauma-informed feedback from professional editors on a particularly vulnerable story you’re working on? OBA’s story team is here for you! Submit your work in progress for a FREE editing session with our panel of story coaches and let us help you take the next brave step to sharing your story with a world that needs it.

Submit your WIP here

Check out how we help writers

Shifting Sands of the Market

There is a phenomenon taking place in the creative market right now. We are seeing trends change before our eyes, and are having to figure out how to adapt to fighting on an entirely new battlefront.

When I was first building my creative career as a writer 10 years ago, I believed I had to fit a certain image if I wanted to be successful. Carefully curated Instagram pages; untouchable professionals; perfectly polished images…they made up the popular standard I stuck to. I was told that if I wanted to be a “credible expert,” a “professional writer,” I had to maintain this polished image. I couldn’t let any flaw of my humanity peek through to the public. Couldn’t let them see me make any mistake. Couldn’t speak too raw or unedited for anyone’s comfort.

In short, I bought the lie that my authentic voice wasn’t good enough. I had to become somebody else.

But then I saw the irony in this strategy: I started realizing that the stories I really loved—the books, poems, songs, and films that really connected with me—were written by imperfect artists about imperfect humanity. Their words and images were raw. Powerful. Heartbreaking. Joyous. Ugly. Imperfect.

They were real.

These stories felt like they went beyond the surface level of entertainment and gave language to the parts of me I was convinced I could never show. The parts that were too messy, too broken, too dark, and too confusing for me to admit existed. The parts of my humanity I was scared to ever show because they made me uncomfortable. They made me hate myself. So why would I expect anyone else to accept that version of me?

The stories that really mattered saw the parts of me the rest of the world had convinced me were unacceptable, and made space for them. The words I sought out, the artists who had my heart and my support, were the ones connected to this part of my humanity.

Not the perfect, polished, professional version of humanity I believed I had to present.

The Lie of Professionalism

We are talking this month at One Brilliant Arc about strategy. How can we most effectively tell our stories for others to hear them? How do we build successful business strategies from our stories that still feel genuine?

The first rule to building credibility in a business strategy usually sounds something like:

“Don’t act human.”

Because if the people buying into you know that you are human just like them, they won’t trust you to offer them something they do not have, and therefore they will not pay you.

Yet, for us creatives, our stories come from deep within our soul. We tell our stories because we want to make somebody feel something. We can’t do that without baring parts of our imperfect humanity. Our words are a gateway to a special kind of vulnerability that most professionals would never dream of modeling.

It’s easy to wear a mask that covers up the mess of the real you; trust someone with 20 years of experience and “proven methods” rather than trust your own voice when you can barely stand what it sounds like in your head alone in the dead of night. Conformity feels safe to us as humans. Standing out with our vulnerability never feels comfortable for anyone.

After decades of following this advice in line with our instincts for self-preservation and covering up our humanity with performance polish, we see that being sold nothing but generic perfection is leaving us all soul-sick and unfulfilled. People now can smell performance and fakeness from a mile away, and they feel bitter because they know it is a lie.

Real humanity is messy. A polished story and a polished presence as an author that fits into the box of commercialized success we have been handed sells great for a bit, because it is a shiny ideal we all aspire for.

All it took was a deluge of soulless AI slop to war against the Arts before we realized that humanity is starving for something real.

We already know the unmatched power of storytelling to transcend time, culture and language; to touch people and heal hearts; to resonate more effectively and instantly than any other form of communication; to forge instant connection and trust with our readers. The statistics prove that our authenticity—our honest vulnerability—supercharges the power of storytelling. When you combine the powers of storytelling and authenticity, you have a winning creative business strategy.

While storytelling+authenticity is a winning business strategy, it also carries consequences, dangers, and pitfalls that are downright terrifying.

Am I Traumatized Enough To Be a Good Writer?

Over my (relatively) short creative career, I saw the marketing trend for writers flip from ‘Performance Polish’ selling best to ‘Raw, Dark, Gritty Trauma’ selling best. We started realizing the consequences of never being real and started putting more value on honest human connection. So these days, it seems that the more raw, vulnerable, and ugly you write, the more you are rewarded with views, likes, popularity, and client conversion. This shift is great for writers who have been desperate to take off the mask of performance polish and write the emotional truths that really matter!

However, the pitfall of this kind of vulnerability being rewarded is that we’re starting to see a toxic contest take place. In order to “beat” the other stories out there, you have to top their trauma. Now, our vulnerability is being sold as shock value and sensationalized. Instead of space being made for our pain and healing being catalyzed, our pain is commercialized and sold to the highest bidder. The real trauma we have experienced is being exploited and sold as entertainment instead of being used to spark connections of education and sensitivity.

Another danger is that horrible people who are okay with treating our very real trauma as their personal entertainment can take advantage of our vulnerability.

The other day, over breakfast, I was casually scrolling Substack looking for more soulful creators to connect with when I saw an update from the lovely —award-winning author, illustrator, and designer who is creating collaborative projects and community here on Substack to help others heal their stories along with her—that struck me to my core.

We talk a lot here at One Brilliant Arc about telling your story without fear, speaking your truth, and owning your voice. Our entire mission is to empower creators to tell their honest stories with their authentic voice—because the stories that heal hearts and change the world are the ones that are raw, vulnerable, and human. But telling these kinds of stories takes serious guts.

Billie’s experience is one example of the price we have to pay for sharing these vulnerable truths about ourselves, isn’t it? Ever since reading her Note, I couldn’t help asking myself over and over:

Is it a fair price to pay?

The Breaks of a Sacred Calling

The answer is no. Obviously this kind of evil and brokenness in our world shouldn’t exist. It’s wrong; sad; disgusting.

And yet it does exist.

We can’t ever fully eliminate the darkness that we are all sick of. It will plague us as long as we are alive. The only way to fight back against that kind of darkness overrunning the world is to create more light. More places for goodness to flourish. More stories that invite personal introspection, growth, and healing. More space for genuine human connection. In order for that to happen, we need more brave storytellers.

The same day I came across Billie’s Note, I also came across this Note by :

He is so right. Not only do we not talk enough about the logistical hard work that being a writer requires, but we don’t talk about the emotional toll it takes on us. And we really, truly need to recognize this if we want to keep good storytellers safe and supported.

We never lie to the writers we work with at OBA—whether through our personal coaching or editing services, workshops, or collaborations and conversations—that storytelling that can change the world for the better requires unprecedented bravery. Writers who dared put the truth in ink in the past faced censorship, prison, and fire for their words. Evil powers desperately want to silence the storytellers who have something powerful to say.

Opening up ourselves to this world is scary for a good reason: it can truly be dangerous. We need to be wise about how to protect ourselves from the nefarious intentions of others. We have to be careful that in speaking our truth, we don’t allow our souls to become commodities. Yet we also need to be resolved in our purpose. Confident in our power. Unshakable in our individual worth and identity.

Our community of creatives also must learn how to rally around each other and have each other’s backs. I understand that it is easy to feel more threatened than thrilled at someone else’s wins when competition is so high and we are all fighting to put food on the table. The chasm between the financial security of those who “make it” in a creative career and those who don’t is disproportionately wide. This industry has historically been heavily gatekept and it is hard to change those patterns and rebuild trust. But the community of writers and creators on Substack is trying to rewrite this narrative!

Writing is solitary and heavy work. Why would we make the work even more isolating and heavier on ourselves by not sharing the burden with others? Why not allow ourselves to be inspired and carried by the stories of others, lifting up voices who are tired and encouraging everyone doing their best to put more light into the world to not give up?

Does the Winning Strategy Ever Win?

There’s no easy answer for any of this. I’m not writing this post claiming to have one. I’m writing it because these things have been heavy on my mind recently. What I really want to say to those of you who are these incredible storytellers—working your butts off, baring your souls, holding the weight of the human condition, and braving the full blast of darkness that you get from society in return:

and , you are both incredible humans doing wonderful creative work, and I want to thank you both for inspiring my journey.

To anyone who reads this who does not yet have a career in the arts:

If anything, I hope my words will help you gain a new appreciation and respect for a work that is crucial for humanity yet too often goes unappreciated and unprotected.

A creative career oftentimes feels less like a career and more like a lifestyle of sacred duty. If success ever comes, it is very rarely in the form of money, fame, or writing two hours a week on serene porches or beachfronts with champagne in hand. Success in this line of work comes in the form of an exhausted and hungry 3am after you have stayed up all night searching your soul for the right words and you finally feel something crack in your chest. It comes in that moment when you are about ready to give up because you just can’t find it in your heart or your bank account to keep going, then you receive a random comment or message from someone that says your words made them cry. It comes in the form of a quiet whisper you leave as your legacy that you may or may not ever see ripple into a mighty roar.

Success only comes after you have emptied yourself of everything.

Want free, safe, trauma-informed feedback from professional editors on a particularly vulnerable story you’re working on? OBA’s story team is here for you! Submit your work in progress for a FREE editing session with our panel of story coaches and let us help you take the next brave step to sharing your story with a world that needs it.

Submit your WIP here

Check out how we help writers!

More we’ve talked about at :

Standing Out in the Cacophony

When I am editing manuscripts or articles, I can always tell immediately the novice writers who will struggle to ever get far from the writers who are in the league all on their own. The magical difference between the two is VOICE.

Every writer and artist who wants to “make it” in a creative career is looking for what makes them stand out from the oversaturated market that is bent against our thoughtful stories in favor of fast trends. Every artist is told that in order to succeed, they need to find their own style that sets them apart from everyone else.

Unsurprisingly, the most repeated advice any writer will run into when they start looking to improve at their craft is:

“Find your own narrative voice”

“Develop your own writing style.”

People love to throw these phrases around as a catch-all answers to every problem beginner writers run into. But if you ask someone to define exactly HOW to accomplish this feat, you are bound to run into a few hot takes and a lot of unsatisfying answers. So, today, we’re going to cover the whole issue, and I’m actually going to answer for you WHY you need to develop your own writing voice, and HOW you can know for sure if your writing is unique enough to stand on its own merit.

Let’s get into it.

Everything is a Trend

Writers are constantly being turned down by agents and publishing companies because the industry will only take a chance on selling stories that have already been proven to sell before. Any storyteller who breaks the mold and tries something different from the shiny style and accepted tropes is left out on the street because the industry claims they “aren’t marketable.”

The problem is, when we go looking for desperately-needed advice on making a living from our work, we find that what is touted as “marketable” is so often not what feels like our own voice. Too often, there is a disconnect between what we’re told sells and what feels like the real us.

The age of AI makes it easier than ever to prepackage our stories to sound exactly like what the industry wants to sell. You can fit in with the bestsellers easily enough if you sell out to instantaneous, unoriginal, formulaic AI generation. But we cheapen our stories when we try to fit them into these commercialized boxes of success. The writers whose stories will impact people the most stand out from your next Colleen Hoover or James Patterson novel. The kinds of writers who parrot the style, vocabulary, trends, stereotypes, and tropes on the market are a dime a dozen. They may be celebrated by the industry because they play it safe with marketability, but their stories won’t endure beyond a fad.

The truth is humans crave real stories—the ones that are raw and ugly. The ones with cracks around the edges. “Authenticity” is being tossed around as a buzz word because readers are actually begging for it. People who have been deprived of human connection after being sold nothing but generic performance polish for so long are desperate for something real.

The human experience is wild. On the one hand, the things we struggle with are universal, and on the other, every perspective of the same experiences and struggles is unique to each individual. We don’t realize how not alone we are in our struggles until we meet someone else whose story reminds us of our own. Then, the words that they share offer us a bridge of connection. A chance to say, “Someone sees me. I’m not alone.”

These are the kinds of stories that stick with us—not the ones that fit into every trend that is currently selling. Even if these radically honest writers aren’t saying anything revolutionary, they tell their story with a certain unique style, grounded in the raw parts of humanity that every single one of us experience yet no one is brave enough to say out loud.

The writers that get under our skin and change our hearts are the ones that say the things we were never allowed to say. They give words to the feelings that we buried because they were too raw; too uncomfortable; too taboo for society to accept. And you, with your unique voice, have the ability to be the one that can reach the people who need to hear their truths spoken.

We don’t make a lasting impact by saying what’s already been said 1,000 times before in the same way it’s been said before. We tell stories that can change the world by bringing our unique, inimitable voice to the conversation; sharing bold truth instead of comfortable facades. The worst thing we could do is sell our unique voice to appeal to the mass audience. When we do that, we sell our biggest source of power.

The Lie We Were Fed

We grow up editing ourselves. We all are raised understanding that we need to sound like someone else—someone more credible and professional—to be taken seriously. As early as middle school, we learn that in order to be accepted and successful, we have to sound like the most popular person in the room. We follow the advice of our teachers to make our stories sound like what has already been lauded as “good writing.” As if “good writing” can always and only consist of Hemmingway, Plath, Dickens, and Shakespeare.

Writers are naturally introspective people, and that makes us self-conscious. I think we creative personalities are, more than anyone else, prone to battling paralyzing self-doubt over if anyone will care about what we are saying or if our story is worth telling. We fear judgement, rejection, and not being good enough. All of humanity craves acceptance, but the most raw, tender, emotional truths we writers put into our stories make us especially vulnerable to these anxieties.

We develop our writing skills under a lifetime of this pressure from all sides to say the acceptable thing, in the acceptable way, and then we’re expected to one day suddenly find our own voice to write our stories? No wonder everyone is clueless about how to find their own style and scared to use it! The biggest lie creators are ever told is that if they want to make an impact, they shouldn’t sound like themselves.

We are taught not to make waves. Not to break the mold. Not to say the truth that would make people uncomfortable. Not to tell the stories that could change the world. We’re taught for our entire lives that our authenticity isn’t good enough.

I’m here to tell you that it is.

The How

The elusive question: how do you develop your writing style to be strong and distinct? If you ask this question, you will often hear one of these two conflicting answers:

1. Learn from what works.

The industry tells us that the only way to beat the challenges of marketing and gain popularity with readers is to copy what works. Follow the trends. Sound like other professional writers. Write what the majority agrees with. These strategies are the most sure path to success.

There is truth to this advice, because we all learn by mimicking people who already know how to do a particular thing. Immersing ourselves in the work of “the greats” of our craft will naturally teach us how to improve—and will also bleed into our own narrative voices. Copying the kind of writing that resonates with us is a surefire way to strengthen our own writing.

The problem is, if we never learn to listen for and trust our own voice, we will blend in with everyone else in the cacophony. Our truth will be corrupted by others’ truths. Our voice will be co-opted by the fake humanity we are fed. Our personality will be drowned out by the stories that have already been told.

2. Don’t sound like anyone else who has been published.

This suggestion is really hard—especially nowadays with instantaneous access to our global and incredibly extensive digital library—because it turns out, truly, there nothing is new under the sun.

Which is why I echo the wise words from author :

Here is where we run into the hot button question: is it a corruption of your own voice if you are influenced by other artists or writers?

People seem to think that any influence on your voice is a corruption of yours. This conflict can cause us to swing to the other extreme of caution by refusing to learn from anyone. I’ve seen people isolate themselves from any kind of art or culture because they don’t want to sound too much like anyone else. But this kind of island is actually the greatest disservice you could possibly do to the development of your own voice. We start developing our own voice exactly by being influenced by others.

Your Patchwork of Stories

We are all made of stories. The stories that influenced our ancestors are passed down and given to us in pieces. We collect our own tales every day—from the books we read, the movies we watch, the people we meet, the things we experience…yes, even the TikTok trends we watch. This unique amalgamation of all these intersecting story pieces is what makes you, YOU. That is the unique patchwork that only you can bring to the table of what has all been said before. This unique patchwork of millions of story pieces is what makes your narrative voice inimitable, never before seen on the globe and never to be seen again.

Stories offer threads of connection across humanity, transcending millenniums, continents, cultures, and nations. Part of going through life is collecting little pieces of everyone else’s shared stories and using those pieces to add depth to your own story.

The best thing you can do to develop your distinct voice is to collect as many stories as you can throughout your life. Honor the ones you carry, and add new ones. Read widely, watch widely, experience widely. Pass on the things that have spoken deeply to you, along with your own thoughts about them. Be influenced by pieces of so many others that you don’t get mistaken for any one person.

But What About Editors?

“But Ceylan, aren’t you an editor? Are you saying no one should have their writing edited because that fundamentally ruins authenticity?”

How do we balance professionalism with authenticity—and somehow still keep the nuances of our own voice intact? This balancing act can feel impossible to navigate.

The topic is really a whole separate article for another day, but deserves a quick address here. Editors with an objective perspective on your story ARE important to making sure your message is coming across as clearly and powerfully as possible. A good editor will work with you to understand your unique story and honor your authentic voice so they know how to AMPLIFY it, not SCRUB it. This is the exact work we do with writers at One Brilliant Arc to help them get their manuscripts ready for publishing.

I polish your grammar and advise you on story structure best practices so no one has an excuse for writing off the truth of your story. But I will never change the rhythm of your natural sentence structure or the vocabulary you use to describe the feelings behind your message that makes you sound like YOU.

What Does Your Voice Sound Like?

No one can answer this question for you—only you know what your authentic voice sounds like. You MUST discover it before the cacophony buries it. Don’t fall into the lie that your authenticity isn’t acceptable in today’s market. Don’t scrub your personality to the point that you don’t recognize your real self. Don’t try to fit yourself into a box that some editor or agent tries to tell you that you need to in order to be successful. Your authentic voice is your greatest superpower for being able to resonate with people. Use it.

Your personality may not be for everyone. That is okay. For the right people, your voice will feel like home and they’ll never want to leave. Your truth may not resonate with the masses. But for the people it does resonate with, it will resonate powerfully. It may even change their lives.

The real answer to this elusive question is way simpler than all the conflicting advice would proclaim. It’s a mix of the two recurring ideas: you need to both WIDEN your own perspective, and CONNECT with your own perspective. This is why, in the end, AI writing, entertainment trends, and celebrity popularity will never truly stick forever: they do not speak to the real essence of humanity inside of us.

And the essence of humanity is stories.

So what is yours?

Why Do We Write Stories?

Only a special kind of person can look at all the darkness in the world, feel the pain in their bones, and then turn that suffering into something beautiful with their words.

This magical transformation is precisely what we do every day as storytellers.

In this way, we have access to a divine power: creating hope and light out of darkness and shadows.

Not only are we redeeming our own tragedies through the power of storytelling, but we redeem the tragedies of others by helping them turn their brokenheartedness into a meaningful story.

A storyteller’s great duty is to understand the pain in the world, then give words to what others have experienced to break them free; leading them out of darkness and toward light.

The Power to Heal Others

When we share our stories, we are baring our hearts and giving others the chance to say, “Me too.” Such a declaration helps them feel less alone in the darkness. We show them that evil can be overcome.

Some might say that hope in the face of the depths of brokenness present in our world is naïve. Perhaps. But I can tell you for certain from my own experience that it takes much more bravery to hope for things to become better and work toward making them so than giving up and accepting the darkness.

But carrying the weight of hope is heavy.

The Weight of Hope

Selflessly carrying stories of hope and freedom to others takes a lot out of us. The work we do is very emotional. In order to understand someone’s story to tell it well, we need to have the empathy to put ourselves in their shoes and imagine what they must be feeling and experiencing.

This first step alone can lead many creative storytellers to burn out because not only do we experience our own lives very deeply, but we have to experience the lives of countless others deeply in order to craft our stories.

Why do we do what we do when it rips our hearts out and feels so heavy? Statistically, the majority of storytellers do not make money from writing, even if they do happen to craft the next New York Times Bestseller. We write and live and create our stories in our exhaustion, after we have already worked 3 jobs to try to survive. Oftentimes, we pour our souls, finances, and time into our craft to receive no acknowledgement of our work. No payment. No recognition that we are doing anything worthwhile. So what makes us go on?

What It Costs You to Carry the Stories of Others Well

In the work that we do as story coaches, editors, and creators, we constantly evaluate ourselves to make sure that we are carrying others’ stories well. It is a privilege beyond any other to offer others the power of healing their own hearts. We must make sure we are wielding this power consciously and responsibly.

A story we talk about often within our team to help us remember the great purpose we have as storytellers is Hadestown, the musical. For those unfamiliar, this theatre play retells the tragic story of Orpheus, a poet who sang a song that had the power

“To fix what’s wrong / Take what’s broken, make it whole / A song so beautiful / It brings the world back into tune.”

Hermes, the Olympian god and narrator of the play, says of him:

“Orpheus was a poor boy / You might say he was naive / But this poor boy raised up his voice with his heart out on his sleeve.”

To save his imprisoned lover, Eurydice, Orpheus must take a long, dark, and dangerous walk to Hadestown, the underworld where people are enslaved by the cruel and lonely king, Hades. Orpheus is warned that the walk,

“Ain’t for the sensitive of soul,”

but he strikes out in selfless love anyway.

Relistening to the musical album recently (as I do often), I was struck by the thought that this walk into the darkness is even more painful for someone who wears their heart on their sleeve and feels everything more deeply than everyone else. As creatives, we tend to have very soft hearts. Some might call us overly-sensitive, dramatic, or weak. In truth, this empathy is the cost of our duty to speak healing into the world. In the process of bringing his full heart to the darkest and most hopeless of places, Orpheus’ song ends up being the anthem of the enslaved people that restores their hope of freedom and value as humans which Hadestown stole from them.

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Ultimately, Orpheus loses the one he loves the most because of the burdens his soul carries, and the enslaved remain imprisoned. But the idea of their own inner strength, reborn, stays with them forever. Despite the sad tale of Orpheus’ tragedy, his story told in this musical never ends. The beginning song starts over again at the ending number to show us that Orpheus’ music continues on, to be sung again and again by those who need hope. Because there is meaning in his story that impacts people beyond his own experience.

The Purpose of a Storyteller

Lending our words and empathy to others by telling their stories is a labor of love: a sacred burden unlike any other. But I believe that when you wield the power of creation to redeem brokenness into something beautiful, you are the closest to divine purpose you can get in this life.

Hopefully we can all protect our souls from the weight breaking us like it did Orpheus. Yet, this foundation of selflessness and purpose is what keeps me going against all odds. Because I know I have the power to tell the stories that will bring freedom and healing to others, with a ripple effect that I may never see in my lifetime.

The great honor of telling meaningful stories can be a heavy burden, but knowing we have such an important purpose should encourage us to continue writing and living our stories; continue speaking truth and kindness boldly into other peoples’ stories. Keep carrying your torch as part of the grand army of goodness. Do not give up. Do not doubt your power. Maybe I will only see the sadness and brokenness in my life. But stories written down publicly live beyond us. The ink endures, and it only has to touch one heart for the ripple effect to start.

Someday, when we least expect so, we will change the narrative of the world to be a story more aligned with light.

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