How to Weave Life Into Your Writing (+ meet Project Live Your Story)
I recently reread one of my very first stories. It was a major cringe fest and I needed to wash out my eyeballs afterwards, but it was really neat to see how I’ve grown as a writer and as a person.
I also saw that if you looked past the questionable spelling grammar and the pseudo plagiarized names and tropes and the complete lack of story structure, my story was missing something very important.
The Horse Issue
It wasn’t story structure. Even though that could have helped improve my story, it was not the root of the problem.
It wasn’t the dull and one dimensional characters
It wasn’t the millions of plot holes.
It wasn’t the clunky descriptions and prose.
Even if I had fixed all of these things, my story still wouldn’t have been very compelling. It would have been significantly improved, but it’d still be missing a key part: life experience.
While writing this story, I remember developing the character at the ripe old age of nine years old. I was trying to follow a character development questionnaire, and needed to answer a question about what the character wanted. Nowadays, I’d dive into the deep fears and past experiences of my character. She might want to be loved or desire to get back home against all odds. These “wants” stem from something deeper – a desire for companionship, or for family.
My nine year old self thought of none of this, and instead decided that my character would want and desire a horse. (mainly because I wanted a horse.yes I was that horse obsessed kid)
Because of my lack of life experience, I genuinely thought that getting a horse was a deep desire. I thought that getting a horse would fix all of the world’s problems. I hadn’t matured enough to find out that there are more meaningful things in life than having a horse.
The Tough Part About Being Young
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a young writer, but one of our biggest downfalls is that we lack experience and maturity. We need to have a decent understanding of real life to write compelling fiction.
The best books and movies reflect real life. They reflect real life struggles, conflicts, and joys. And to be able to write those kinds of stories, you need to have some understanding of the struggles and triumphs that come with living.
As young writers, we lack the experience that’s needed to craft a powerful story. No matter how well crafted the characters are or how sound the story structure is, without threading real life in those aspects, your story will fall flat.
The nice thing about experience is that it can be acquired in a myriad of ways. My writing and view of the world has changed so much just in the past year. Every day you grow older, you experience new things, see new places, and learn more about the world.
Growing up and experiencing new things is scary. It would be so much easier to just stay at home and be a happy little kid than to grow up and have to deal with big decisions and taxes. But when that little kid tries to write a story, it won’t connect deeply with the reader or be as moving compared to the adult who writes a story.
As teenagers, it can be hard to push ourselves to experience new things. I would rather stay around familiar people and places than go somewhere completely different. Deep down, though, I think we know that we need to grow up and go out into the world. It’s just hard to know where to start.
Meet “Project Live Your Story”
I saw these struggles in many other teens this past year. Some wanted that life experience and maturity, but were afraid to push themselves out of their comfort zone. Others knew they needed to experience new things, but weren’t sure where exactly to start.
After seeing this, I made up a challenge to help give writers a stepping stone to gain life experience.
Project Live Your Story is a month-long challenge aimed at helping you push yourself past your comfort zone. The individual challenges won’t be writing related – sometimes the best way to improve our writing is to close the laptop. These challenges will help give you experiences to write about later.
How it Works:
Each week you will be emailed a small challenge to complete – anything from talking on the phone to making friends with new people. Then you will reflect on how you felt before, during, and after completing the challenge.
By signing up, you will also gain access to a private Slack community for other challengers. It’s a lot easier to do hard things with a community behind your back. The P.L.Y.S. community will help provide accountability and encouragement throughout the month.
By the end of the month, you will have completed four small challenges (*cough cough* one may involve snow *cough*) and built the foundation to take your story to the next level.
Ready to bring life to your writing? Click HERE to sign up for free.
I’m excited to see both you and your stories grow!
Have a great Christmas and holiday season. 🎄
-Hannah
