Live from BlogHer: The Art of Storytelling

The crowd for this second session is packed to standing room only.  Many of us, like me, wanted to get insight in turning our blog from a dramatic diary to a story.

The guest speakers Claire Fontaine, Birdie Jaworski, and Ree had a lot of advice and insight that I'll be able to take back home with me.  As I figure out the purpose of this blog, I know that I don't want this to just be a diary of my life.  I want more than that.  Frankly, I'm not all that interesting, but I have great stories that I want to share. 

One of the panelist, Birdie Jaworski, stated that if you are writing for your readers or what you think they want to read, then you miss the human element that will actually connect with your readers.  Since I don't have a large readership (yes, I watch the stats, but I don't obsess), I don't feel like I need to worry to much about y'all.  I'm about to start a journey and I would love for you to share it with me.

Ree, from Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, stated that you don't have to have momentual moments in order to write a story.  You can take a simple thought or feeling and transform that into a story.  She started out by writing down the stories that she used to tell at parties.  Take stories from your past and translate them into written word. Use your blog to workout your writing. 

The group spent some time about the dilemma of writing for you or writing for your audience.  Do you censor yourself too much or not enough? Do you fear Sitemeter? Do you not write the tender, vulernable moments?  How far do you open yourself up to your audience?  Do you even care if you have an audience?

Start with an idea or theme (ex., We are all human underneath the surface) and then start to figure out how each scene will layer into that theme so that the reader is able to solve the mystery by themselves.

We finished the session discussing the difference between memoir, non-fiction, fiction, and truth telling.  I previously posted about not sure about how far I open up when it comes to telling my family about this blog.  I want to speak my truth.  But I realize that my truth isn't always truthful.  I pull scenes from my life and translate them into a single story.  I take numerous conversations and turn them into one.  It is how I write, how I feel, how I absorb the world.  My writing isn't always anecdotal.  I realize now how important it is for me to be truthful about how I write.  It'a all real.  Just the time, place, and context may be a little different.