How To Write Emotionally Raw Stories About Yourself
It's in your head. It's part of you. Now, how do you get it out?
(But first, a note from me)
When he was alive, my dad was both a professor and a minister. Combine the two together left him with limited time at home.
On Sundays, the church pamphlet included a rundown of songs and what to expect. In other words, it was my checklist for how much longer I’d be stuck in a pew (those “all five verse” songs were real gut punches to a 12-year-old).
However, tucked in the pamphlet was a small message from my dad to the congregation. “A word from Terry”, followed by updates and whatever else he wanted to share or talk about. Despite the sermon coming from his mouth, the note felt more like him. Some weeks I connected more with his little note than we did directly, simply because he was grading papers or something else school related.
I’ve decided to take that little note idea and include it with the emails.
For this note, I wanted to thank you again for subscribing. It means so much that you’d subscribe directly to me.
Second, in case you haven’t poked around, you can go directly to my greysonferguson.substack.com profile and look over all the previous posts, in case you missed any.
And lastly, I want you to know you’re always able to email me specific questions or topics you’d like covered. You can comment on the posts with this information as well if you don’t mind it being public. I’ve also created an open entry titled “Post Your Questions.” Feel free to post any questions you have here you want me and anyone else that has subscribed to respond to. You might be surprised as to how many other people are going through similar situations and feelings or have similar questions as you.
But once again, thanks again.
Your friend,
Greyson
How To Write Emotionally Raw Stories About Yourself
You know the story so well.
It’s your story. It’s part of you. It helped craft you into who you are. The fire of hell you lived through forged your mind. It changed how you see the world.
Now you want to write about it. Share it. Rip yourself open and bleed out until there’s not a drop left inside.
But you can’t.
The white of your computer screen watches you. Taunts you. The blinking line pointing to the blank page. Your lacking.
You close your eyes, sanding over the point in your life you want to write about. To tell others or journal for yourself.
Blink.
You know it all too well. Intimately. You’ve thought about it every day since it happened.
Blink.
Your fingers hover over the keyboard. You beg them to start typing. You plead with them. Pray to them. Cry to them.
Blink.
Frustration builds, damming up your thoughts. Your feelings. Everything you want to write about. So you get up, sliding the chair under your desk a bit harder than you’d like, turn, and walk away,
The blinking line waving as you leave the room.
The Absence Of Emotion
Have you ever read a story written by someone about a truly impactful moment in their life? You go through it you keep telling yourself you should feel some kind of connection with it. You should have some kind of response to it.
But nothing happens.
You finish it and that’s it. You just looked through a window into someone’s life, watched a pivotal moment play out, then shrugged your shoulders and continued on your day.
Why?
Well, it’s possible you simply didn’t have any kind of connection with what they wrote. Perhaps it’s their style or you didn’t forge that mental bond. It’s okay if it happens. I have friends who love Jane Austin. Read her books like drinking water. I can’t connect with her. Her style of storytelling doesn’t work with me. Likewise, I love John Steinbeck, and yet the same people who swear by Jane Austin dry heave when I tell them that. They hate how he writes. They hate how every book ends with the main character dead or about to die or nursing old men in barns.
But maybe it’s not the style of the writer. Even writers and artists you don’t connect with will elicit some kind of emotional response.
No, chances are, if you don’t have any response, it’s because there’s an emotional void within the story. The author wrote it like point-by-point directions given by Google Maps instead of detailing how they experienced the event.
Directions are fine. But I’ve never felt connected to my phone when I’m told to turn right in 500 feet.
If you want to dive into your past and tell an emotionally driven story you have to let the emotions dictate how you tell it. This can often mean the same story you write about will come with a different tint every single time you press finger to key or pen to paper. It may change over the years, or even if you write two different stories about the same event during the same writing session.
But that’s okay.
I don’t know if they still make mood rings. Growing up my sister had one because of the movie My Girl. I’m not sure how the mood ring worked. Probably something similar to my Hot Wheels that changed colors under hot water (I think I had a Ninja Turtle that did the same). However it worked, the ring would look different at different times of the day. Under different lights.
Your retelling of a personal event will do the same.
Don’t try to control it or dictate it. Let your emotions take over and hold on for the ride.
You Have To Be Honest With Yourself Before You Can Be Honest To Others
Before you can tell your own story and expose your inner self to readers (even if that reader is only you) it’s necessary to be honest with yourself.
Completely, brutally, unforgivingly honest. You have to accept the imperfections and faults.
Have you ever recounted a story to someone and, at some point in time, there’s a little, tiny voice, somewhere buried in your head, that attempts to speak up? It wants to add in a “but,” or “well, actually,” but you don’t let it? You don’t listen to it? It might undermine you being the 100% good gal or guy.
The thing is, in most instances of life, there are not good people or bad people. There are just people.
If you’re honest with yourself when telling a story you probably won’t look as good as you could, but at least it’s honest. It’s real. Writing about your experiences can be incredibly therapeutic. That doesn’t happen if you keep some of those emotions hidden. Burying emotions will not only short change your readers, but it will short change your healing. Like going to see the doctor and not listing off all your symptoms because you’re afraid of what the diagnosis might be.
I try to be as brutally honest as I can whenever I write. But it’s my truths I’m being honest about. I don’t know what others were thinking or feeling when sharing a moment with me. I can’t write about that. I can only write about my emotions. My truths. Both how I saw them then and how I see them now.
For me, it’s important to be honest with my emotions while not inflating other people within my story with their own feelings. I can offer their side from my perspective, but that’s all I can do.
I’ve written about my own marriage. How my wife cheated. But she’s not a bad person. Honestly, she was an awesome person who just happened to hurt me. Who among us hasn’t hurt someone else before? I try to be honest with how it hurt me, and yet I try to provide insights into how my own actions likely led to what she did. I don’t want to paint her as evil or cruel or mean. Perhaps she had less than desirable intentions. Perhaps not. I don’t know, so I choose not to fill in those blanks. Plus at this point it wouldn’t change anything. So all I can do is offer up my emotions. My intentions. My reactions.
Sometimes being emotionally honest with what you write won’t come right away. I know it took me a long time to reach that conclusion. And, again, that’s okay. It’s why how you write about a given event will change over time.
Musicians do that all the time. They sing about an abusive father or an alcoholic mother. About a bad breakup or a corrupt friendship. From one album to the next, the mood will change. The emotions evolve. So too will yours.
Dig In For Your Emotions
Maybe you’re struggling with excavating those emotions. You lived it, but as you write you’re not feeling it. Like you’re writing about some distant movie you watched years ago and you’re attempting to recall pivotal scenes.
You have to mine for your emotions. Really, truly dig. You have to relive the event you’re talking about.
That might be difficult. It might hurt.
Good.
That’s what you want. Use it.
Your chest feels tight as you relive it. Your heart threatens to rip through caged ribs. Your hands tremble. Tears flow.
The best writing you will ever do is when you mentally experience the event again. It won’t always happen. But when it does, you’ll create truly powerful work. I’ve cried when recalling certain events in my life. Moments in time I often choose not to think about, but writing about them swings a wrecking ball into the protective wall I’d built around the occurance. And once that wall is done there’s nothing I can do but let the blood and tears of time drip from my hands onto the page.
It’s not all that different from an actor. Have you ever watched a behind the scenes clip of an actor so invested in a scene it takes them time to recover after the director yells “Cut!”? They don’t just stop crying. It continues. They can’t stop. It consumes them. It’s because they’ve become so intimately connected with the story they’re telling they are living it in front of the cameras (or possibly drawing from a personal past experience).
I didn’t cry at my dad’s funeral ceremony. At the time I tried to think of anything but what was going on. The emotional wall. But since then, I’ve shed tears while writing about his death. In many ways, I experienced a more emotionally intimate connection years after than during.
I’m not saying that’s what will happen with you. But if you’re struggling to fully extract your true feelings and put them on page, keep digging until you’re mentally back where it all happened.
FYI, Music Helps
Set your own background music. But select music that works with the kind of story you’re telling. I’ve found, personally, the kind of music I have playing in the background directly impacts the pacing of the story.
Sad classical music has a way of pulling certain emotions from me. Some faster and more aggressive like Daft Punk or something might help with an action scene. Putting on movie scores is a good option as well. I’ll switch it up. I do what I can to avoid any kind of music with lyrics, as then my thought process goes sideways real fast. But I have a good dozen or more playlists and stations I’ll switch through, from classical guitar to trance, all based on what I’m aiming for.
Right now I’m listening to the dogs snoring, but my last bit of advice is if you’re still struggling, try to put on some music. It might help unwind some of those bottlenecked feelings, loosen you up, and allow your feelings to flow.
Keep At It
You might find it strange to be told to practice telling your emotionally raw and personal stories, but it’s true. The first time you write about it you may only write about surface-level experiences. The second and third time it might feel deeper, and yet you know more is there. But if you continue on. If you continue at it, writing about the event and what happened to you, you’ll find more emotions come out each time, and, eventually, you’ll discover the very central emotional core of your story. Once you find this, nothing else will stop you from sharing your experience with the world.