Writing, at the very heart of it, is a bearing witness to the events of a life, to the thoughts of a writer, to the struggles and setbacks and the hopes and dreams of humanity.
That’s why it’s important to tell the truth in our writing.
We look around our world today, and we can see all the places where truth-telling is not, in fact, celebrated. There is social media, where we curate a world that works best for us. There is ourselves, which we curate, too, so that others will like or admire us. There are blogs and stories and marketing and ads and testimonials that have only the faintest ring of truth.
I like to tell the truth. I use truth-telling in my fiction and nonfiction, because I believe that the world needs more brave baring. It’s not unusual that someone in my life will say, “Maybe you shouldn’t talk about that,” because they’re afraid of what it might share about me personally, but the only way to unlock the chains of the people in this world is to bear witness the best way we know how: telling our own stories.
People, especially in this world, want to know they’re not alone, and we can do that, as writers, by opening our lives and letting them see us. And because there are so few people doing it, because our world is a shiny, pretty world, we can be sure that people will be drawn to the truth we’re telling.
When I feel that resistance (should I share this story about when I yelled at my kids?) I always bring it back to this: Sometimes it’s just nice to know we’re not alone.
It’s nice to know that other people have the same kind of struggles and the same issues and the same darkness in their hearts, that we are not as alone as we thought.
Sure, we’re encouraged to put our best foot forward, show all the beset parts of life, because who wants to follow a person who’s tripping up along the road?
I want to tell the whole truth. I want people to see themselves in my writing, and that means that if I’m not telling the truth about life, they won’t be able to find that thread of sameness. They won’t connect. And because I don’t offer something that’s of inarguable value, like a 5-step checklist for self publishing, if they don’t connect, if the stories I tell don’t ring true, you can bet those readers won’t come back.
In the world of fiction, we tend to want to coddle our heroes. We want them to come out okay in the end, but sometimes they need a little rumbling and rough treatment to come out even better. If we’re not willing to let them go there, we’re not going to connect with our audience, because no one wants to read a story about a brother who just loves his special needs brother so much and everything is great and there’s nothing at all that could improve in his world.
In the same way, in our nonfiction world, no one wants to read about people who have it all put together and never make mistakes and love their kids every minute of every day, because that’s always in our faces, everywhere we turn.
[Tweet “People are desperate to find something real. Something authentic. Something honest. We must tell our stories.”]
It’s not easy to do this as writers. Because we have to put our hearts out there, and there is no assurance of what people will do with our hearts once they’re out in the great big world, but if we know who we are, we’re not going to be as affected as we might be if we’re still searching. Maybe we’ll rumble a little with shame, because we all have places in our stories where we have let shame lock us in chains, but when we do, we get to share about that, too, and we get to let people see us, and we get to engage in real and genuine community.
[Tweet “Readers see their lives mirrored in our own, because we’re all pretty much the same. it’s the gift of humanity.”]
It’s not easy to tell the truth. To open our robes. To let the light in. But the bravery of our vulnerability will help others be brave.
Vulnerability is a little like walking out on a plank and stepping over the side, not knowing what’s waiting beneath it, but when we fall and go all the way under, we learn that we can swim here, too, in the barest of places. And eventually it will get easier. Eventually we will be addicted—because there is a relief, too, to telling the truth. We don’t have to keep up a ruse. We don’t have to pretend. We don’t have to be someone outside of who we are. How wonderful.
I can be part of the healing of humanity when I bare myself. I can let people know about my feelings and how I overcame this or that or how I didn’t at all, and, instead, failed in the hardest way. How I’m stuck. How I’m sad. How I’m determined to make it back out again. And in my telling, people find that they can feel and think and do the same.
[Tweet “The world needs more truth tellers.”]
How to be a truth teller:
1. Separate your art from your self.
Of course there will be people who come out in flocks to tell you all the things that are wrong with you after you bare your truth. But if we are fully centered and confident in who we are, we will know that their words don’t have any staying power. Sure, they may knock us down for a minute, but they’re not going to keep us down. They will hurt. Of course they will. I have some of the thinnest skin around. When people write ugly comments about the truths I’ve bared, I feel the flush of shame wash over me every time. But if we’re willing to rumble with that story and turn it around in our heads, we are better for it. We are known, and we, most importantly, know ourselves.
2. Start small.
We can start with small truths. How hard it is to write. How we sometimes get frustrated at our children for making it that much harder. How the baby wouldn’t sleep last night and we started feeling like maybe this would never work, ever, because how can you even write a coherent sentence when you haven’t had a decent three hours of sleep? Ease yourself into telling your truth and tell the smaller, easier things first.
I once shared an essay about how I wished I was expecting a girl instead of another boy, and I got quit a bit of lash back in some private places, but it was my truth, and there were also thousands who wrote to tell me that they were so glad for my honesty, because it made them feel less alone. If we’re interested in changing the world and helping others along in their journey, we’re going to have to get real.
3. Journal it first.
Sometimes it helps to journal our truth first, before we even come close to sharing it. Sometimes we have to settle ourselves into our truth, because maybe it was a little unexpected, that way we felt. When I’ve been journaling, sometimes I can look back and see the ways my mind has changed, and that helps me get some distance from the situation and share it, because I know that my mindset has changed and the ugly words people may say to Me Today are not about Me Today at all. That truth is still important, because there are people who are in the place we were yesterday, and they will find value in our truth-telling.
4. Start a confessional.
Not publicly, of course (unless you’re really feeling brave). Write your confessions in a journal and tuck it away in a private place. Pick and choose from this, and see what you might be able to share with others. It’s true that some people don’t enjoy sharing the darkest secrets of their lives (and, also, some stories are not ours to tell), but even if we can’t share all the deepest and darkest secrets, we can try to share more than just what’s all peachy and golden in our lives. The world has enough of that. I just have to look through my Facebook feed to remember.
5. Never tell the truth for the wrong reasons.
These would be reasons like vengeance or anger or to try to prove a point. We have to be careful when we’re telling our truths that we don’t have some ulterior motive in mind. We should only choose to tell the truth so that others will find their own healing in words. I always try to tell my truths with the deepest love in my heart for all the people involved. The best kind of truth telling is truth spoken in great love.
Unfortunately, no one can tell you what or how much to share or not share. You have to make that decision yourself. Only share what you’re comfortable with. Only share what you can share in love. Only share the story that is yours to tell.
Leave the rest alone.
This week’s prompt:
Write a story about an embarrassing moment as if you are a character in a book.
