Julie sits in my office, fidgeting with her notebook. “I want to write something literary,” she says. She is a graduate student in my fiction seminar, and we’re discussing her thesis, the culmination of the MFA program at the university where I teach.
I sense where this is going, so I gently press her: “What do you mean by literary?” I know what Julie’s statement implies — she wants her work to be taken seriously, and she’s afraid it won’t be.
She twirls her pen, and we sit in silence for a few moments. As a teacher, I’ve learned to resist my impulse to quickly fill in the space with my own voice. The quiet can be more instructive.
Soon, something in her releases. She sighs, and it’s so exaggerated we both laugh. She seems ready to talk, so I lean forward at my desk. I’m listening. “I know the story I should write,” she says, almost conspiratorially. “It’s just not the story I want to write.”
Consciously or not, students often come to me for permission to tell a particular story. Should I write this? Can I write that? What they’re really seeking is permission to observe the world the way they really do, through their own eyes, unfiltered.
I consider her words. I am her co-conspirator now.
“This story — the one you want to write — tell me about it.” Julie opens her notebook, and I can see it’s filled with her handwriting. In the margins, she’s drawn sketches and outlined them with markers. One of the drawings appears to be of her. She scans the page, uncertain where to begin.
Consciously or not, students often come to me for permission to tell a particular story. Should I write this? Can I write that? What they’re really seeking is permission to observe the world the way they really do, through their own eyes, unfiltered. Noticing is itself a radical act of self-disclosure; we pay attention to what we care about. The power of a story can be found in the details we observe — and this very act of observation reveals something fundamental about ourselves.
In her gorgeous essay “This Is Our World,” author Dorothy Allison writes, “Art is the Rorschach test for all of us, the projective hologram of our secret lives. Our emotional and intellectual lives laid bare.… Do you dare say what it is you like?”
Do you?
This very question lies at the heart of storytelling. It’s not your accomplishments that connect you to your readers; it’s your vulnerability. Do you have the courage to bring yourself to the page? To risk noticing the world around you in full and vibrant detail and, in doing so, reveal yourself? If so, the only permission you need is your own.
But I can help. When students are stuck, or uncertain about what to write, I begin with a simple exercise: Tell me the story. Put down your pen, and talk the story out. Use your everyday voice — how you really speak. Imagine it. See the story in your mind. Now, take me there.
Then, I listen. Not for what students should tell me, but for what they want to tell me. The story itself is our guide. I stop to point out curious details; I pause and repeat back crystallizing moments. If I can’t quite envision the story, I stop and say: “This detail here … tell me more about that. Help me picture it in my mind.”
“This story — the one you want to write — tell me about it,” I say to Julie in my office. “No notes,” I add. Julie closes her notebook and begins.
The goal here isn’t to quickly progress toward the ending; instead, it is to slow the story down, to linger, to find pockets of illumination where meaning resides. Throughout this process, students become the most important listeners, observers of their own details, noticers of what they care about in the telling. Often, I sense the energy building. The excitement is palpable, the exhilaration of stumbling upon something new. As students uncover the story, they discover themselves on the page.
Sarah is a Hillside coach.
