VALUES-BASED WRITING
Developing your own thoughts and feelings about what has value for you, the storyteller and poet, can help you connect with your audience. But, in order to connect, you do have to know your own heart.
ALL IT TAKES IS HEART
Memoir-writer Annette Simmons, in her book, WHOEVER TELLS THE BEST STORY WINS: How To Use Your Own Stories To Communicate With Power and Impact, tells us, “Unless you bring a beating heart to your message, it is dead. But, when you tell your own heartfelt stories about what is meaningful in your life and work, you get the hang of finding stories that frame life and work in emotionally meaningful ways for your audience.” It is the heartfulness you bring to a work that opens up the hearts of those around you.
The questions you need to ask yourself are these:
- What moves you?
- What makes you cry rivers of tears?
- What makes you angry enough to go postal?
- What triggers a belly laugh?
- What yearning makes you reach for the moon?
Connect your listeners or readers to those things, and they will walk away satisfied. You will get the chance to turn on a lightbulb or start another dance. You may even blow their minds.
Fail to do it, and you will bore them into apathy and indifference. They will yawn and slouch away.
BEING NOT-BORING
Nobody is bored by a glimpse into somebody else’s world. Nobody will be indifferent when they feel the connection that comes when similarities or differences are revealed. They may be surprised or dismayed or entranced by it all, but they will not be bored, if you can pull out your valued treasures and do a show-and- tell.
Robin Manuell’s You-Tube video about Hypnotic Storytelling points you in the right direction:
Awww, come on. How hard can it be? They teach this stuff to preschoolers!
Here’s another poem:
WALK IN THE WORLD
I have to believe that
There is meaning and mana
To be found in my walk
Through this World of Dust.
Otherwise, it seems to me,
It would be a better plan to
Just pick up my marbles
And go on home.
I mean,
What’s the point?
If I’m just going to sit there
And not join in the fun
Turning myself into some
Shiny, boring lump of bright stuff
That doesn’t DO anything except
Soak in celestial juices…
I mean…wow!
Where’s the music?
Where’s the stories?
Where’s the dance?
Wise guys say this world’s all
Illusion and mirrors made
Of smoke and tears.
They say you have to give it up,
Give it over, just let it all go.
And maybe they’re right.
Who am I to say they are not?
But, there is something in me that rebels.
Something that says, “No…Not!”
Something keeps telling me
Their wisdom falls short somehow.
What if I don’t WANT to be a space-cadet,
Ignoring the dusty world,
All focused on the godhead inside me?
What if MY godhead wants to
Dance out joy and fiercest passion?
What if MY godhead wants to
Laugh uproariously
Act outrageously
Laugh insanely,
And fly to the farthest reaches of starlight
And back again?
How does sitting there get me to that?
By Netta Kanoho
Picture credit: “Show and Tell” by Erin M McCuskey via Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
Thanks for your visit. I’d appreciate it if you’d drop a comment or note below.
