How to confidently tell a stranger (or family member) about your story + podcast episode & FREE printable guide

 

How to confidently tell a stranger (or family member) about your story

Episode 23 

“A book, too, can be a star, “explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” 

― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

Hi friend! Welcome to the Faith Writing and Coffee Chats Podcast! My name is Moriyah and I am a Christian, writer and coffee lover. Today I had an iced spiced latte with me. I hope you have a good coffee or tea or drink with you! 

Today is a very exciting topic that I hope can be helpful for all my writer friends but don’t worry, even if you aren’t a writer, if you are a creator of any sort this will also apply to you! 

So grab a cup of coffee and let's dive into this episode! 

…

Imagine this: you go to church and they have everyone get up and say hello to the people around you (an introverts nightmare and extroverts dream, lol). Someone says hi to you and then asks the question…”What do you do? What is your job? Who are you and what do you do?” 

Or 

Imagine this: you are at a family gathering. An uncle or aunt or grandparent  (perhaps someone you haven’t seen since the last family gathering) and they come up to you and ask you…”So what are you working on? What are you doing nowadays?” 

If you relate to any of this and these questions make you nervous and you don’t know how to answer them then this is the perfect episode for you. 

So, Today I am sharing about HOW TO TALK TO A COMPLETE STRANGER (OR A FAMILY MEMBER) ABOUT YOUR WRITING AND YOUR STORY. 

And don’t worry, a lot of the tips and tricks I’ll be sharing with you today can apply for other things and not just writing but for my writer friends, I hope this is helpful. 

So like, a dreaded question, I think maybe not all but a lot of writers can feel once they’ve told someone they are a writer, is being asked the question “What is your story about?”

You as the writer should know what your story is about, and you do. The problem is how to tell someone what your story is about. This can be a really hard thing to do and I am speaking from experience of talking to complete strangers and family members alike and being asked this question and having no idea what to say. 

So, I feel like there are a few specific reasons why as a writer you may feel like you don’t know how to answer this question, at least in my experience. So I want to share a few examples of why this can be a hard question and then some helpful tips to beat this and be able to share your story with confidence. 

#1 You are embarrassed to tell others about your story. 

This comes from a lack of confidence in your writing. You love your writing but you are terrified to actually share it with another human being. Or you, instead of being confident in your story and your art, are caught up in thinking: “But what will this person think of my story?” “The genre I write is embarrassing.” “What if they think it is childish?” “What if they don’t think I can make it in writing?” “What if they ask to actually read my story?” 

I know these are all thoughts I’ve had and worries I’ve had while sharing my writing. 

So this can be a combination of being embarrassed about your story in that you are not confident in your writing and then it is part you are not confident in yourself so you can rely on others to determine your worth and what you share. 

You need to be confident in yourself and in your writing. This is not to become cocky or proud. Not at all. But it is to have an assurance in yourself and what you are creating. 

The best advice I have for this is simply to have a mission in your book. To have a theme that matters to you that you love and are passionate about or that can help others. I recently did a whole podcast episode about this, so I’ll be sure to link that (here: write themes that point to God). If you have a mission, this is best when you have a mission from God for your story, then you are able to talk confidently about the mission behind the story because the mission is something you are confident about and love. 

That is really what I am wanting you to do. I want you to find something in your story you are confident about and share about it. 

So I highly encourage you to find a theme or message or mission to have for your writing. I feel like that makes a world of difference at least it has in my writing. I encourage you to pray about it. Pray that God will give you a mission for your book and that He will give you the right words to say. That is my best advice for you! 

Have a mission + pray + and be confident 

#2 You are so deep into your story that you have no idea how to boil down your entire story into a few legible sentences without your head slightly exploding. 

This comes from, well, bringing a writer. You have an entire story if not multiple stories running in your mind at any given moment. You have entire words, characters, plots, subplots, conversations, pictures, descriptions, and a hundred other things going on in your mind about your story. How can you then take all of that and tell it to someone without jumping around and being completely scattered and without sounding crazy? 

I think if it is a hard thing for you to talk about your story then maybe instead of trying to describe what your story is to talk about what you love about it. Don’t talk about the whole world but the heart of your story. This is basically the same thing I was talking about in the previous part. 

• What makes your novel your favorite story? 

• What’s an element you love in other stories you have in yours (for example I love sibling stories and that’s something I highlight in this children’s story)? 

• What is the mission (the theme) of your book? 

• Why is that message (theme) important to you? 

• Why does this story matter to you? 

I have found that these are the best ways for me to talk about my stories in a way that I am confident (because I’m talking about things I love or a mission I’m passionate about) and are a way to get others interested in your story! 

This story I’m currently working on, the children’s story, is the one story I have felt the most confident about. Even when talking to others about this story I feel confident in sharing it and sharing the mission I feel for this story. That's again why I think it is so important to have a theme and a mission for your book because it can give you the confidence to share about your writing and your story. This book is also like my ultimate comfort book so it is a story that if I didn’t write it I would still want everyone to read. Lol. It’s been such a cool experience. 

I also want to say that these prompts and questions can also be great tools and prompts for you in sharing about your book in marketing. So I know that some of you Listening are already published and are on this journey and I am so excited for you and am cheering you on. Some of you I know are still in the writing and dreaming faze and are not yet published but are excited for it. I think that these questions can be really helpful in marketing your book and getting to the heart of your story that your readers can connect to and love. So, you can also have these questions in the back of your mind when you are creating content and posts for your books! That is just a fun little side tip. 

I hope that was all helpful! 

I will also have a free printable PDF with all the questions up and ready for you to use! You can get that PDF by going to the blog version of this episode that will be linked in the description of this episode and it will also be available when you sign up to my Newsletter and it will be a freebie over there (if you don’t see it, then make sure to message me so I can get that freebie to you). 

I highly recommend giving this a try next time someone asks you what your story is about! 

Listen to the podcast now  

Check out the whole episode now!!! 

BONUS BLOG VERSION 

Do you want to know how to show your theme through the story/journey of your characters (my personal favorite way to do this)? Check out this FREE printable PDF with a quick guide and fill-out-able questions! 

GET THE PDF NOW 

Recommended podcast episodes relating to this topic: 

🎙️Kate & Abbie Show | How to be confident in your writing: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JDjmtphDfPAyXmY7ClkWt?si=ecedf67bc9394381 

🎙️Kate & Abbie Show | How to talk about your writing with confidence: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0SCx2LAMDrIPuAPE9y7JZ9?si=9993627a2353427d 

🎙️The Faith Writing and Coffee Chats Podcast | Writing themes that point to God in your story: https://fablerosemc.blogspot.com/2024/05/writing-themes-that-point-to-god.html  

🎙️The Faith Writing and Coffee Chats Podcast | Quality over Quantity in your writing: https://fablerosemc.blogspot.com/2024/05/episode-22-quality-over-quantity.html 

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