Staying true to your story
We have all heard people say, “Stay true to yourself.” I think this may be good advice, but it’s a bit confusing. What does this mean? I’m a person who is competitive, petty, and lazy sometimes. Why would I want to stay true to that?
I think often when you’re telling a story or doing any kind of creative work, the real trick is to stay true to your story rather than staying true to yourself. The truth is that I want the audience to be pleased by what I make. If I’m telling a story about me, I want them to think well of me. I want to look funny and smart and cool. If I stay true to myself, I might stay true to that sense of vanity and distort my story in order to please my audience and flatter myself.
But audiences don’t like to be pleased. Audiences want to be shocked, frightened, moved, disturbed. They want to have an authentic experience. This is just as true for the audience at a sales conference as it is for the audience in the movie theater. If they were only there to get some information, you could send them the info in an email.
Storytelling is about creating an authentic experience in our imaginations. In order to do that, you might have to betray your vanity. You might have to expose things about yourself that aren’t flattering and leave out the part of the story that seems like it would get an easy laugh. You stay true to the story and sacrifice those things that aren’t necessary. But how?
We get intimate with the story. What kind of story is it? What message is it here to tell? What would happen if this story never got told? What other stories are like it? What does the story want from you, the storyteller? What does it want from the audience?
These might seem impossible questions to answer. But I really believe they’re only impossible if you don’t ask them, or if you don’t really have a story to tell.
Staying true to the story might make you a little uncomfortable. It might make your audience a little uncomfortable. It might lead you somewhere unexpected. But the purpose of a story isn’t to make us comfortable or to show us the things we already know. The purpose of a story is to take us on a journey, so that we see ourselves in a different way. The things we already know take on a new perspective from inside the story. Our lives become a little more exciting, a little more alive, for having taken this imaginary journey.
Stories are memorable because they have something more than everyday experience. They bring in something bigger, something mythic, that uplifts everyday experience. Think of a story that someone told to you that made an impact—a story you remember. How did the storyteller stay true to the story? Did they have to give something up in order to tell it? Did you have to give something up in order to hear it?
