Step Out of Your Story. Kim Schneiderman
you like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but chances are you’ve had to contend with being lost, dealing with difficult people, and accepting that the authority figures you counted on did not deserve your trust.
Unlike some of the heroes from fairy tales and popular fiction, however, you don’t necessarily need to vanquish your nemesis — you simply need to explore who you are as an evolving character and understand your narrative.
Embracing Your Inner Hero or Heroine
Human beings are natural-born storytellers. In his book The Stories We Live By, psychologist Dan McAdams, director of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives, holds that, whether or not we realize it, every individual “comes to know who he or she is by creating a heroic story of the self.”9 These personal myths help us weave together disparate threads from the past, present, and anticipated future into a coherent and meaningful narrative that captures who we are and hope to become. As McAdams explains:
If you want to know me, then you must know my story, for my story defines who I am. And if I want to know myself,…then I too must come to know my story…. It is the story I continue to revise, and tell to myself (and sometimes to others) as I go on living…. This is not the stuff of delusion or self-deception. We are not telling ourselves lies. Rather, through our personal myths, each of us discovers what is true and what is meaningful in life.10
Occasionally, however, people balk when I invite them to embrace their inner hero. They wonder if such concentrated focus on their own story is self-indulgent navel-gazing or even narcissistic. If you have similar reservations, the following distinction will hopefully alleviate any concerns.
One primary difference between self-discovery and contemplating one’s belly button is intention. Navel-gazing is typically an end in itself; it describes when we become preoccupied with our own emotions, thoughts, and internal world at the expense of relating to others. Self-discovery, however, is about self-awareness; we explore our thoughts, feelings, preferences, talents, and vulnerabilities so that we might see ourselves as others do and improve our ability to relate with others and succeed in the world. The aim of this type of introspection is to enhance our capacity for love, compassion, understanding, and self-reflection. Self-discovery presumes that intimate knowledge of oneself precedes the ability to know and be intimate with others. The more we understand who we are, what makes us tick, the more we can share our gifts with other people and society.
Second, your story matters. Every person’s story matters. We are moved and affected by all the stories around us. When we marvel at public figures, athletes, and individuals who overcome tremendous odds to accomplish great feats, we regard their life stories as transformative and important. Their stories inspire everyone to make similar difficult, heroic, or compassionate choices in their own ways. Consider great humanitarians like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. They spent considerable time in self-reflection, developing self-awareness, and valuing the importance of their own narratives — not to congratulate themselves but in order to serve causes larger than themselves.
In this regard, when we think of ourselves as the protagonist in our own story, and cultivate that story, it is not self-absorption but our birthright. Each of us needs to know our own story because it helps us define and understand who we are in the world and what it means to be human. The great and wonderful irony, of course, is that the more intimate we become with our story, the more we realize that everyone has their own equally valid and important narrative, of which they too are the central character.
Creating a Character Sketch
Once you’ve given yourself permission to embark on a journey of self-discovery, where do you start? Obviously, with the hero of your story (you).
When novelists first imagine and start to develop the main characters for their stories, they use a writing technique known as a character sketch. As you take hold of the authorship reins of your own narrative, I invite you to travel this time-tested path. In many ways, a character sketch is like taking the scenic route to your eventual story, one that leads you through new landscapes toward broader vistas. Only in this case, you are going to assume the role of both author and protagonist, using this proven storytelling device to get a richer understanding of your main character.
A character sketch is a technique that helps authors flesh out the personalities and interior world of the protagonist before embarking on a novel. It involves answering a series of imaginative questions that paint a holographic picture of how the protagonist might evolve over the course of the plotline. The character sketch presumes that the protagonist is the soul of every narrative and the engine that runs the story. By using this device to penetrate the hearts and minds of the protagonists they create, authors can help ensure that their heroes remain true to character, so to speak, in the actions they take and the choices they make.
So, too, you are the engine of your personal narrative. The more you understand about who you are, what you’re made of, and what’s driving you, the better equipped you’ll be to navigate the twists in your plotline, steer your life narrative in a positive new direction, and avoid veering off course.
The character sketch is a perfect first step toward rewriting your story because it offers a well-groomed trailhead into our protagonist’s journey with questions that can dependably lead you in constructive directions. Toward this end, the character sketch will become the basis for your story’s exposition, the first building block of your reconstructed narrative. As the first element in the story arc, the exposition sets the stage for the plot, presenting important descriptive and background information that gives the reader a window into the protagonist’s personality. This is important because the more you understand who you are as an ever-evolving protagonist, the more you can see where your story is heading and how you want to direct it.
Similarly, writing a character sketch will help you develop a richer appreciation for yourself as a character, laying a solid foundation for deeper explorations in your unfolding storyline later in this book. After all, personal transformation begins with self-awareness. You need to have a good grasp of the raw materials you’re working with — your strengths, needs, desires, quirks, habits, and even your shortcomings — before you can shape your life into a work of art that reflects your purest and most imaginative vision.
Celebrated author and writing guru Anne Lamott describes the character sketch process as exploring the protagonist’s “emotional acreage.” In her bestselling book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Lamott explains that “each of your characters has an emotional acre that they tend, or don’t tend, in certain specific ways. One of the things you want to discover as you start out is what each person’s acre looks like. What is the person growing, and what sort of shape is the land in?…The point is that you need to find out as much as possible about the interior life of the people you are working with.”11
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