Although the title of this post may suggest I’m not an advocate of storytelling while under the influence, that would be wrong. Actually, if you can stay focused on your message while drinking, we should probably meet and be friends. But for those of us who aren’t Hemingway…here’s a writing tip that will help us become stronger storytellers. Sourced from Inventing The Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, a collection of essays by nine well-known authors describing anecdotal details about the pleasures and problems with writing about your own life:

“I keep the action in Pittsburgh. I see no reason to drag everybody off to Wyoming just because I want to tell them about my vacation. You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader’s arm, like a drunk, and say, ‘And then we did this and it was so interesting.’ ” – Annie Dillard

Let’s Get Real

I’ve written before that I believe everyone should write about their life, even if the ultimate goal is not publication. The process alone is therapeutic and will allow you to uncover so many of your experiences, but even more valuable than that, you can pass on a very personal account of your life to your children and their kids to come. It’s a way of letting your future family know who they come from. Perhaps for those stories, a little bit of drunken storytelling is okay. However, for those of up hoping to share our work and affect people with our words, some restraint makes sense.

It’s a novice mistake I’ve identified in my work and is never fun to realize. My life, as interesting as it may be to me, is not ALL amazing material. There is a lot ordinariness and most of it should be left out in favor of sticking to what supports the story, the point of what I’m sharing. This is never an enjoyable realization for a writer. Artists are sensitive.

Recently, I’ve had to accept that one of the chapters in my book falls under such a category. I’ve stubbornly held onto it receiving the same feedback, that there was no real story and it didn’t further along my plot and it wasn’t anyones favorite. I tried to edit the thing with these points in mind but to no avail. It just couldn’t take another shape. Finally, I’ve come to the point of acceptance. This was a highly important chapter for me to write and it allowed me to process a ton of feelings I had about an event in my life. This event was haunting and I had a ton of narratives I made up about myself because of this bad experience. But it doesn’t belong in my story.

Essentially, it can be saved as a journaling exercise for me to revisit, or not. The value of that particular work was the process.

Stay Focused in Your Writing

It’s not easy to cut the fat from our work, but it is essential for good writing. This can be applied to all types of writing too, I’ve read blog posts that I immediately click off because of this exact phenomena. The writer was taking me drunkenly by the hand through every excruciating detail of her family vacation when a few anecdotes would have sufficed. I was there to find out about places I can potentially visit during my trip to Madrid and get to know a bit about this blogger’s family… Not lose focus and go on a ton of errands with her. That’s no fun for anyone.

Clear Writing equals a Clear Mind

Writing is so powerful because it shows us how focused we are. If we are clear, we’ll see it immediately on the page. When we don’t have a clear intention or are confused about what the point of whatever we’re doing is, it will show up faster than you think. People can smell bullshit and inauthenticity.

Try it. Write a journal entry without a clear point, read an email you wrote in haste to “get something out,” read a blog post by a writer who wanted to share something pretty but it was all fluff… What were those people really committed to? Getting something done, sharing pretty pictures versus something useful, fast forwarding to the good feelings that come from getting something checked off their list.

There are no shortcuts to getting clear on what we want. However, once we know what we want, it can cut the time we spend on anything in half. So… in short, don’t be a “drunk” storyteller. Get grounded on what you want to share before you do anything, know what supports your point and get there fast. 😉