Today’s guest post is by Esther Harder, a book coach for memoirists.
I learned how to frame clear narratives to save myself from boardroom battles. You can use them to save yourself from aimless writing.
I spent my mid-twenties volunteering for a Ugandan development organization where part of my job was to be the friendly, non-threatening go-between for the international donors and my Ugandan colleagues. There is a fiscal season in NGO world when the donors come calling. Each one wants to tour their project areas and personally confirm community transformation; each one wants a turn in the boardroom to go over reports before committing to another round of funding.
On this particular visit, we’d taken the donors to a family’s freshly planted field of pineapple suckers. We’d noted the newly purchased goats tied in their yard, signs of return and rebirth.
Back in the board room, one donor tapped a line item on the spreadsheets I’d helped the office secretary collate. “You need $2 per toothbrush? Surely you can find cheaper ones?”
My colleagues looked at each other, encouraging someone to speak. This was the expected part of the meeting, the part where we played chicken with the budget, trying to maintain enough funding to keep programs running while not being so aggressive or difficult that the donor decided to take their money elsewhere. Our financial lives depended on our ability to know when to sidestep and when to stand firm.
The head of the water, sanitation and hygiene department cleared his throat and endeavored to explain that the price was an estimate, that a flood had cut off our town from major roads at the time that the budget was due, so in fact, the price of all goods had surged. But yes, he could probably shave some cents off if that was what was required to receive funding.
The donors shuffled in their seats, their fingers moving down the line items, hunting for other overblown targets. I could sense the pressure rising around the table, and I knew that our potential positive outcomes dwindled the longer we let the donors focus on numbers as a valuation of trust.
“We need to ask for time to revise this proposal,” I whispered to a colleague. “We need a clearer story.” While what I was suggesting was uncomfortable—accepting a potential loss of face by asking for revision, my colleague trusted me and made the pitch. The donors gave us until the end of the day.
“They need to feel connected,” I explained as soon as we were back at our desks. “And toothbrushes don’t make them feel connected. People do.”
So, we crafted a better story about our context: That though our region of Uganda wasn’t an active emergency setting anymore, less than a year ago a rebel incursion forced our communities from their homes under threat of death, dismemberment, or abduction. Kids had missed a year of school. Adults had missed a year of subsistence farming and had likely eaten what little seed stock they had. The rains had flooded early plantings. Everyone was looking at starvation while rebuilding their villages with the little the rebels didn’t torch. They were in recovery, yes. But the on-ramp was long and slow. Targeted inputs and directed support would transform lives.
We made it personal and framed the transformation around specific recipients. Instead of talking about the number of goats we would distribute throughout our service areas, we showed how Janet was able to use income from selling her goat’s offspring to purchase school uniforms and send her four children to primary school in shiny red flip-flops. We gave an idea of scope by explaining how many of Janet’s neighbors had benefitted from her goat’s milk and grazing capabilities and how much more they would benefit by introducing a seed bank or a joint piggery project.
We brought the donors into that story as the protagonists with a decision before them: Would they be the heroes?
Over evening tea, the donors set the spreadsheets aside and focused on how they could be active participants in community restoration. We walked out of that follow-up meeting with another year of funding and confirmation that the clearer the story, the easier it is for an outsider to say yes.
These days, instead of sitting in boardrooms crafting narrative reports, I’m sitting with memoir writers. And I notice that it is so very tempting to rush ahead into chapters and character detail before getting clear on the story. In other words, I watch writers rush to count toothbrushes instead of developing their narrative.
And toothbrushes are undeniably important. But there’s no point in counting them before you’ve considered which families you are helping and what they actually need. In fact, my anecdote shows where that leads you: into emergency revisions. Ugh.
So, I encourage you to go deep and excavate that personal connection to your story because I absolutely believe it is there, or else you wouldn’t have gotten started on this wild writing adventure.
Some questions that sound surface-level but can drive you way down into your foundational motivations are:
- Why you?
- Why this?
- Why now?
Sometimes when I ask my writers these questions, they look away from the camera. I can feel their souls curling away from me out of self-protection. This coach doesn’t think I can do it, their body tells me. And they start to make verbal concessions. “Well, it wouldn’t have to be me, I guess. Tons of other people have had similar experiences and are probably better writers. And I don’t know that much about the market. I’ll write it whenever you think it will get published.”
I stop them before they get too far into giving up. I remind them that their story isn’t about me or what I think will do best. It’s about them finding that clarity and then writing with it.
Put yourself in that boardroom. Give your readers enough context to understand the stakes of your story. Make those stakes personal. Then, connect yourself and your stakes to a universal transformation and offer an invitation: Will your readers take the opportunity to transform their lives, too?
Here are some questions to get at the life-or-death stakes of your story:
- What does your story self believe you must do, at all costs?
- What is your story self willing/unwilling to risk or sacrifice to achieve your goal?
- What obstacles (nature, events, or people) threaten to keep your story self from your goal?
- What does your story self believe will happen if able to achieve the goal? What would happen if you did not achieve the goal?
- What counsel does your present-day self want to tell your story self?
Once you’ve done some musing over these questions, use your responses to create a one-line transformation on a sticky note.
Believing [unassailable belief] because of [context], I [action]. When [description of obstacles impeding you], I [action]. I knew [dream of achieving goal], but I never would have predicted [transformation].
Place this sticky note on your screen, or anywhere you read it often. Try it on. Make adjustments until it feels aligned with your writing goals. Then get writing, measuring each scene against its relevance to your note. Return, reconsider. You will find that as you write forward, your statement may shift and morph. It should. You are learning about yourself and your story within a container. Just as we don’t love to be boxed in in real life, our story selves don’t either. But the thing is, having that container gives you a testing ground to ask the big questions, like: Is this really what I am writing about? Which is so much more focused than: What am I writing about?
Esther Harder is an Author Accelerator certified book coach focused on memoir writers in the travel and intercultural space. She served in community development work in Uganda from 2003-2008. She hosts Writes Like An Outsider on Substack. You can find her book coaching services here.
