When I was in university, my writing teaching told us, “Scientists will tell you that the world is made up of atoms, but they’re wrong. The world is made up of stories.” As human beings we have a powerful need to hear and to tell our stories. So much of what drives us is this need to say “Here I am, this is me. This is my story.”

This same story telling can be a powerful tool even in non-fiction article writing. Recently I received a submission that displays this technique perfectly. Take a minute to read Beth Scholes’ “Lesson Learned Through Pursuing Adoption” post and you’ll see what I mean.

Beth weaves her story of pursuing, but ultimately not adopting a little girl named Cassie all through the lessons that God taught her. So often I see the opposite in submissions. People will tell part of the story and end it with “and God was there and He helped.” In Beth’s piece, God’s story is right there with hers, and intertwined with Cassie’s. The lessons themselves are not all grouped at the end, rather they are part of the story too.

I would love to hear how God is at work in your life and what you’ve been learning lately. If you want to keep my attention, and the attention of your readers, it’s really simple. Tell us a story.

Claire Colvin
Sr. Editor, TruthMedia

Go to Submissions page

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under Cutting Edge, Front Page, Write Click. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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