Does your story qualify as a Survivor-Thriver story, or is it just surviving? What’s the difference?
Most of the time, when a non-writer comes to me with a memoir project, they have survived something incredible. Maybe they survived a natural disaster, a severe illness or other medical crisis, or a surprising athletic comeback after a major injury. Maybe they survived acts of violence like child abuse, domestic violence, or sexual assault, or they survived wartime as a civilian or as a combat veteran. Maybe they survived a years-long, high-risk journey to migrate from one country to another, and now they’re finally a citizen in their new home.
Whatever the case, these emerging Authors have harrowing tales of survival. They’ve shared their stories verbally with family and friends, and everyone says, “That’s unbelievable! You should write a book about that!”
We’ve all read survival stories that leave us feeling inspired and excited to do something in response to the story. Maybe we take a specific political action, maybe we begin giving regularly to an advocacy group, or maybe we simply feel more emboldened to successfully face similar challenges in our own lives.
We’ve also all had the experience of reading a survival story and, afterwards, felt depressed. Maybe we didn’t even finish the book. Or if we did, we felt like the Author simply survived their experience and that was it. They survived something terrifying, end of story. There was nothing further to take away from the story.
What is the difference between survivor memoirs that inspire significant change and survival stories that leave the reader feeling worse?
What pushes a memoir into the “Survivor-Thriver” category?
How does a story get to that next level—from just sharing the facts of what the Author survived to transforming that experience into a work of inspirational art? In terms of literary quality, technique, and content, the answer varies from Author to Author and from project to project. But there are definitely a few personal commonalities in the Authors themselves, which I’ve witnessed repeatedly in the past twenty-plus years of serving memoir-writers as a coach, ghostwriter, and editor.
These aren’t literary techniques or specific narrative talents. Rather they are personal choices that are absolutely prerequisite for Authors to grow their craft and hone their narratives into inspirational Survivor-Thriver Stories.
1.
The Author has done their spiritual, trauma-processing homework first. You can’t take your readers anywhere that you haven’t been yourself. If you haven’t metabolized the trauma and broken through to a space where you’ve made peace and found meaning on the other side, your reader won’t either. They’ll get to the end of your story and feel as vulnerable, powerless, beaten-down, or apathetic as you do right now.
This is the reason I request that all my memoir-writers have an active therapeutic practice already in place before they start working with me. If writing your book is the only therapeutic practice you’ve ever done to “process” your traumatic experience, the writing quality will be poor, and your readers will feel like you used them for free therapy. Because you did. Readers know when books read like “therapy journals.” They often don’t finish these books and they leave terrible reviews online!
Be kind to yourself and your readers. Do your therapeutic homework first.
2.
The Author has embraced a forgiveness practice. Close cousin to “trauma-processing” above, forgiveness work is crucial if the Author has survived acts of individual or societal violence or neglect. Forgiveness does NOT mean you’re “fine” with what happened. It also doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve reconciled with the person who harmed you. It simply means you’ve let go of the need for revenge.
There’s a big difference between the writing quality of Authors who have embraced a forgiveness practice and those who haven’t. Authors who haven’t begun to forgive those who have wronged them wind up writing cardboard villains. On the page, the people who harmed them seem unreal and even uninteresting. It’s fascinating how, when we’re still hanging onto hate, anger, and vengeance, we cannot see those villains clearly enough to portray them in a convincing fashion.
Why? I believe rage cuts us off from the rich sensory details that we need to access in order to write these characters well.
Start a forgiveness practice first. Then start the book.
3.
The Author has some time and distance from their experience. I prefer that Authors have at least 7 years between them and the experience they’re writing about.
This helps with cultivating a sense of distance and objectivity regarding the draft material. As the Author enters the editing and revision process (the real writing work), they no longer feel so close to their material that they get triggered any time the editor points out serious (and totally normal) flaws in the writing.
There are situations where it’s not possible to wait seven years for a challenge to be truly “past tense”. Maybe an Author has a medical condition that’s ongoing. Maybe there’s a legal battle that could continue for decades. Many Authors live with permanent damages resulting from the events they survived. Maybe a specific Author is terminally ill and facing the ultimate deadline; they don’t have seven years available.
Those are real-life scenarios. I still ask that the story begin with events that occurred at least seven years ago. This helps the Author find the story’s true line, within a narrative space that feels slightly less raw.
4.
The Author has discovered their Big Message. This comes as a result of the spiritual resonance generated by the previous three factors. A survival story may abound with external, high-stakes action. But there’s a deeper and bigger message underneath it all. Because the Author has done their spiritual homework and has a measure of distance from their material, they are able to see the deep Subterranean Story, running underneath the high-action, Outer Story. That’s where the Big Message lives.
Readers rarely know how to name these elements, but they know when they’re present—or not. There are stories that move beyond simply stating the facts of what the Author survived. Instead, they sing, “I survived this. And I came through shining. Will you join me up here?”
These are the Survivor-Thriver Memoirs that haunt and inspire us for years to come.
Where are you at in the book-idea journey? Have you begun the spiritual homework that needs to start before you begin work with a memoir-ghostwriter, memoir-editor, or author coach? Think about the most inspiring, uplifting, or change-provoking memoirs you’ve read. How much spiritual homework do you think that Author did before they set pen to paper?
It’s okay if you still feel new to this therapeutic and spiritual work. What matters is that you’ve begun your journey on that inner path before you start work on the book.