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By Stan Broderick’E

My fans have told me how my story spoke straight to them and how they seemed to be reliving an experience. A long time ago, Nwanodi, a British American senior living in Nigeria, sat before me as she talked to me about my book, The True Nigerian Child. That was 17 years ago, but I can still remember her words: When I got to Tessy V, tears came to my eyes…

She was proofreading the book, but it was already speaking to her.

Stories spoke to me from my childhood. They comforted, healed, motivated and gave me hope and a dream of a better life. I look for a story in all my endeavours, be it a song, design, journey, study course, because all of life is a story.

lady laying down and reading

Stories change lives, heal, encourage and make people live again. Don’t ruin it by trying to please the elite. You may get ovations, but your story may never really fulfil its purpose – which is to deliver a message.

So if you want to tell one, you must take it seriously. A storyteller is a messenger, a delivery person, a postmaster or a preacher. While all the embellishments will help present your story, you have to get the message out first.

To tell a story, you have to make yourself ready. You are a vessel through which something great is about to come into the world, like a woman preparing herself for delivery or an artist working on a sculpture.

I meditate in silence; then, I find the music that sets me on the journey. When my heart is ready, the story starts to flow. Sometimes it feels like someone already wrote the book, and I have to go to an invisible bookshelf, pull it out, and copy it out for the visible eyes to see.

I will share 6 points to guide you on this mission.

1.

Stop Being Too Conscious About Your Writing

To make this happen, you have to stop being too conscious of the art of writing. You must have learned many writing skills, and somewhere along the line, we will discuss them. But the first thing is to bring out the story from inside. Please write it down on paper or type straight into your computer device as I do.

Why do I type straight into my laptop?

Let me digress here. Sometime before 2009, I used to have typewriters and secretaries type my work. Some used their own words and initiative where my writing was not eligible or lacked clarity. Then I started noticing that some skip whole sections, making it difficult for me. So I began to type straight into my device and send them to myself via email to avoid loss should some damage happen to my device.

Consequently, whatever way you tell your story like I just narrated about why I write straight to computers, focus first on the tale; you can choose your words, techniques and tenses later.

To Be Continued.

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