Pick up the pieces of your life, pull them back together with the words you write, all the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start to fun when you write your story. You get the words and said, don't you think it's time to let them out and write them down and cover what it's all about and write your story. Write you, write your story. Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm your host Ali Fallon, And on last week's episode, we talked about the struggle and relief series. That's the series of events that happen in a story where you take your reader on a roller coaster of a ride through a problem and a resolution, and another problem and another resolution and another problem in another resolution until you reach that nice climactic moment in the story where the tension is at its absolute highest. The way that this first season is structured is I'm teaching you a framework for a story that you can use to take a story from your life and turn it into a piece of writing that you can feel really excited to share. But if you don't understand the entire framework, you're going to be really confused. So if you're just tuning in for the first time, go all the way back to episode one. Start listening there and you can learn each piece of the framework and this episode will make much more sense. All of that to say, if you've been following along this whole time, you heard me talk about on the last episode this moment in stories called the all is lost moment. That's a term from screenwriting instructor Blake Snyder. He talks about there being this moment in the story where the tension is that its absolute highest. This is after your struggle in relief series, right before your resolution, where it seems like the hero in the story is not going to achieve the thing that they were after. So they've been on this long journey to achieve I don't know the relationship of their dreams, or to have a successful business, or to make million dollars or whatever it is that they're after, and they've gone through this long process and they reach this moment where it seems like, after all this hard work, after everything I've tried, none of it's working. I'm failing, and I'm never going to get to a successful resolution of the story. This is an important moment in storytelling for a lot of reasons. Number one is a storytelling device. It's really really effective at keeping your reader's attention because they're expecting the resolution to come at any minute, and the minute that resolution comes, they're going to feel like the loop has closed and that they can disengage from the story. So putting this moment as a device in storytelling is incredibly effective if you're writing a fictional story, because it keeps the reader engaged all the way to the end. It's also really effective because it makes that resolution when it finally does come, feel much more satisfying. Think about the last time that you were watching a sports movie and you know you're following this team or this player that you feel really invested in, and you identify with them and you really want them to win. You're on their side, and there's this moment maybe ten minutes before the movie ends, where they're up against this impossible challenge. They have to do a thing that they haven't been able to do successfully throughout the rest of the movie, and it seems like they're going to fail. Doesn't that make you feel a more engaged and b When they finally do make that shot or achieve that thing that they've been after the entire movie, it makes you feel even more relieved at their resolution. But the other reason that I bring up this device, which admittedly I shared last week, is not something that I put in the framework that I'm teaching you, the all this Last Moment. Blake Snyder does an amazing job of teaching this in his book called Save the Cat, so you can read about it there. I didn't put that in the framework that I'm teaching you, and the reason is because I think it's already kind of wrapped up in the Struggle and Relief series. But the reason that I wanted to bring it up to you now now is I think as it relates to telling your personal story, a story that actually took place in your life, the alla's last moment is almost always the place in our stories where we're sitting when we feel ready to write about them, over and over and over again. I've seen this to be true that when people come to me and they tell me that they're ready to write their story, maybe they show up at to Write Your Story workshop, or they reach out to ask for help getting their story down on paper, almost always they're sitting in there all is last moment. I don't know that I fully understand this. I don't have an explanation for why this is true. But my best guess at why this is true is simply because when we're in the midst of our stories, we're in the middle of them. When the struggle in a relief series is happening to us, there's a sense like the resolution is coming. Of course it's coming. I know it's coming, and you don't feel as compelled. I don't think to try to figure out the why. You're not like in the struggle in a relief series, going like why why why is this happening to me? You almost feel like, Okay, if I stay the course, if I'm on this path, if I keep doing the things that I know I need to do, I'm going to reach my resolution. And then usually it's when you get to your Allah's last moment that you start going, wait a second, maybe I won't reach my resolution. The Alla's lost moment provides that for both the reader and also for the hero inside of the story. It provides that sinking feeling of oh my gosh, what if, after everything I've been through, I don't reach my resolution? Then what then? What does all of this mean? Although I don't teach this as a separate part of the framework. It is really important to understand how alla's lost moments work, in part because of their importance inside of the art of storytelling, but also because if inside of your personal story you don't understand what an ALA's lost moment is. I think it's really easy to misread this moment as the end of the story. And if a story ends without a resolution, or a story ends with the hero not getting what he or she was after at the beginning of a story, we call that story a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet famous tragedy. Two characters who want to be together, they want to be in love, and they obviously don't achieve that by the end of the story. That's a tragedy. Many times in our personal stories, we assume the story has ended in tragedy, when in fact the story has not ended at all, When in fact we're sitting in our Alla's last moment and we haven't yet experienced or written the resolution. So that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the resolution of your story. Now, most stories that take place in our lives don't resolve the way a Hollywood movie would resolve, and I'm not suggesting that we tried to impose a Holly would ending onto our stories. There are really two things that have to happen in order for your story to resolve. I'll go through them one by one. The first thing that has to happen for your story to resolve is the one big problem has to be solved. So go back to the earlier part of the framework where we identified one big problem that was getting in the way of your hero achieving the thing that they were after. We have a hero who wants something, they're going to go try to chase it down, and there's a big problem in their way. What was that one big problem? If the problem is addiction, we need to see the hero get sober to resolve that problem, or our brains will not register the problem as resolved and they'll stay hooked on the story. They'll stay hooked on the problem. So I mean that from both the perspective of the reader who's reading the story, they're not going to feel that sense of resolution if that one big problem isn't resolved. And I also mean that from the standpoint of your You're the one who's living the story, and for as long as that loop feels open to your brain. As long as that one big problem still stands in front of the hero, the hero also won't register the story as closed, and the hero will still be putting a lot of energy toward that story. So, if you have a story that's unfolding in your life and you feel sort of hooked on it, you feel like you can't let it go, You feel like you don't have the closure that you need in order to move on, writing a resolution to your story or writing toward the resolution of your story is one way to experience that closure when you feel you don't have closure. That's what I mean when I say you feel hooked on a story. I'm going to come back in just a minute and talk about how problems get resolved in stories. But first I want to talk about the second thing that needs to happen in order for your story to resolve, because these two things are very interconnected and interwoven. So the first thing is that the hero needs to overcome their one big problem. The second thing that needs to happen is the hero needs to try transform, and the hero transforming is probably the more important of those two. If I was going to rank them in order of importance. I would say the hero transforming is more important, partly because we understand intuitively that if the hero doesn't transform and become a different kind of person than they were at the beginning of the story, there's no way that they would be able to resolve their one big problem. It's just not possible. They weren't able to resolve the problem at the beginning of the story, so why would they suddenly be able to resolve the problem at the end of the story if they don't become a different kind of person. I've shared this example before, but if the hero at the beginning of the story is this really bitter, angry, closed minded person who wants to have a successful relationship, we intuitively understand that that person won't be able to have a successful relationship until they transform into someone who's more open minded, who's a little more compassionate, who's a little softer around the edges. So we need to see that transformation happen, or the one big problem getting solved won't feel believable to your hero or to your reader. Now, let's go back and talk for quick minute about how problems get resolved, because you obviously have this one big problem that your hero is up against. And we talked about that problem being a physical, tangible problem. It will just be easier to get the writing on the page if this one big problem is a physical thing that the hero is trying to overcome, and I talked about this in the episode on one Big Problem. But if your one big problem doesn't feel so physical, if it's something like depression or addiction, we need to see that manifest itself in a really physical way. So what does that look like for you? Does it look like staying in bed all day? Does it look like late night drinking binges. We need to see the emotional problem manifest itself in a physical way, or it's going to be harder for your reader to engage, and it's also going to be harder for you to actually get the writing done. So the problem can either be solved at the level of the problem where the physical problem gets actually solved, or the problem can be solved by the hero moving to a world where that problem no longer exists. Stay with me here. I have a weird example to share with you, but it feels like this really gets the point across. If my problem is cellulate on the back of my legs. The problem can either be solved by me solving the problem at the level of the problem, meaning I have some sort of treatment or procedure to have the cellulite removed, or the problem can be solved by me moving to a place where I don't see cellulate on the back of my legs as a problem anymore. So the problem can either be solved by me getting in shape or having a procedure done, or the problem can be solved by me having a mindset shift and moving to a world where I don't see that as a problem anymore. If the problem in your story is a divorce or a jerk of an ex husband or whatever, the problem can either be solved at the level of the problem. It can either be solved by not getting a divorce or maybe getting remarried or meeting another guy who's nicer, or the problem can be solved by moving to a world where you don't see divorce as the problem you used to see it as. In other words, the hero moves to a place where divorce isn't the red letter, it's not the failure, it's not the problem that they used to see it as, and they're able to stand on their own two feet in a different kind of a way. In this way, inside of personal stories, I find that problems are portals. In other words, problems can take the hero to a place where their problem isn't the problem that they thought it was. And I also find that this complaint that personal stories don't always wrap up the way that hollywood stories do is true, and it's one of the ways where personal stories offer us this gift. If we were writing a fictional story and we got to end the story however we wanted to end it, if we got to choose the ending, we could write the type of ending where the problem gets resolved at the level of the problem, and that's a fine ending. But in my opinion, sometimes the ending becomes more interesting, more nuanced, more realistic, more powerful when the solving the problem at the level of the problem isn't available, and so it forces the hero to find another route out of the problem. It forces the hero out of the ordinary world into a brand new world where the problem is seen through a different lens. The problem is seen from a different perspective because the hero has changed. If you are writing your personal story and the resolution to your story has not come yet, first of all, I just want you to sit in the awareness for a second that the resolution has not come. There's power simply in saying I'm at my Alla's lost moment. This is not the end of my story. The story hasn't completed yet. There's power simply and just understanding that and recognizing it and acknowledge it. This is not the end of my story. This is my Allas lost moment. The resolution is still coming. But you might be wondering, if your story hasn't resolved yet, how you're supposed to write the entire story if you haven't yet experienced the resolution. One of the things that I want to challenge you to do if your story hasn't resolved yet is to write a couple of potential resolutions, Because, like I talked about just a second ago, there's one way to resolve a story where you could resolve the problem at the level of the problem. You could write a fictional ending to your story where everything wraps up in a perfect bow, just like a Hollywood movie, and you finally get the thing that you were after. And that can be a fine and great ending to a story. But if you're going to have to write a couple of resolutions to the story. It's going to push you beyond just solving that problem at the level of the problem. We've got to think of some other ways that the story could resolve if the story doesn't resolve with the problem being solved at the level of the problem, how else could the story resolve. How could the hero transform in such a way that they were now capable of solving a problem they weren't capable of solving at the beginning of a story. How could the hero move into a new world through the portal of this problem, to a place where the problem doesn't seem like the problem it used to seem like. What's another way that your story could resolve if it doesn't resolve the way that you thought it was going to. This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest points of leverage in personal storytelling is thinking about how you would like for your story to resolve and pushing yourself to think beyond just solving the problem at the level of the problem, thinking about other ways that the story could resolve if it doesn't resolve the way that you thought it would. The fact of the matter is we don't get to control all of the events of our life. We don't get to decide how other people act inside of our stories. For example, we don't get to decide how things outside of our control resolve, so we don't always get to perfectly control the resolution of our stories. But when you take a framework like storytelling and apply it to your personal life, you begin to see that this is your greatest leverage as a storyteller, as a person, as a human being, is participating, collaborating in how you want the resolution to take place, and realizing that the greatest power for resolution is not even the problem getting solved itself. The greatest power for resolution is the hero transforming into the kind of person who could resolve this problem, or the kind of person who wouldn't have seen this problem as a problem in the first place. We're rounding the corner to the end of this framework. I'm so excited to see what you're working on next week. I'm going to talk about morals to stories and how this is another incredible point of leverage that we have as storytellers and as people to decide what kind of meaning we want to make out of our stories. I'm really excited about that, But until then, i'd love to hear from you, How do you want your story to resolve MHM

Pick up the pieces of your life, pull them back together with the words you write, all the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start to fun when you write your story. You get the words and said, don't you think it's time to let them out and write them down and cover what it's all about and write your story. Write you, write your story. Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm your host Ali Fallon, And on last week's episode, we talked about the struggle and relief series. That's the series of events that happen in a story where you take your reader on a roller coaster of a ride through a problem and a resolution, and another problem and another resolution and another problem in another resolution until you reach that nice climactic moment in the story where the tension is at its absolute highest. The way that this first season is structured is I'm teaching you a framework for a story that you can use to take a story from your life and turn it into a piece of writing that you can feel really excited to share. But if you don't understand the entire framework, you're going to be really confused. So if you're just tuning in for the first time, go all the way back to episode one. Start listening there and you can learn each piece of the framework and this episode will make much more sense. All of that to say, if you've been following along this whole time, you heard me talk about on the last episode this moment in stories called the all is lost moment. That's a term from screenwriting instructor Blake Snyder. He talks about there being this moment in the story where the tension is that its absolute highest. This is after your struggle in relief series, right before your resolution, where it seems like the hero in the story is not going to achieve the thing that they were after. So they've been on this long journey to achieve I don't know the relationship of their dreams, or to have a successful business, or to make million dollars or whatever it is that they're after, and they've gone through this long process and they reach this moment where it seems like, after all this hard work, after everything I've tried, none of it's working. I'm failing, and I'm never going to get to a successful resolution of the story. This is an important moment in storytelling for a lot of reasons. Number one is a storytelling device. It's really really effective at keeping your reader's attention because they're expecting the resolution to come at any minute, and the minute that resolution comes, they're going to feel like the loop has closed and that they can disengage from the story. So putting this moment as a device in storytelling is incredibly effective if you're writing a fictional story, because it keeps the reader engaged all the way to the end. It's also really effective because it makes that resolution when it finally does come, feel much more satisfying. Think about the last time that you were watching a sports movie and you know you're following this team or this player that you feel really invested in, and you identify with them and you really want them to win. You're on their side, and there's this moment maybe ten minutes before the movie ends, where they're up against this impossible challenge. They have to do a thing that they haven't been able to do successfully throughout the rest of the movie, and it seems like they're going to fail. Doesn't that make you feel a more engaged and b When they finally do make that shot or achieve that thing that they've been after the entire movie, it makes you feel even more relieved at their resolution. But the other reason that I bring up this device, which admittedly I shared last week, is not something that I put in the framework that I'm teaching you, the all this Last Moment. Blake Snyder does an amazing job of teaching this in his book called Save the Cat, so you can read about it there. I didn't put that in the framework that I'm teaching you, and the reason is because I think it's already kind of wrapped up in the Struggle and Relief series. But the reason that I wanted to bring it up to you now now is I think as it relates to telling your personal story, a story that actually took place in your life, the alla's last moment is almost always the place in our stories where we're sitting when we feel ready to write about them, over and over and over again. I've seen this to be true that when people come to me and they tell me that they're ready to write their story, maybe they show up at to Write Your Story workshop, or they reach out to ask for help getting their story down on paper, almost always they're sitting in there all is last moment. I don't know that I fully understand this. I don't have an explanation for why this is true. But my best guess at why this is true is simply because when we're in the midst of our stories, we're in the middle of them. When the struggle in a relief series is happening to us, there's a sense like the resolution is coming. Of course it's coming. I know it's coming, and you don't feel as compelled. I don't think to try to figure out the why. You're not like in the struggle in a relief series, going like why why why is this happening to me? You almost feel like, Okay, if I stay the course, if I'm on this path, if I keep doing the things that I know I need to do, I'm going to reach my resolution. And then usually it's when you get to your Allah's last moment that you start going, wait a second, maybe I won't reach my resolution. The Alla's lost moment provides that for both the reader and also for the hero inside of the story. It provides that sinking feeling of oh my gosh, what if, after everything I've been through, I don't reach my resolution? Then what then? What does all of this mean? Although I don't teach this as a separate part of the framework. It is really important to understand how alla's lost moments work, in part because of their importance inside of the art of storytelling, but also because if inside of your personal story you don't understand what an ALA's lost moment is. I think it's really easy to misread this moment as the end of the story. And if a story ends without a resolution, or a story ends with the hero not getting what he or she was after at the beginning of a story, we call that story a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet famous tragedy. Two characters who want to be together, they want to be in love, and they obviously don't achieve that by the end of the story. That's a tragedy. Many times in our personal stories, we assume the story has ended in tragedy, when in fact the story has not ended at all, When in fact we're sitting in our Alla's last moment and we haven't yet experienced or written the resolution. So that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the resolution of your story. Now, most stories that take place in our lives don't resolve the way a Hollywood movie would resolve, and I'm not suggesting that we tried to impose a Holly would ending onto our stories. There are really two things that have to happen in order for your story to resolve. I'll go through them one by one. The first thing that has to happen for your story to resolve is the one big problem has to be solved. So go back to the earlier part of the framework where we identified one big problem that was getting in the way of your hero achieving the thing that they were after. We have a hero who wants something, they're going to go try to chase it down, and there's a big problem in their way. What was that one big problem? If the problem is addiction, we need to see the hero get sober to resolve that problem, or our brains will not register the problem as resolved and they'll stay hooked on the story. They'll stay hooked on the problem. So I mean that from both the perspective of the reader who's reading the story, they're not going to feel that sense of resolution if that one big problem isn't resolved. And I also mean that from the standpoint of your You're the one who's living the story, and for as long as that loop feels open to your brain. As long as that one big problem still stands in front of the hero, the hero also won't register the story as closed, and the hero will still be putting a lot of energy toward that story. So, if you have a story that's unfolding in your life and you feel sort of hooked on it, you feel like you can't let it go, You feel like you don't have the closure that you need in order to move on, writing a resolution to your story or writing toward the resolution of your story is one way to experience that closure when you feel you don't have closure. That's what I mean when I say you feel hooked on a story. I'm going to come back in just a minute and talk about how problems get resolved in stories. But first I want to talk about the second thing that needs to happen in order for your story to resolve, because these two things are very interconnected and interwoven. So the first thing is that the hero needs to overcome their one big problem. The second thing that needs to happen is the hero needs to try transform, and the hero transforming is probably the more important of those two. If I was going to rank them in order of importance. I would say the hero transforming is more important, partly because we understand intuitively that if the hero doesn't transform and become a different kind of person than they were at the beginning of the story, there's no way that they would be able to resolve their one big problem. It's just not possible. They weren't able to resolve the problem at the beginning of the story, so why would they suddenly be able to resolve the problem at the end of the story if they don't become a different kind of person. I've shared this example before, but if the hero at the beginning of the story is this really bitter, angry, closed minded person who wants to have a successful relationship, we intuitively understand that that person won't be able to have a successful relationship until they transform into someone who's more open minded, who's a little more compassionate, who's a little softer around the edges. So we need to see that transformation happen, or the one big problem getting solved won't feel believable to your hero or to your reader. Now, let's go back and talk for quick minute about how problems get resolved, because you obviously have this one big problem that your hero is up against. And we talked about that problem being a physical, tangible problem. It will just be easier to get the writing on the page if this one big problem is a physical thing that the hero is trying to overcome, and I talked about this in the episode on one Big Problem. But if your one big problem doesn't feel so physical, if it's something like depression or addiction, we need to see that manifest itself in a really physical way. So what does that look like for you? Does it look like staying in bed all day? Does it look like late night drinking binges. We need to see the emotional problem manifest itself in a physical way, or it's going to be harder for your reader to engage, and it's also going to be harder for you to actually get the writing done. So the problem can either be solved at the level of the problem where the physical problem gets actually solved, or the problem can be solved by the hero moving to a world where that problem no longer exists. Stay with me here. I have a weird example to share with you, but it feels like this really gets the point across. If my problem is cellulate on the back of my legs. The problem can either be solved by me solving the problem at the level of the problem, meaning I have some sort of treatment or procedure to have the cellulite removed, or the problem can be solved by me moving to a place where I don't see cellulate on the back of my legs as a problem anymore. So the problem can either be solved by me getting in shape or having a procedure done, or the problem can be solved by me having a mindset shift and moving to a world where I don't see that as a problem anymore. If the problem in your story is a divorce or a jerk of an ex husband or whatever, the problem can either be solved at the level of the problem. It can either be solved by not getting a divorce or maybe getting remarried or meeting another guy who's nicer, or the problem can be solved by moving to a world where you don't see divorce as the problem you used to see it as. In other words, the hero moves to a place where divorce isn't the red letter, it's not the failure, it's not the problem that they used to see it as, and they're able to stand on their own two feet in a different kind of a way. In this way, inside of personal stories, I find that problems are portals. In other words, problems can take the hero to a place where their problem isn't the problem that they thought it was. And I also find that this complaint that personal stories don't always wrap up the way that hollywood stories do is true, and it's one of the ways where personal stories offer us this gift. If we were writing a fictional story and we got to end the story however we wanted to end it, if we got to choose the ending, we could write the type of ending where the problem gets resolved at the level of the problem, and that's a fine ending. But in my opinion, sometimes the ending becomes more interesting, more nuanced, more realistic, more powerful when the solving the problem at the level of the problem isn't available, and so it forces the hero to find another route out of the problem. It forces the hero out of the ordinary world into a brand new world where the problem is seen through a different lens. The problem is seen from a different perspective because the hero has changed. If you are writing your personal story and the resolution to your story has not come yet, first of all, I just want you to sit in the awareness for a second that the resolution has not come. There's power simply in saying I'm at my Alla's lost moment. This is not the end of my story. The story hasn't completed yet. There's power simply and just understanding that and recognizing it and acknowledge it. This is not the end of my story. This is my Allas lost moment. The resolution is still coming. But you might be wondering, if your story hasn't resolved yet, how you're supposed to write the entire story if you haven't yet experienced the resolution. One of the things that I want to challenge you to do if your story hasn't resolved yet is to write a couple of potential resolutions, Because, like I talked about just a second ago, there's one way to resolve a story where you could resolve the problem at the level of the problem. You could write a fictional ending to your story where everything wraps up in a perfect bow, just like a Hollywood movie, and you finally get the thing that you were after. And that can be a fine and great ending to a story. But if you're going to have to write a couple of resolutions to the story. It's going to push you beyond just solving that problem at the level of the problem. We've got to think of some other ways that the story could resolve if the story doesn't resolve with the problem being solved at the level of the problem, how else could the story resolve. How could the hero transform in such a way that they were now capable of solving a problem they weren't capable of solving at the beginning of a story. How could the hero move into a new world through the portal of this problem, to a place where the problem doesn't seem like the problem it used to seem like. What's another way that your story could resolve if it doesn't resolve the way that you thought it was going to. This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest points of leverage in personal storytelling is thinking about how you would like for your story to resolve and pushing yourself to think beyond just solving the problem at the level of the problem, thinking about other ways that the story could resolve if it doesn't resolve the way that you thought it would. The fact of the matter is we don't get to control all of the events of our life. We don't get to decide how other people act inside of our stories. For example, we don't get to decide how things outside of our control resolve, so we don't always get to perfectly control the resolution of our stories. But when you take a framework like storytelling and apply it to your personal life, you begin to see that this is your greatest leverage as a storyteller, as a person, as a human being, is participating, collaborating in how you want the resolution to take place, and realizing that the greatest power for resolution is not even the problem getting solved itself. The greatest power for resolution is the hero transforming into the kind of person who could resolve this problem, or the kind of person who wouldn't have seen this problem as a problem in the first place. We're rounding the corner to the end of this framework. I'm so excited to see what you're working on next week. I'm going to talk about morals to stories and how this is another incredible point of leverage that we have as storytellers and as people to decide what kind of meaning we want to make out of our stories. I'm really excited about that, But until then, i'd love to hear from you, How do you want your story to resolve MHM