Pick up the pieces of your life, pulled them back together with the word you write all the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story.

Pick up the pieces of your life, pulled them back together with the word you write all the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story.

You got the.

You got the.

Words and said, don't you think it's down to let them out and write them down and cover what it's all about and write your story. Write, Write your story.

Words and said, don't you think it's down to let them out and write them down and cover what it's all about and write your story. Write, Write your story.

Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm your host Ali Fallon. Last week we talked about how stories are formulaic, and I gave you the overview of the formula that I'm going to teach you over the course of this podcast. This week, I want to talk about what your story is about. So I want to talk about how to choose a story from your life that you want to write. You have infinite number of stories that you could write, but we've got to narrow it down to one for the sake of this process so that you can practice what I'm teaching you. And I also want to help you define what that story is about. The answer to the question what is my story is about is what's called your controlling idea, and that controlling idea is going to become really really important to you as part of this process. So let's get started. Like I mentioned before, we can decide what your story is about, we need to go back and talk about what story you're going to tell. You might already know what story you want to tell, but if you haven't decided yet, here are some things to think about. You can choose a story that's current, or you can choose a story that's happened to you in the past. Maybe some of you have a story that happened way back that you know has a lot of charge to it that you really feel like you need to do some processing around. Maybe it was like the loss of a loved one or a big divorce that you went through, or adopting your kids, or something like that that happened to you kind of back then. Maybe you're going through something right now that feels like it would be very helpful to have a little bit of perspective on if you were to step outside of the story, see the story as an observer and tell it from the outside in. It is possible to write a story that is not complete in your life yet. So if that feels like it's calling to you, then please listen to that. But you can choose either one. You can choose something that was in the past, or you can choose something that's current. You can choose a story that's charged, or you can choose a story that's not as charged. So here's what I mean by charged. Charged just means that it has some electricity to it. So a story that's charged is going to be something that has a lot of emotion that's trapped in your body. And you would know this because when you start to tell the story, maybe it brings tears to your eyes, or you feel your heart race a little bit, or it's not a story that you would tell if you were talking to someone that you didn't totally trust. That's how you can know if a story is charged, and you're welcome to pick a story that's charged. In fact, if you choose a story that's charged, I like to think that however much charged there is to the story is how much opportunity that there is for transformation. So if you want to choose a story that's charged, that means that story is going to bring a lot of healing and a lot of growth to your life. But if that feels like too much for you, you also can choose a story that's less charged, and you can use that to practice with the formula that I'm about to teach you, and then once you understand the formula, then maybe you could apply it to a story that has a little bit more charge to it. It's one hundred percent up to you, So take a minute and think about what makes the most sense for you. Is it a story from the past, is a story that's happening unfolding in your life right now. Is it something that's really charged. Is it something that doesn't have as much charge to it. Once you have your story selected, what I want to do is help you decide what the controlling idea is for the story. And the controlling idea for the story really is two things. Number One, it's going to answer the question what is this story really about? Maybe you think you already know what the story is about, but when we start peeling back the layers, you're going to see that the story is about a lot of things, and so we have to decide what's the one thing that this story is about. The other thing that the controlling idea will do is it's going to become a decision filter for the story, meaning nothing goes into the story without passing through the controlling idea. So if you're asking yourself questions like do I include this part? Do I leave this out? Is this interesting to a reader? Does anyone even care? The controlling idea is going to answer those questions for you. It's going to become the filter that tells you what gets included in the story and what gets left out. The controlling idea is going to tell you where the story starts and where it finishes. So the controlling idea is the foundation of the story. It's incredibly important to get this right, and don't let that make you feel pressure, but instead maybe think about how this is a part of the framework that we're going to come back to again and and again even after we've gotten to the end of the story, just to make sure the controlling idea is solid. In order to help you nail down your controlling idea, I need to help you answer three questions. The first question is who is this story following. Now, on the surface, the answer to that question is pretty easy. The story is following you, and I'll talk about in a future episode how you are the hero of your story. A lot of times people have resistance to that, but like I mentioned in episode one, This podcast is about helping someone share a personal narrative, which means the story is about you. It's from your life, And if you're using the podcast for different purposes, then maybe there's something different happening. But for those of you who are writing a story from your life, this story is following you. So on the surface, that's the answer to that question. But I want to take this even deeper than surface level, and I want to ask who was that person at the beginning of the story? Meaning if we rewind all the way to the beginning of whenever this started. Maybe you're writing a story about your divorce. So let's rewind to the beginning of when you married this person, or even before you married this person, and let's talk about who that woman or man was before all of this took place. What would we define him or her? Was she naive? Was she powerless? Was she vibrant? Was she confident? How could we describe that person at the beginning of the story. The second question that we need to answer in order to nail down your controlling idea is what does this person overcome inside of the story. This is helping us understand the container of the story. Who was this person at the beginning of the story. What does this person overcome? Maybe this person overcame a terrifying diagnosis. Maybe he overcame near bankruptcy or total failure of his business. Maybe she overcame the loss of a parent at a very young age. Maybe he overcame a heartbreak that still haunts him to this day. Maybe she overcame being a single mother with three kids under the age of five, working full time. What was it that this person overcame? And then the third question is how did this person change in the process. Who was this person at the beginning? What did this person overcome? And how did this person change in the process. So go for a minute back to the beginning and think about who this person was at the beginning of a story, and what we want to see is a total change from start to finish. So we want to see a hero who lacked a lot of self confidence become super confident. We want to see a hero who didn't have power become powerful. We want to see someone who was broke make a million dollars. We want to see someone who didn't believe they could make it in business become a mogul. We want to see someone transform because of something that they went through. So ask yourself, who was I at the beginning of this story, what did I overcome? And how did this process change me? Now we're going to use your answers. Did these three questions to develop your controlling idea? Your controlling idea is going to read like this. This story is a Insert the person at the beginning of a story who overcame. Insert what that person overcame in order to become. Insert who that person became. This story is about a terrified young woman who received an awful diagnosis, fought like hell to overcome cancer, and became a powerful advocate for other cancer survivors. This story is about a young man who lacked confidence, thought he could never make it in business, overcame his own self doubt and built a multimillion dollar company. This story is about a young woman who didn't believe God existed, went through a near death experience, and found connection to a power greater than herself. Do you see how this works? Okay? Now I want to hear from you. I want to know what is your story about, what's your controlling idea? Who were you at the beginning of your story? What did you overcome and how did that process change you. Next week, I'm going to teach you how to write a killer opening line. I'm going to talk about hooks to stories and how to make sure your reader is hooked from the very beginning of a story, and why it even matters so much that we hook a reader. But until then, I'd love to know what story are you writing and what is it about. You can email me at my story at writeostory dot com, or you can find me on social media at a Ballan

Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm your host Ali Fallon. Last week we talked about how stories are formulaic, and I gave you the overview of the formula that I'm going to teach you over the course of this podcast. This week, I want to talk about what your story is about. So I want to talk about how to choose a story from your life that you want to write. You have infinite number of stories that you could write, but we've got to narrow it down to one for the sake of this process so that you can practice what I'm teaching you. And I also want to help you define what that story is about. The answer to the question what is my story is about is what's called your controlling idea, and that controlling idea is going to become really really important to you as part of this process. So let's get started. Like I mentioned before, we can decide what your story is about, we need to go back and talk about what story you're going to tell. You might already know what story you want to tell, but if you haven't decided yet, here are some things to think about. You can choose a story that's current, or you can choose a story that's happened to you in the past. Maybe some of you have a story that happened way back that you know has a lot of charge to it that you really feel like you need to do some processing around. Maybe it was like the loss of a loved one or a big divorce that you went through, or adopting your kids, or something like that that happened to you kind of back then. Maybe you're going through something right now that feels like it would be very helpful to have a little bit of perspective on if you were to step outside of the story, see the story as an observer and tell it from the outside in. It is possible to write a story that is not complete in your life yet. So if that feels like it's calling to you, then please listen to that. But you can choose either one. You can choose something that was in the past, or you can choose something that's current. You can choose a story that's charged, or you can choose a story that's not as charged. So here's what I mean by charged. Charged just means that it has some electricity to it. So a story that's charged is going to be something that has a lot of emotion that's trapped in your body. And you would know this because when you start to tell the story, maybe it brings tears to your eyes, or you feel your heart race a little bit, or it's not a story that you would tell if you were talking to someone that you didn't totally trust. That's how you can know if a story is charged, and you're welcome to pick a story that's charged. In fact, if you choose a story that's charged, I like to think that however much charged there is to the story is how much opportunity that there is for transformation. So if you want to choose a story that's charged, that means that story is going to bring a lot of healing and a lot of growth to your life. But if that feels like too much for you, you also can choose a story that's less charged, and you can use that to practice with the formula that I'm about to teach you, and then once you understand the formula, then maybe you could apply it to a story that has a little bit more charge to it. It's one hundred percent up to you, So take a minute and think about what makes the most sense for you. Is it a story from the past, is a story that's happening unfolding in your life right now. Is it something that's really charged. Is it something that doesn't have as much charge to it. Once you have your story selected, what I want to do is help you decide what the controlling idea is for the story. And the controlling idea for the story really is two things. Number One, it's going to answer the question what is this story really about? Maybe you think you already know what the story is about, but when we start peeling back the layers, you're going to see that the story is about a lot of things, and so we have to decide what's the one thing that this story is about. The other thing that the controlling idea will do is it's going to become a decision filter for the story, meaning nothing goes into the story without passing through the controlling idea. So if you're asking yourself questions like do I include this part? Do I leave this out? Is this interesting to a reader? Does anyone even care? The controlling idea is going to answer those questions for you. It's going to become the filter that tells you what gets included in the story and what gets left out. The controlling idea is going to tell you where the story starts and where it finishes. So the controlling idea is the foundation of the story. It's incredibly important to get this right, and don't let that make you feel pressure, but instead maybe think about how this is a part of the framework that we're going to come back to again and and again even after we've gotten to the end of the story, just to make sure the controlling idea is solid. In order to help you nail down your controlling idea, I need to help you answer three questions. The first question is who is this story following. Now, on the surface, the answer to that question is pretty easy. The story is following you, and I'll talk about in a future episode how you are the hero of your story. A lot of times people have resistance to that, but like I mentioned in episode one, This podcast is about helping someone share a personal narrative, which means the story is about you. It's from your life, And if you're using the podcast for different purposes, then maybe there's something different happening. But for those of you who are writing a story from your life, this story is following you. So on the surface, that's the answer to that question. But I want to take this even deeper than surface level, and I want to ask who was that person at the beginning of the story? Meaning if we rewind all the way to the beginning of whenever this started. Maybe you're writing a story about your divorce. So let's rewind to the beginning of when you married this person, or even before you married this person, and let's talk about who that woman or man was before all of this took place. What would we define him or her? Was she naive? Was she powerless? Was she vibrant? Was she confident? How could we describe that person at the beginning of the story. The second question that we need to answer in order to nail down your controlling idea is what does this person overcome inside of the story. This is helping us understand the container of the story. Who was this person at the beginning of the story. What does this person overcome? Maybe this person overcame a terrifying diagnosis. Maybe he overcame near bankruptcy or total failure of his business. Maybe she overcame the loss of a parent at a very young age. Maybe he overcame a heartbreak that still haunts him to this day. Maybe she overcame being a single mother with three kids under the age of five, working full time. What was it that this person overcame? And then the third question is how did this person change in the process. Who was this person at the beginning? What did this person overcome? And how did this person change in the process. So go for a minute back to the beginning and think about who this person was at the beginning of a story, and what we want to see is a total change from start to finish. So we want to see a hero who lacked a lot of self confidence become super confident. We want to see a hero who didn't have power become powerful. We want to see someone who was broke make a million dollars. We want to see someone who didn't believe they could make it in business become a mogul. We want to see someone transform because of something that they went through. So ask yourself, who was I at the beginning of this story, what did I overcome? And how did this process change me? Now we're going to use your answers. Did these three questions to develop your controlling idea? Your controlling idea is going to read like this. This story is a Insert the person at the beginning of a story who overcame. Insert what that person overcame in order to become. Insert who that person became. This story is about a terrified young woman who received an awful diagnosis, fought like hell to overcome cancer, and became a powerful advocate for other cancer survivors. This story is about a young man who lacked confidence, thought he could never make it in business, overcame his own self doubt and built a multimillion dollar company. This story is about a young woman who didn't believe God existed, went through a near death experience, and found connection to a power greater than herself. Do you see how this works? Okay? Now I want to hear from you. I want to know what is your story about, what's your controlling idea? Who were you at the beginning of your story? What did you overcome and how did that process change you. Next week, I'm going to teach you how to write a killer opening line. I'm going to talk about hooks to stories and how to make sure your reader is hooked from the very beginning of a story, and why it even matters so much that we hook a reader. But until then, I'd love to know what story are you writing and what is it about. You can email me at my story at writeostory dot com, or you can find me on social media at a Ballan