Pick up the pieces of your life, pull them back together with the words you write, all the beauty and piece and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story. You got 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 how to define your one big problem for your story and then how to amplify that problem so that your reader connected with it on an even deeper level. On this week's episode, I want to introduce a character to you that's going to be a part of your story that I know you're really gonna love. This is one of the favorite parts of the framework every single time that I teach it because it helps to balance out that feeling that people get when I talk about the hero and I tell you that you have to be the hero of your story. It makes people uncomfortable. But when I introduce the guide to the story, suddenly it starts clicking. Why we feel uncomfortable calling ourselves the hero because there's actually a character in the story that is more heroic from the cultural standpoint than the hero of the story. The hero of the story is just the literary protagonist of the story. But there's a character that's involved in the story that is the wise sage of the story. That is the one that helps you, as the hero, to overcome your big problems. It helps you to achieve the thing that you're trying to achieve, and that helps really make sense in our brains of why we feel so uncomfortable positioning ourselves as the hero of the story. So I'm excited to introduce this character to you and to help you define who the guide or guides were in your story. So, just to give you context for the hero so far, here's what we have as it relates to your story. We've defined what story you're going to tell. We have defined what that story is really about. We've talked about who the hero is in that story, that's you. We've talked about how that person transforms from the beginning of a story to the end. What it was that they were after that's usually a physical, tangible thing that they're trying to get. We've talked about what the hook is to the story. So where do we enter into the story. We enter in usually at the problem and then we've talked about the one big problem that's getting in the hero's way. And like I mentioned to you on last week's episode, that one big problem is the thing that's going to have to be resolved by the end of the story. So remember, in order for the story to resolve, we need to solve that one big problem. The hero needs to sort of get what they were after or realize that they never wanted it in the first place. And the hero also has to transform into something or someone new. They have to learn some big lesson. Now, how is all of that going to happen? That's a tall, tall order. The way it's going to happen is there's going to be a character who enters into the story called the Guide, and the Guide is going to help the hero free big ways. These are going to sound familiar to you. The Guide is going to help the hero to get what they want, get the thing that they were after, that physical, tangible thing. The Guide is going to help the hero transform into that new version of themselves. And the Guide is going to help the hero to shift their perspective in order to achieve that transformation. Now, one of the reasons why the Guide is such an important character inside of the story is because we don't believe that the hero could change without some help. The reason we don't believe that as the reader of stories or the viewer of a story is because our life experience tells us differently. If the hero could have changed without any help, then why haven't they changed already. If we're introduced to a character in the story who is really egotistical and doesn't see the people around them as having as much value as they have, and they've been this way for as long as they've been walking on planet Earth, then why would they suddenly just snap out of that unless they had an experience or met a person who helped them shift their perspective to become someone new. So this is the purpose that the Guide serves inside of our stories. And another way that our life parallels with stories is as it relates to the Guide. This is another reason why I really love this character and why I think so many other people who are writing their stories resonate with this character, is because think of anything that you've overcome in your life and ask yourself, how did I do that? How did I survive that thing? How did I get there? How did I achieve that thing? How did I live through what I lived through? The answers to that question is likely going to include a person or a handful of people who really helped you to get what you were after, to become someone or something new, and to shift your perspective in some kind of important way. And that's exactly what the guide is going to do inside of your story. So what we need to define is who is the guide in your story and what what point in the story do you meet that person? Now, if you're following a storytelling formula or framework down to a t, you should probably meet that person shortly after you encounter your one big problem. Life doesn't always line up perfectly with storytelling, and this isn't always exactly the way it works. Maybe you struggled with a problem for twenty years before you met your guide. Maybe you were really struggling to overcome addiction and it wasn't until twenty years into your addiction that you met a person who was able to shift your perspective and convince you to come to a recovery meeting or something like that. And then you meet a whole room full of guides that help you to transform into someone new. Regardless the way that you write the story, you want it to read in such a way where there's not twenty years worth of content before we get to the guide. So, in other words, if twenty years of time existed in that beginning part of the story, we're going to zoom through it like fast forward through it pretty fast, so that you meet the guide in your story shortly after you encounter your one big problem. One of the question that I often get about guides is can there be more than one guide? And the answer to that question is yes, absolutely. In fact, in our personal stories, there is almost always more than one guide. When I'm working with authors helping them to craft a memoir, a lot of times we'll talk about a guide inside of each chapter, because each chapter usually encompasses kind of one paradigm shift or one thing that the hero learned, and there's usually one guide associated with that one shift. So you may have in a three to five page story, maybe three or four guides something like that, or you may have one that you really want to focus on, and that's great too. One of the storytelling strategies that I've learned along the way is to have the main guide of your story present right there after you encounter that one big problem, to have an encounter with the guide, and then to have that same guide show up at the end of the story to affirm the transformation of the hero of the story. It's not one hundred percent necessary to do that, but what that does as anar tactic for your reader is it reminds your reader that the hero has transformed. Something about having the guide present in both of those settings right there after you encounter that one big problem, delivering some kind of paradigm shifting advice to the hero, and there at the end, in that climactic scene when everything is kind of resolving, where the guide can just sort of wink to the hero from across the room and say, I see you, I see that you've changed. It's like a mind trick for your reader that helps to confirm for them that there really has been a transformation. So you don't have to do that, but it's just a nice little narrative trick that you can use that helps to keep things really nice and clear for your reader. Another question I get all the time about a guide is do I have to personally know my guide, and no you don't. In fact, a lot of times, inside of our stories, the person who helps you to shift your perspective is not someone that you know. Maybe it's something you heard on Instagram, or maybe it's a podcast that you listen to, or maybe it's a book you read, or this is an experience that I hear from a lot of writers that they have a guide that they can't totally define. It's like an inner knowing or an inner wisdom, or a divine character or God or whatever you want to call that that speaks to them in the kind of wisdom that would come from a guide. And that's also a totally appropriate way to have a guide enter your story. So if you are reading the Bible and have an experience where your mind shifts, or if you're meditating, or you're praying, or you're at church or whereever, if you have an experience where your mind shifts from one way of thinking to a new way of thinking, that's a good way of identifying that there's a guide present in that moment. So let me linger on that point for just a second, because I've said a couple of times that one of the things the guide is going to do is to shift the hero's perspective. So there's a term that I want you to be familiar with as I talk about storytelling, and that is a paradigm shift. I use this term a lot when I talk about stories, and especially when I'm working on memoirs with authors, because a paradigm shift just means that the hero of the story has shifted their perspective from one way of thinking to a new way of thinking. And the arc to any story is built around a paradigm shift. So if I was working on a memoir with an author, I would have them build each chapter of their book around one paradigm shift. And that paradigm shift is almost always delivered from the guide. So maybe you encounter this one big problem, then a guide comes into the scene with you, delivers some sort of paradigm shifting advice or wisdom, helps the hero to shift their perspective. The hero tries something new, and that new thing that they try helps them to have a breakthrough and to achieve some sort of new result. That would be a really simplified example of a chapter of a book, and same thing for a story like the one that you're writing a three to five page story, You're going to have a hero who wants something, who encounters some sort of big problem that they don't know how to overcome. A guide who enters the story who helps them to see it a different way. The hero is able to try something new, and that new thing they try offers them a breakthrough, and there'll be a resolution at the end of the story, which I'll talk about in a future episode. So that's the very, very simplified version of how a story works and how a guide works inside of a story. But for the purposes of this week, I want you to think about the story that you're working on inside of this experience, and I want you to consider who might be your guide, Who's the person who came into the story at the point in which you were facing a problem that you didn't know how to overcome, and who helped you to shift your perspective in some sort of important way. And also ask yourself, what was the perspective shift that they gave you. If you had to define that paradigm shift, how would you define it. A really good formula for paradigm shift is I used to think blank, Now I think blank or I used to feel blank, Now I feel blank? So who is that person? How do they help you shift your perspective? How did they help you transform into something or somebody totally new? And how did they help you get what you were after? Or if you didn't get what you were after, how did they help you change the way you thought about what you were after. On next week's episode, I'm going to talk about what I call a struggle and relief series. Blake Snyder calls this fun and games, which I love because it is fun to do. We're going to take your reader on a crazy roller coaster ride and build even more attension inside of your story. And I'm going to help you take the other pieces of your story that you haven't gotten to play with yet and find their place inside of the narrative arc. So that's going to be a ton of fun. I can't wait for that. But until then, I'd love to hear from you. Who's the guide in your story? What did they help you to learn? How did they help you transform? And how did they help you get what you were after

Pick up the pieces of your life, pull them back together with the words you write, all the beauty and piece and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story. You got 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 how to define your one big problem for your story and then how to amplify that problem so that your reader connected with it on an even deeper level. On this week's episode, I want to introduce a character to you that's going to be a part of your story that I know you're really gonna love. This is one of the favorite parts of the framework every single time that I teach it because it helps to balance out that feeling that people get when I talk about the hero and I tell you that you have to be the hero of your story. It makes people uncomfortable. But when I introduce the guide to the story, suddenly it starts clicking. Why we feel uncomfortable calling ourselves the hero because there's actually a character in the story that is more heroic from the cultural standpoint than the hero of the story. The hero of the story is just the literary protagonist of the story. But there's a character that's involved in the story that is the wise sage of the story. That is the one that helps you, as the hero, to overcome your big problems. It helps you to achieve the thing that you're trying to achieve, and that helps really make sense in our brains of why we feel so uncomfortable positioning ourselves as the hero of the story. So I'm excited to introduce this character to you and to help you define who the guide or guides were in your story. So, just to give you context for the hero so far, here's what we have as it relates to your story. We've defined what story you're going to tell. We have defined what that story is really about. We've talked about who the hero is in that story, that's you. We've talked about how that person transforms from the beginning of a story to the end. What it was that they were after that's usually a physical, tangible thing that they're trying to get. We've talked about what the hook is to the story. So where do we enter into the story. We enter in usually at the problem and then we've talked about the one big problem that's getting in the hero's way. And like I mentioned to you on last week's episode, that one big problem is the thing that's going to have to be resolved by the end of the story. So remember, in order for the story to resolve, we need to solve that one big problem. The hero needs to sort of get what they were after or realize that they never wanted it in the first place. And the hero also has to transform into something or someone new. They have to learn some big lesson. Now, how is all of that going to happen? That's a tall, tall order. The way it's going to happen is there's going to be a character who enters into the story called the Guide, and the Guide is going to help the hero free big ways. These are going to sound familiar to you. The Guide is going to help the hero to get what they want, get the thing that they were after, that physical, tangible thing. The Guide is going to help the hero transform into that new version of themselves. And the Guide is going to help the hero to shift their perspective in order to achieve that transformation. Now, one of the reasons why the Guide is such an important character inside of the story is because we don't believe that the hero could change without some help. The reason we don't believe that as the reader of stories or the viewer of a story is because our life experience tells us differently. If the hero could have changed without any help, then why haven't they changed already. If we're introduced to a character in the story who is really egotistical and doesn't see the people around them as having as much value as they have, and they've been this way for as long as they've been walking on planet Earth, then why would they suddenly just snap out of that unless they had an experience or met a person who helped them shift their perspective to become someone new. So this is the purpose that the Guide serves inside of our stories. And another way that our life parallels with stories is as it relates to the Guide. This is another reason why I really love this character and why I think so many other people who are writing their stories resonate with this character, is because think of anything that you've overcome in your life and ask yourself, how did I do that? How did I survive that thing? How did I get there? How did I achieve that thing? How did I live through what I lived through? The answers to that question is likely going to include a person or a handful of people who really helped you to get what you were after, to become someone or something new, and to shift your perspective in some kind of important way. And that's exactly what the guide is going to do inside of your story. So what we need to define is who is the guide in your story and what what point in the story do you meet that person? Now, if you're following a storytelling formula or framework down to a t, you should probably meet that person shortly after you encounter your one big problem. Life doesn't always line up perfectly with storytelling, and this isn't always exactly the way it works. Maybe you struggled with a problem for twenty years before you met your guide. Maybe you were really struggling to overcome addiction and it wasn't until twenty years into your addiction that you met a person who was able to shift your perspective and convince you to come to a recovery meeting or something like that. And then you meet a whole room full of guides that help you to transform into someone new. Regardless the way that you write the story, you want it to read in such a way where there's not twenty years worth of content before we get to the guide. So, in other words, if twenty years of time existed in that beginning part of the story, we're going to zoom through it like fast forward through it pretty fast, so that you meet the guide in your story shortly after you encounter your one big problem. One of the question that I often get about guides is can there be more than one guide? And the answer to that question is yes, absolutely. In fact, in our personal stories, there is almost always more than one guide. When I'm working with authors helping them to craft a memoir, a lot of times we'll talk about a guide inside of each chapter, because each chapter usually encompasses kind of one paradigm shift or one thing that the hero learned, and there's usually one guide associated with that one shift. So you may have in a three to five page story, maybe three or four guides something like that, or you may have one that you really want to focus on, and that's great too. One of the storytelling strategies that I've learned along the way is to have the main guide of your story present right there after you encounter that one big problem, to have an encounter with the guide, and then to have that same guide show up at the end of the story to affirm the transformation of the hero of the story. It's not one hundred percent necessary to do that, but what that does as anar tactic for your reader is it reminds your reader that the hero has transformed. Something about having the guide present in both of those settings right there after you encounter that one big problem, delivering some kind of paradigm shifting advice to the hero, and there at the end, in that climactic scene when everything is kind of resolving, where the guide can just sort of wink to the hero from across the room and say, I see you, I see that you've changed. It's like a mind trick for your reader that helps to confirm for them that there really has been a transformation. So you don't have to do that, but it's just a nice little narrative trick that you can use that helps to keep things really nice and clear for your reader. Another question I get all the time about a guide is do I have to personally know my guide, and no you don't. In fact, a lot of times, inside of our stories, the person who helps you to shift your perspective is not someone that you know. Maybe it's something you heard on Instagram, or maybe it's a podcast that you listen to, or maybe it's a book you read, or this is an experience that I hear from a lot of writers that they have a guide that they can't totally define. It's like an inner knowing or an inner wisdom, or a divine character or God or whatever you want to call that that speaks to them in the kind of wisdom that would come from a guide. And that's also a totally appropriate way to have a guide enter your story. So if you are reading the Bible and have an experience where your mind shifts, or if you're meditating, or you're praying, or you're at church or whereever, if you have an experience where your mind shifts from one way of thinking to a new way of thinking, that's a good way of identifying that there's a guide present in that moment. So let me linger on that point for just a second, because I've said a couple of times that one of the things the guide is going to do is to shift the hero's perspective. So there's a term that I want you to be familiar with as I talk about storytelling, and that is a paradigm shift. I use this term a lot when I talk about stories, and especially when I'm working on memoirs with authors, because a paradigm shift just means that the hero of the story has shifted their perspective from one way of thinking to a new way of thinking. And the arc to any story is built around a paradigm shift. So if I was working on a memoir with an author, I would have them build each chapter of their book around one paradigm shift. And that paradigm shift is almost always delivered from the guide. So maybe you encounter this one big problem, then a guide comes into the scene with you, delivers some sort of paradigm shifting advice or wisdom, helps the hero to shift their perspective. The hero tries something new, and that new thing that they try helps them to have a breakthrough and to achieve some sort of new result. That would be a really simplified example of a chapter of a book, and same thing for a story like the one that you're writing a three to five page story, You're going to have a hero who wants something, who encounters some sort of big problem that they don't know how to overcome. A guide who enters the story who helps them to see it a different way. The hero is able to try something new, and that new thing they try offers them a breakthrough, and there'll be a resolution at the end of the story, which I'll talk about in a future episode. So that's the very, very simplified version of how a story works and how a guide works inside of a story. But for the purposes of this week, I want you to think about the story that you're working on inside of this experience, and I want you to consider who might be your guide, Who's the person who came into the story at the point in which you were facing a problem that you didn't know how to overcome, and who helped you to shift your perspective in some sort of important way. And also ask yourself, what was the perspective shift that they gave you. If you had to define that paradigm shift, how would you define it. A really good formula for paradigm shift is I used to think blank, Now I think blank or I used to feel blank, Now I feel blank? So who is that person? How do they help you shift your perspective? How did they help you transform into something or somebody totally new? And how did they help you get what you were after? Or if you didn't get what you were after, how did they help you change the way you thought about what you were after. On next week's episode, I'm going to talk about what I call a struggle and relief series. Blake Snyder calls this fun and games, which I love because it is fun to do. We're going to take your reader on a crazy roller coaster ride and build even more attension inside of your story. And I'm going to help you take the other pieces of your story that you haven't gotten to play with yet and find their place inside of the narrative arc. So that's going to be a ton of fun. I can't wait for that. But until then, I'd love to hear from you. Who's the guide in your story? What did they help you to learn? How did they help you transform? And how did they help you get what you were after