How to Get More Confident Telling Your Story: The Art of Storytelling

I was talking to local writer and storyteller Geran Capewell a couple weeks ago, when he mentioned having a great deal of trouble getting people to tell their story. 

Not because they don’t have stories, mind you, but because they dismiss and diminish these stories as boring, or uninteresting, or somehow not worthwhile. 

Here’s what he said through email: 

“Though people enjoy reading, listening or viewing stories [on my website], I am having a great deal of trouble getting people to tell a story. So often I sit with a person as they relate a fascinating story about a moment in their life, or about their family. But when I suggest they tell their story on Bardsplace they say "oh no I can't tell a story" or" my stories aren't interesting enough". It seems to me that the issue is not that people don't have a story to tell, but rather, the issue is giving people the confidence to tell their story.”

…and I couldn’t agree with him more! 

So often in my work as a writing coach and editor, I find myself in this quiet standoff with people’s inner censors; with the voices that say, “This isn’t worth writing down,” or “Who cares about that little moment?”

I know that voice well—since my own inner censor (or, tiny oppressor) is looking for ways to diminish or dismiss my stories, too! 

Here’s the thing I have to tell myself, and what I tell my clients, about the art of confident storytelling: 

image by Jessica Barrat c/o Manifest Content Solutions

The little moments are the story. So tell your tiny censor to shut the hell up!

Listen: the art of storytelling isn’t about mountaintop revelations or the big Hollywood plot twists, though those are fine too. 

More often than not, though, it’s about the way your grandmother tilted her head when she was listening to you. 

The sound of gravel under your boots walking home from school. 

The sick feeling you got the first time someone called you by the wrong name and you didn’t correct them. 

See? The smallness of the moment is what makes it shine.

And another thing: We’ve been trained to think that the art of storytelling is a performance. 

That our stories are something for the stage, or the campfire, or the dinner party. 

Indeed, most of us have been taught, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, that our personal experience isn’t enough. That if we’re not experts, or artists, or survivors of something dramatic, we shouldn’t take up space. Especially on the page.

But the truth is, storytelling is how we make sense of being alive. It’s how we metabolize memory. And the best stories (the ones that have a real impact, even if just for one person) always seem to begin with “You know, this one time…”

I’ve seen it time and time again: the moment someone stops trying to write well and just tells the truth, even a messy, half-formed, emotional truth, the writing lives. Because there’s a kind of everyday courage in letting yourself speak or write plainly. Not trying to impress. Not aiming to be profound. Just offering up your piece of the human puzzle.

And living writing is more powerful than polished writing any day of the week.

So if you’re someone who thinks, “I don’t have a story,” or “I’m not a writer,” let me offer you this: you do have a story, and you already have everything you need to tell it. 

5 ways to get more confident about your writing and finally speak your truth

Here are the ways I fight off the meanest, most limiting voice in my head (my inner censor) and get myself telling my stories with more confidence, and without fear!

1. Start writing wherever the hell you want to

You don’t need a grand beginning. Just follow the thread of a moment that stayed. Something that makes your stomach flip a little when you think of it. Something you can still feel in your bones. Maybe it was funny. Maybe it was painful. Maybe it was both. That’s the story. Start there.

2. Don’t try to be interesting or clever; try to be honest

Trying to “make your story interesting” is often a trap (whether in writing or in relating): you’ll start adding glitter, when the raw version was more than enough! Remember, the real gems are in the details that only you would have noticed. I promise your future readers and listeners will be much more drawn to your truth than to your presentation.

3. Write as if no one is going to read it, and then decide later

There’s a different kind of honesty that appears in your writing and digital storytelling when you’re not trying to manage how you’re perceived. When you write for yourself first, you get past the polite version and into the real thing: the messy, unsure, wildly alive parts. You can always edit later. But let the first draft be yours, and then you can decide to share it if you want. Maybe the truth was just for you—but I’ll bet it felt damn good getting it out there!

4. Remember: you’re literally the subject matter expert of your own experience

You don’t need credentials to write about your life. You have lived it. You know things. So much so that only you can ground your story in the world of touch and smell and sound. Show us the chipped mug in your hand, the scratch in the record, the click of your grandfather’s lighter. These details carry more emotional weight, and more truth, than any third-party summary ever could! (This is the anatomy of a story, not plot points, but emotional texture.)

5. Trust your story to do what it was meant to

Some of my writers get caught up in trying to explain every detail of an experience when they’re writing…only to tell me later that their favourite part of reading or watching a film is when the writer leaves things to the imagination. Translation? You don’t have to explain the meaning of everything in the act of storytelling. Sometimes the moment speaks for itself. Let the story breathe. Let the reader bring their own meaning to it. Trust that sharing the moment is the meaning; I promise, it’s enough.

My point is: by telling your story, you are sharing something with people they could not access anywhere else. 

You’re giving someone else a glimpse into your world, not because it’s finished or polished or perfect, but because it’s yours.

And that’s what people really connect with.

So next time you catch yourself about to say, “Oh, it’s nothing really…”, pause. 

It might be the very thing someone else needed to hear!