As we head into the cozy season, consider taking advantage of this lull before the rush of the holidays to contemplate life’s more challenging moments and how they shaped you. But documenting those occasions, whether they’re wartime experiences, career challenges, or personal trials, can be hard to face and even harder to write. So, in the spirit of giving, we present three techniques to help you confidently tackle difficult subjects.
Writing About Challenging Experiences
- Start with familiar ground. Begin with a setting or situation you remember clearly. For instance, describe your room or a kind nurse if you’re writing about a difficult hospital stay. These concrete details help anchor both you and your readers, making exploring more challenging aspects of the experience more accessible.
- Build your story layer by layer. Instead of trying to capture everything at once, break your experience into manageable pieces. Our guided writing prompts can help you explore different aspects of your story: the setting, the people involved, your emotions, and the aftermath. This approach makes overwhelming experiences more manageable to write about.
- Choose your level of detail. Remember, you’re in control of your story. You can choose the details to include and those to leave out. Sometimes, less is more – particularly when writing about difficult experiences. Our templates include helpful suggestions for striking this balance while keeping your story authentic and meaningful.
Writing Prompts for Challenging Life Moments
- Write about a moment when you faced your fears. Was it during military service? A medical procedure? A public speaking engagement? How did you overcome it?
- Describe a family challenge that brought you closer together. Sometimes, our most difficult moments lead to our strongest bonds.
- Share a time when you surprised yourself with your own courage. What gave you strength? What did you learn?
Tips from Our Community
DIYBook authors have found that writing about difficult experiences often becomes more manageable with our structured approach. Our thorough writing prompts help you organize your thoughts and guide you through the process step by step. As one writer recently shared, “I never thought I could write about my time in Vietnam, but the prompts helped me find a way to tell my story.”
Every story matters, especially the challenging ones. Difficult experiences often shape us tremendously. Though they can be hard to write about, they do have the potential to transmit valuable lessons to future generations.
Your experiences are worth preserving. Start writing your story today at www.diybook.us
Barbara Basbanes Richter founded DIYBook, an affordable and easy-to-use book writing program. She also founded In Ink Ghostwriting, a full-service ghostwriting firm helping politicians, pundits, scientists, CEOs, professional athletes, and others get their stories into print.
Under her own byline, Barbara’s writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The Vineyard Gazette, Humanities, The Sewanee Review, Fine Books & Collections, Literary Features Syndicate, High Country News, Ravishly.com, Westchester Magazine, and other outlets.
Barbara is a fluent French speaker, and her translation from French to English of Mademoiselle de Malepeire was called a “clever, inspiring gem.”
