September Theme: The Stories We Carry
Big Question: Why do certain stories stay with us?
Week 1: The Books That Changed Us
Welcome to the first week of exploring The Stories We Carry on Daily Drafts & Dialogues in September
Welcome to a new month of breathing life and digital ink into writing aspirations. One draft, one dialogue, one day at a time on Daily Drafts & Dialogues. I’m so thrilled to have you here and can’t wait to dive into an entire new month of engaging topics and conversations.
In our drafts and dialogues last month, we explored The Creative Life and how to make space and cultivate habits for the creative lives we truly want, learned more about how to navigate ‘the messy middle’ of our creative lives and projects, then reflected on how we can best prepare for what comes next in our creative lives. And the month before that, we explored Creative Courage and focused on how we can best harness it to keep showing up despite fear, uncertainty, perfectionism, and self-doubt.
In September, we’re going to extend those conversations and go a little deeper into reflecting on and examining those stories that we carry. Those stories that are central to our creative courage and the creative lives we continue to build for ourselves. Those stories that have changed us in profound ways and encourage us to be the storytellers we are and want to be. Those stories that are embedded in our memories, our psyches, our spirits, and the trajectory of our lives. Those stories that continue to influence history, as well as the current and future course of the world. Those stories we can’t help but tell others over and over and over again. Essentially, those stories that connect us, bring us closer together, make us feel seen, and stand the test of time.
At our core, humans are storytellers. The stories we encounter, remember, and tell are what allow us to make sense of ourselves, the world, and one another in fundamental ways. It’s been that way since the dawn of time and will be that way as long as we exist.
Taking the next several weeks to unpack why and how we carry the stories we carry has immense value for all of us, especially those of us who want to use our writing and art and other human storytelling mediums as vehicles for creative courage and purposeful creative living. Those of us who truly want to ensure the sketches and drafts we carry and create also carry the stories that mean the most to us, so that we can do our part in contributing something meaningful to the broader human narrative and craft of storytelling.
Truly, I can’t think of a better way to spend this September, as the world is undergoing a lot of rapid change and turmoil. Especially now, taking the time to reflect on and intentionally explore the stories we carry will help us better understand where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to go… on purpose.
For the next five weeks, we’ll center our drafts and dialogues around one guiding question: Why do certain stories stay with us?
For the first week, we’ll be writing, reading, and talking about the books that changed us, which will include those books that altered the very fabric and trajectory of our lives to those books that simply contained a single sentence we could never let go.
Over the course of the month, we’ll explore how some books seem to arrive at the exact moment we need them while others may not resonate with us until years after we’ve read them. We’ll explore the ways the stories we carry give us language for those things we can’t always name or define in unexpected ways, as well as how they introduce us to new perspectives and people we need and want to meet. And how, above all else, they continue to define and evolve the way we see ourselves, the world, and all the people in it, as well as who we become.
This week’s creative prompts invite you to explore the books that can change characters and how they fit into your fictional worlds, while the reflective journaling prompts encourage you to reflect on those books that have changed you.
Write as much or as little as you’d like. Follow the prompts exactly as they’re introduced or let them take you somewhere unexpected. It’s up to you. The page is yours!
I can’t wait to see you in the Drafters Workshop Chat this month as we continue to discuss the drafts you share, the books that have changed us, and the stories that we carry.
You’ll see my response to one of the creative prompts in tomorrow’s post, then my response to one of the reflective journaling prompts on Wednesday. You’ll also see posts featuring our book club selections for the month, and dialogues about the stories we carry this week, which are all meant to complement these prompts.
I look forward to your next comment or chat reply. Until then, happy writing!
General Tips for Every Prompt
Begin with a specific memory, image, object, character, or experience rather than trying to write a complete history with a detailed beginning and end.
Let yourself write a messy first draft, as discovery often happens via rewrites and revisions.
Follow the details that carry emotional energy and weight, even if they seem small.
Ask what the book or story you’re reflecting on or writing about represents beyond the words on their pages.
Give yourself permission to write about the book you actually remember, not the book you think you should remember.
This week, choose or imagine the book or story that has stayed with you and explore what its staying power reveals about the person you were, the person you are, or the person you are becoming.
Quick Note: While I will always encourage writers to write to the extent of their heart’s content, I would suggest starting with one prompt from each section first. Select the creative prompt and reflective prompt that seem to really speak to you first, then see where those writing experiences lead you before attempting to complete the rest of the prompts. If you end up completing all or most of the prompts after that, that’s amazing! But if you don’t, that’s perfectly fine too. You won’t run out of opportunities to see prompts like this because there will be another post of prompts available next Saturday when this one is auto-archived.
Creative Prompts About Books That Change Us And Our Characters
1. The Book That Changes Everything
Write a story about a book that changes someone’s life.
Focus On:
the significance behind the moment the book enters the character’s life.
how the character’s transformation is revealed through specific choices, relationships, or actions rather than by simple explanations.
how the book itself has a presence, history, or meaning that makes it memorable.
how the character discovers that being changed by a story does not necessarily mean becoming someone entirely different.
Skills to Practice:
Writing believable character transformations
Including a smaller story about an object within a larger story
Showing changes via details and objects in a scene
Tip: Give the character a problem before you give them the book, as this contrast will make the book’s impact more noticeable.
Feeling Stuck?
Start with three things the character believes at the beginning and three things they believe at the end, then write about the moment that connects the two.
2. The Protagonist Who Meets Their Favorite Character
Create a protagonist who meets the fictional character who shaped them most.
Focus On:
how the meeting reveals something the protagonist has misunderstood about their beloved fictional character.
the moment the fictional character challenges, comforts, or surprises the protagonist.
their conversation and how it explores the difference between who we imagine a character to be and who that character might actually be or become when we meet them.
the way their encounter changes what the protagonist understands about themselves.
Skills to Practice:
Writing distinctive dialogue between two contrasting characters
Understanding a character through their conflicts and personal revelations
Examining admiration and expectations through a complicated encounter
Tip: Let the fictional character refuse to behave exactly as your protagonist expects, and vice versa.
Feeling Stuck?
Imagine the fictional character asking, “Why did you need me?” or “Why did you want to meet me?” Then write the protagonist’s answer and go from there.
3. The Sentence You Never Forgot
Write a poem about a sentence in a book that you never forgot.
Focus On:
the ways in which the remembered sentence becomes a doorway into a memory, feeling, place, or period of your life.
exploring why the sentence stayed with you on an emotional or spiritual or linguistic level rather than simply explaining what it means.
using language in the poem that creates a parallel mood or emotional echo between the book and your own experience.
permitting the poem to alter the meaning of the words of the remembered sentence as you encounter them again.
Skills to Practice:
Using vivid imagery and emotions to transform memory into poetry
Exploring emotional resonance through concise language
Building a poem around a single image, phrase, or idea
Tip: Before you begin writing, take a moment to sit with the physical experience of remembering the sentence. Consider where you were, what the page looked like, or what you felt before you understood why, and see where that takes you.
Feeling Stuck?
Write five sensory details from the moment you first encountered the sentence, then choose one of them to become the center of your poem or at least its first stanza.
4. The Book Given at the Right Moment
Write a scene where someone gives another person a meaningful book at the exact moment they need it.
Focus On:
the giver’s reason for choosing this particular book for this particular person.
what remains unsaid between the characters and how it matters as much as the words they exchange.
how the book carries a history that deepens or emphasizes the meaning of the gift.
the recipient’s reaction revealing something about their relationship with the giver.
Skills to Practice:
Including subtext and meaningful mannerisms alongside dialogue
Creating emotional significance around an everyday object
Generating tension or tenderness within an ordinary scene
Tip: Don’t explain why the book matters immediately. Instead, let the reader discover its significance through the characters’ behavior and dialogue.
Feeling Stuck?
Decide why the giver almost doesn’t give the book, then begin the scene at that moment.
5. The Library of Magical Books
Write about a library that contains only magical books.
Focus On:
the rules, powers, costs, or consequences that make each book distinct and or similar.
how the library reveals something about the people who want to visit it or seek out its books.
the ways the library’s magic encourages meaningful choices rather than existing only for spectacle.
at least one book containing something a protagonist desperately wants but may not be ready to receive.
Skills to Practice:
Developing imaginative worldbuilding through concrete details
Establishing rules that make fantastical ideas believable
Connecting external magic to internal conflicts
Tip: Give the library one impossible rule and make your protagonist break it.
Feeling Stuck?
Invent five books in the magical library using these beginnings: The book that remembers…, The book that erases…, The book that predicts…, The book that returns…, and The book that refuses…
Reflective Prompts About The Books That Changed You
6. The Book That Changed Your World
What book changed the way you see the world?
Focus On:
identifying what your perspective was before encountering the book.
exploring the specific idea, image, character, or experience that shifted something in you.
considering whether the change has lasted or evolved over time.
allowing the answer to reveal something about who you were when you first read it.
Skills to Practice:
Reflective writing grounded in specific memories
Tracing cause and effect in your own experiences and thinking
Connecting reading experiences to personal growth
Tip: Instead of starting with a summary of the book, start with who you were before you read it.
Feeling Stuck?
Complete this sentence several times: “Before I read this book, I thought/felt…”
7. Who opened the door to reading?
Who introduced you to reading?
Focus On:
remembering the person, place, or moment that made reading feel meaningful to you.
exploring what that introduction communicated about stories and about you.
considering whether your relationship with reading has changed since then.
noticing what you still carry from that early experience.
Skills to Practice:
Writing from a vivid personal memory
Using small details to evoke a person or place
Connecting a past experience to your present self
Tip: Don’t worry about making the person sound extraordinary, as ordinary details can make a memory feel alive.
Feeling Stuck?
Picture the room where you first remember reading and list everything you can see, hear, smell, and touch.
8. The Stories That Shaped You
What stories shaped your identity?
Focus On:
including stories from your family, culture, childhood, friendships, or imagination.
which stories taught you what was possible, desirable, frightening, or forbidden.
those stories you still believe, as well as the ones you have outgrown.
how the stories you carry influence the story you tell about yourself and your life.
Skills to Practice:
Examining identity through narrative
Recognizing the beliefs embedded in stories
Distinguishing inherited stories from stories you have chosen
Tip: Consider stories about where you come from, who you could become, what love means, what success means, and what it means to belong.
Feeling Stuck?
Make a short list of five stories that taught you something about yourself, then choose the one that still feels unfinished, or the one that still resonates.
9. Read It Again for the First Time
What book do you wish you could read again for the first time?
Focus On:
exploring what made the first reading experience so powerful.
what you know now about the book that you did not know then.
what might be lost, and what might be gained, by reading it again.
distinguishing between missing the book itself and missing the person you were when you first encountered it.
Skills to Practice:
Writing about nostalgia without idealizing the past
Comparing past and present perspectives
Using a familiar story to explore personal change
Tip: Write about the reader you were then before writing about the book.
Feeling Stuck?
Finish this sentence: “I don’t only miss this book; I miss the version of myself who…”
10. What Your Favorite Books Say About You
What do your favorite books reveal about you?
Focus On:
the patterns that reappear across the books you return to.
what kinds of characters, worlds, conflicts, or ideas repeatedly draw you in.
what your favorite books suggest about your hopes, fears, values, or unanswered questions.
remaining open to discovering something about yourself that you did not expect.
Skills to Practice:
Reading about your own preferences as a form of self-reflection
Identifying patterns across different personal experiences
Turning observation into personal and practical insight
Tip: Choose three favorite books and ask what they have in common before deciding what they ‘say’ or reveal about you.
Feeling Stuck?
Imagine someone finding your bookshelf without meeting you, then consider what assumptions they might make about the person who owns it.
Join the Conversation
The books that change us don’t always announce themselves as important, or don’t even become important to us until long after we’ve read them.
Sometimes a book’s influence on us is obvious, like when it changes a long-held belief, inspires our creativity and imagination, or offers us a new way to envision our lives. But sometimes it’s much subtler, like when a character becomes a voice in our head or a mentor, a sentence returns with new vigor and meaning years later, or when the book itself becomes a reminder of who we once were.
Sometimes it also seems like we’re never quite finished reading some of the books we encounter, and that just might be why certain stories stay with us— they feel too big, too important, to finish in one sitting, or maybe even in one lifetime.
As we begin September’s exploration of The Stories We Carry, take a moment to notice which stories have become part of your inner vocabulary, your inner voice, and what they might still be asking you to understand. Then join the Drafters Workshop Chat to share an excerpt of your writing (even if it’s not related to these prompts), talk about a book that surprised you, exchange encouragement with fellow writers, or simply let us know which prompt resonated with you most. Whether you share a single paragraph or several pages, or just want to cheer others on, your voice is welcome!
Get the conversation going by answering this week’s question: What book has stayed with you the longest, and what do you think it reveals about you that you didn’t know when you first read it?
You don’t need to have a polished answer. Just bring a memory, a sentence, a half-finished thought, or a book you haven’t stopped thinking about to the chat.
Thanks so much for being here. I can’t wait to see your next comment or chat reply. Until then, happy writing and reading!
Please don’t forget to like and share this post if you enjoyed it so others can enjoy it too. Thank you!
ICYM August’s Theme, The Creative Life
Go more in depth with The Creative Life Writing Collection
September’s The Stories We Carry Writing Collection is coming soon!
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