I will admit that I have revised more than one post this month to make it more of a story, revised its verb tense, altered its opening, added more dialogue, stripped it of its commentary snark, left out lines that told it like it is because they didn’t show it like it was.
Yes, Beth’s nudge in “The Difference Between Storytelling and Band-Aids,” is making me more intentional in my moves. I’m sure that was the intent.
It’s also making me doubt myself, and I know I am not alone, wondering Is what I am writing a story or a band-aid? I’ve seen it in comments and I hear its anxiety-inducement in the mid-month posts that confess to inevitable writer’s block.
I fear this may have been an unintended consequence of last week’s post.
In the post, Beth writes, “In March, the real challenge isn’t just to write every day for thirty-one days. The REAL challenge is to write a story every day. If you’ve found yourself relying on band-aids more often than not, here a few strategies to get you back to sharing stories, instead of not-stories.”
In true writing conference fashion, she goes on to do exactly that. And at first, I take notes, so that I can follow suit.
But there is still a voice inside that hesitates as I put words like these to the page. Am I…Have I been doing it right? Am I guilty of posting “not-stories” during this story challenge? I didn’t even know there was a wrong way to slice.
What if I write it the way I want to? What if I write it the way it comes? What if I write it the way it strikes me? And finally, Rachel Hollis’ words in Girl, Stop Apologizing make sense:
That what if? That’s your potential knocking on the door of your heart and begging it to find the courage to override all the fear in your head!
And then, to see just how flimsy the limb is that I stand on, I turn to my bookshelf and find Katie Wood Ray calling me closer. In Study Driven, she describes her slice of life mentor stack, containing traditional narratives among other forms. These others,
They’re about topics of interest in people’s everyday lives: family, friends, work, love, loss, and so on, but they’re not stories per se. Usually written from a first-person stance, the intention in slice-of-life writing seems to be simply to share these stories and bits of life with others who might be interested because, well, they live too!
It’s then that I realize this is no limb that I stand on. My feet are firmly planted on the sacred ground that grew me into a writer in the first place.
It’s then that I realize there is good reason that this advice about band-aids and not-stories has hit me in such a way:
Slice of life is not a form, it is a stance.
To say that there are criteria that make our writing good enough for a long-term place at the writing desk, defeats the purpose . To take the choices we make and subject them to slice shaming, defeats the writers that choose this everyday, sometimes only in March, often times throughout the year. It puts limits on a genre that ought to be as diverse, as varied, as limitless as the individuals who participate.
Katie sets us straight:
The choice to write about an everyday life topic in a personal way is what I’m looking for.
So, adapted from the words at the base of our own Lady Liberty, I offer these words of self- sovereignty to all those who have crossed this ocean of doubt with me:
“Keep your small-moment stories,” cries me
With written slips. “Give me your band-aids, your poems,
Your streams of consciousness yearning to round the bend,
The wretched block of your writing store.
Send these, the not-story writers, slice-shamed to me,
I light this lamp beside your righteous keyboard!”
Today is the seventeenth day of the 12th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge (#SOLSC19) hosted by Two Writing Teachers. I appreciate any comments, especially those that
- reinforce writing decisions that work and
- coach into those that don’t.
Think of each comment you leave as a little writing conference we are having together. Come on, make me a better writer today! Thank you!
It's About Making Space 
Bless you for posting this today, I certainly felt refreshed reading your stance.
I understand the intent of the band aid post and I put Beth at the highest honor of my TC mentors – but yes- I have been second guessing my poetry and adding fluffy descriptive details and dialogue so I can follow the challenge “rules”, and then probably sacrificing the joy of it in order to fit in. Thanks for lightening the mood here and also calling it out and naming how we might feel.
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Thank you sharing your experience, your slice of this life. And for tipping your hat to TWT; I am certainly grateful for all that they do, even this post that pushed me closer toward my center.
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I’ll be honest because your post is candid. I was with you for much of the post. I saw only kindness and a desire to serve the TWT community in Beth’s post, but I can see why others might have responded differently. I did not see an attempt from Beth to control form; she mentioned many story genres, but when someone posts something simply to claim participation points, that’s a different matter. Blogging is about sharing writing w/ an audience, and that begs consideration for the audience.
I’m sure I’ve written many posts that look more like essays than stories in the narrow sense, but there is a story that informs each. I won’t change that, and my sense is this is part of what you’re saying.
However, the tone of your post changes. That’s where you lost me. I’m not an apologist for anyone, but serving on the TWT team is an act of service, is a labor of love, and if I were Beth, I’d probably quit because the level of criticism and the tone of much of that criticism has been downright mean.
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Thank YOU for your candid feedback. I’d love to know where you thought it took this turn. Which line? What words? I appreciate being able to see it from your perspective.
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I have been much harder on my posts in the last week. It seems so much harder when I I search for stories. Perhaps that is the point. It is, after all, a challenge. So Friday when my first planned post didn’t seem like a slice, I wrote another one, that no one read. We struggle along.
Finding our own sweet spot. Clever slice.
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Thanks for your insight. I almost quit the challenge after that post. It was then that I knew what I had been told in high school and college, “You are not a writer.” After that post, I heard that again. But this time, I decided to keep writing. My slices are my stories and I guess I get to tell them the best way I know how.
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I’m glad you are still writing. Yes, however it comes, it’s your slice because it’s your life.
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This is so hard because this same thing happens in the classroom during writing workshop. Just putting words down is important, but all writers, at some point, need a nudge to grow, and that can cause unease. I think of students who write acrostic poems that have no real point. If you have a conference with these students, they can’t tell you about the process or the choices they made as a writer. I think this is what is mean by a Band-Aid: you wrote something just to say you did the assignment. A Slice, as you said, is about seeing the world as a writer and making choices about how to share your thoughts with the world. So much for us to think about as writers and teachers of writers.
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Thank you for sharing the perspective of, as someone else said, the delicate balance we must strike in writing conferences and as teachers of writers. Peter Elbow calls it the balance between being host and bouncer, and that as we are building relationships with our students as writers, we ought to err on the side of host. We want our students to see that their choices matter, and a first step is to ensure they see they have choices. Yes!
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Thank you for your commentary! I have been feeling guilty since I read that article.
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I struggled with the band-aids metaphor as well. In thirty-one days of writing, there are bound to be times when stream-of-consciousness is the only thing we have to put on paper–and even those are a window into my life story at that moment. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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I think this post took courage and a great deal of reflection. I’ve heard from many people who felt shame after sharing their writing and then feeling called out for offering ‘band-aids’. Some even quit the challenge. I know that was not Beth’s intention at all. She is a brilliant writing teacher. I have also become more enlightened (Thanks to Sara Ahmed’s book BEING THE CHANGE) about the difference between intention and consequences. Calling non-stories band-aids had some real (unintended) consequences for many teachers who felt vulnerable sharing their private thoughts, ideas, experiences, and forms with the world. While Beth was trying to be encouraging, for many it became discouraging. This happens to us as teachers all the time. Every one of us! Our words meant lift writers do not have the intended effect for many writers. This challenge is meant to encourage teacher writers and that is a personal mission for me as well, but I am also on a mission to expand our definitions of writing so that more people can find a place at the writers’ table. I have thoroughly loved the variety of forms and diversity of ideas this month. If this challenge is for small moment stories only I will decide next year if that is a form I want to write and share for 31 days, but for this year I will stick with my commitment to share my choice of writing form, and be grateful for TWT to create this space for teacher writers. I thought this post was creative and courageous. We’ve certainly been challenged to reflect on our writing more than we probably would have without Beth’s post and I hope she realizes what a positive ,unintended consequence that was as well.
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Thank you for uplifting the positive outcome of this post. I am grateful for this space and for the push to know and to do better as a writer and as a teacher of writers. This community is a great source for that, just like in our classrooms, where we hope students find community among their peers and seek feedback beyond the teacher’s.
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I so appreciate your craft in this piece — balancing narrative, text evidence, embedded quotes, and, of course, poetry/verse. The language of “stance” is helpful.
As a teacher of nearly 200 writers this school year from ages 11 to 50, I can only say that there is an art to balancing the comfort one needs to be able to put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) and the discomfort of becoming, which is to say stretching, taking risks, and, perhaps most importantly, noticing moves of other writers that will sustain and nurture a writing life.
I am not following the story form at all as I have taken this opportunity to do something I have always wanted to do, which is to document slices from my life as a teacher. All together, the slices may just make a story, but that is not why I am doing it, I am doing it to be more conscious of the moves I make as a teacher, to make visible to people who criticize teachers just how complex our craft is, to invite others to bear witness to my life.
I believe every slice I read this month to support other writers is my way of bearing witness to lives as well as craft and point of view. It is an honor to be invited into the digital pages of so many lives; story or band-aid, I am there beside anyone who asks me to be.
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Thank you! I, too was influenced by Beth’s post about band-aid writing and have tried to edit my writing. I’m always critical of myself but now I use her guide to judge the writing on a less personal level. However, it’s still me trying to write. I enjoyed your creative use of the words at the base to Liberty!
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This is such a reflective post and it speaks your truth on the matter. I have wondered about my slicing since reading Beth’s post, too, but I’m still not sure what I think about it yet. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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In applying to be a part of SoL I closely read a lot of descriptions of what they were looking for. One of the pages included this quote: “In a nutshell, a Slice of Life story is simply a small sliver of your ordinary life. It’s not the whole, but a slice. The only point to it is sharing a piece of your everyday. I like to try out craft moves, test personification, take a risk with alliteration, or push myself to craft authentic dialogue. I look at it as a chance to try out the things I’m noticing other writers doing. Basically as long as you are sharing a piece of your life, you can’t do it wrong! The only wrong way is to not try.” It came from this page: https://twowritingteachers.org/2011/01/24/what-is-a-slice-of-life/ . When I started writing, other Slicers encouraged me by suggesting that if I ever got stuck I could try using a number of the techniques that Beth considers to be band aids. I see Beth’s Band Aid post and the first half of the quote above as suggestions for improving my writing craft. However, in terms of what is acceptable for this challenge I think the community support and “you can’t do it wrong! The only wrong way is to not try.” should be the measure. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t think your post was mean.
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Thank you for adding your voice to the conversation. The community is part of the gift of this challenge. That and the personal growth you describe.
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I am grateful to you for taking the time to craft your thoughts about the Band-Aid post into such a positive and inspiring reframing and permission slip. I have been thinking a lot about the unintended consequences of that post and feeling sad as I see second-guessing and shame in many people’s slices. I read an incredibly beautiful slice last night that the author labeled a Band-Aid–and it couldn’t have been less Band-Aid like. I think it’s incredibly helpful to think about slicing as a stance, and if that’s your stance, then all kinds of writing qualify. And I love the reminders from Katie Wood Ray (and your post reminds me I should go back and reread Study Driven, such a wonderful book). Like Paula, I love the variety of forms I come across during this month and find that it really pushes me as a writer to try them out. Writing a more straightforward narrative is very much my comfort zone as a writer, so what might look like a Band-Aid to others is actually the way I challenge myself as a writer this month and play with craft.
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Thank you for adding your voice to this thread! I appreciate the nudge the post gave me as a fifth-year slicer. It is a worthy challenge; I need a bouncer sometimes. My response of self-doubt is as much a reflection of my own developing identity as it is a call for slicing to be seen as a stance. Like others have noted, we slice as writers and as teachers of writers and it is a delicate dance. I’m glad so much resonated with you.
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I actually like making sure my stories are “stories.” It challenges me to change my approach!
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I agree, it is a worthy challenge and one that has taken more than one of my posts this year beyond its first draft. It has also had me backspacing before the words even hit the page, stopping the flow of that first downdraft, something I know to be so critical in my own writing process.
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As a first time slicer, I appreciate this post. I wasn’t offended exactly by Beth’s post, because I didn’t think it was meant to make anyone feel bad, but to push us forward as writers. At the same time, I felt a little defeated- I’m trying the best I can to do this every day and sometimes a story is hard…KWR is one of my major mentors, so thanks for adding her perspective as well. It makes me feel better to keep trying every day.
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Thank you for sharing your struggles and your thoughts. Her post has made me think about what I am writing.
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Slice of life is not a form, it is a stance.- Yes, I love your free-wheeling thoughts and then you crafted a poem that leaves me pondering. Thanks.
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You have voiced what many of us seem to have struggled with since reading Beth’s post. That’s so brave! This is my first Challenge, and I’m a new slicer. My thoughts are all over the place, so I’m going to just spit them out.
A few things:
1. I choose to assume the best of intentions on all fronts.
2. I think it is really, really hard to bring your a-game 31 days in a row. Some posts will be better than others. That just makes sense to me! We need to be kind to ourselves as long as were doing our best.
3. How each us interprets the criteria of the Challenge seems to be as diverse as the writers themselves, naturally.
4. I think it’s a mistake to measure success in comments. I’ve actually wondered, will my post receive more comments if I post earlier or in the afternoon ? I don’t think that matters, and some posts I was proud of didn’t get much traffic, but I chalk that up to the fact that you choose 3 out of 200 to comment on, kind of randomly. It could be more chance than content.
5. I have noticed that since I’ve been thinking about a story rather than other forms, it has challenged me to be more observant and write differently. Which can’t be bad.
6. I have also thought about audience. In some posts, I’ve written things for this community as my audience, and in others, my audience is myself, what I want to focus on. Either way, I’m writing!
7. Ultimately, I have loved the challenge so far, and will continue because it’s something I will feel proud of myself for completing! It’s less about fitting in than just doing it! At least for me!
8. I appreciated your comments on apologizing, and I will stop apologizing because, whatever I produce that day is the best I have to offer. Not meaning it can’t improve, on the contrary, but it’s where I’m at right now…
Also, you have responded to every comment with the utmost respect and openness which I admire.
Thanks again!
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I agree with each of these points and especially connect with #5. I have definitely approached slicing a little differently this year and appreciate the challenge to get at the small moments and develop my storytelling.
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I appreciate reading your post. I’ve thought a lot about Beth’s post as well. I have felt intimidated by the emphasis on “story slice-of-life” and after reading her post did feel like I should go back to my earlier posts and check to make sure I was “doing it okay”. On the other hand, I have been reading some posts that are more interesting to read than others, and I’ve wished I could give the less interesting posts a little nudge in the direction of more showing, less telling, and I did have secret hopes that Beth’s post might be helpful writing advice for them, so I can see both sides. I love how you’ve articulated what it seems that a number of us feel, and how you’ve encouraged us not to give in to the critical voice in our head but to continue writing.
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Yes, the voice in our own heads can be the worst, right!?!
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Thank you for your post. Like others, I am a new slicer. Beth’s post has caused me to attempt more narrative format writing – which I appreciate as I am most comfortable with first person, informational, journal type writing. I have heard from a few people, including you, that the SOLC is a gracious writing community and there is flexibility in our writing styles. Thanks again for adding your insights on this topic in our writing group!
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