“You have to go through something and come out on the other side of something to know the full lessons and to know how to give proper hope and encouragement.” — Hannah Brencher

Many writers make a career out of sharing their personal stories with readers. These stories can run the gamut from humorous to sentimental to encouraging, but what often connects most deeply with readers is a difficult story shared from a place of vulnerability. 

How do you share your difficult stories without divulging too much while also giving readers a sense of hope? The following tips will help you share your hard story.

Write with caution and wisdom.  

Some stories are best shared within a safe, private relationship. A wide, unknown group of readers may not be the best audience for your hard story, particularly if you are still living that story or if it requires you to share intimate details about another person. Accept that there are some experiences you may never...

Nonfiction writers are often encouraged to write from a place of expertise or knowledge to establish their niche and build trust with their readers. This often applies to writers who work in a particular field, such as therapists or educators, or those who write about a particular topic that requires training or education to explore fully. 

However, many of us write from our own experiences in the form of memoirs, personal essays, or self-help books. Do we need to be experts on a particular topic too? Author and therapist Aundi Kolber believes we already have all the expertise we need to write our personal stories. Aundi says, “It’s important for writers to know that ultimately you are the expert on your experience.”

What does it mean to be an expert on your experience? Let’s dive in!

You are an expert on what to share.

No one else is an expert on your experience. Your story is yours alone, and you get to decide how much or how little you share...

As writers working in the internet age, we have the unique opportunity to publish our work on any number of platforms. From social media to blogs to webinars, e-books, and self-publishing sites, we have the power of choice at our fingertips. These publishing opportunities offer great flexibility, but they also come with the challenge of discerning the best platform for our words.

Hope*writers sat down with prolific author and speaker Beth Moore, and she shared the steps she takes to determine how and when to publish her work. 

Hint: It never begins with a book!

Start Small on Social Media

Choose the social media platform you like best and test your ideas there first. If you feel satisfied after sharing an idea on social media and it no longer occupies your thoughts, there’s no need to pursue it any further.

After posting on social media, you may find that the conversation it creates with readers may spark even further thought. If you continue to feel yourself...

A published book is often seen by writers as the pinnacle of the craft. For many of us, our dream of becoming a writer began with reading good books. Perhaps you’ve imagined your name on a cover or looked for where your book would sit on a library shelf. 

Seasoned editor and publisher Roy M. Carlisle tells hope*writers that publishing a book is the final step in the process of developing and sharing an idea. 

He says, “People think of the book as if it’s the first thing [to be published], and it’s the last thing . . . You must remember that the book is a result of the process.”

What is this process? Roy calls it “the information funnel.”

Where to Begin

Book ideas are rarely fleshed out for the first time in the book itself. Writers begin to ask what resonates with readers and play with ideas in more accessible and immediate areas of publication. These include the internet, radio, TV, and daily newspapers, offering the most...