How to Include Others' Stories in Your Book
Many of my authors are writing personal development books - books meant to help readers make progress toward a goal or adopt a new mindset about something in their life. Personal development books center the reader as the hero of the story, and the primary agent of change throughout the book.
And one of the best ways to encourage your reader to make a change is to share real-life examples from people who have conquered the same challenges (or not!). Both cautionary tales and positive exemplars are powerful tools for teaching readers something. Often, authors like to include moments from their own lives that illustrate (or not) the point they’re trying to make - but just as often, authors like to include real life stories from others as well. And it’s good practice to do, because it helps readers to see a variety of ways others have handled this situation, whatever it is.
So let’s say you decide you want to include some stories from others in your book. How do you actually do that? Immediately, you’re confronted with some logistical questions: How do you tell their story accurately? How do you weave it in so that it’s a cohesive part of the narrative? Are you even allowed to do this in the first place?
Let’s tackle that last question first.
Are you allowed to include others’ stories in your book?
Absolutely yes!! Like I said, weaving in others’ stories is an incredible way to illustrate a point you’re trying to make. Often the people around us have experiences that we ourselves don’t have, and which would benefit our readers to hear about. So by all means, include them!
BUT. (You knew the “but” was coming, didn’t you?) If this person’s story isn’t already well documented elsewhere (like all over the news), then you should always ask their permission. And I don’t just mean a verbal permission. Get their permission in writing, and make sure it’s clear when you ask their permission that you intend to publish their story in a book you are writing. Be as specific as possible in your ask about how you intend to use it.
Then, before it actually publishes, send them their story again so that they can give an official final approval before it goes to press. Again, get this approval in writing!
If you happen to be writing about someone whose story/experience is extremely well documented already - meaning it’s been published before and the story can be found in multiple sources - then you don’t need permission.
[Side note: Keep in mind we’re talking about personal development books, NOT memoirs. If you’re writing a memoir and want to write about others, you can do that… with some cautions. This great blog post from Trish Lockard explains defamation and privacy regarding memoirs.]
So now back to the question: How do you actually integrate these stories into your own work?
There are generally three ways you can consider weaving in others’ stories into your book.
1. Write it in your own words.
Expert authors like Ryan Holiday and Malcolm Gladwell can often be found narrating others’ stories for them. Take a look at this very first paragraph from Chapter 1 of Malcolm Gladwell’s 2019 book Talking to Strangers:
Florentino Aspillaga’s final posting was in Bratislava, in what was then Czechoslovakia. It was 1987, two years before the Iron Curtain fell. Aspillaga ran a consulting company called Cuba Tecnica, which was supposed to have something to do with trade. It did not. It was a front. Aspillaga was a high ranking officer...
Gladwell goes on to tell the story in his own words, recounting what happened with Aspillaga. The benefit of taking this approach is that you have the creative freedom to make sure the reader remembers what you want them to remember. You get to frame it and prime the reader to come to the same conclusion you do about the story. You get to decide what details are important, and which aren’t. You get to bring all of your creative talent to the story so that it’s engaging and enticing for the reader. On the whole, this approach creates the most cohesive way to tell others’ stories in your book.
And in Gladwell’s case here, he doesn’t need permission to explain the facts of what happened with Aspillaga because it’s already been incredibly well documented elsewhere. Just do a Google search and you’ll find the story.
The downside of taking this approach is that it takes a lot of work. You have to become an expert interviewer and/or researcher. It can also be intimidating to tell others’ stories for them (which is why, if the story hasn’t already been told elsewhere and they’re not high-profile individuals, you should always run it by them first!). For an established author like Gladwell, this isn’t a big hurdle. He knows how to do this and does it incredibly well. But for authors earlier in their careers, you might consider one of the next two approaches.
2. Integrate quotes from the story-teller.
Sometimes, regardless of your skill as an author, it can be powerful to include pieces of the story in the story-teller’s own words - but you still want the creative license to provide context for the reader and prime them for the quote. You can set the stage with your narrative and then introduce a short quote.
Here’s a great example from A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger:
[Berger is setting the stage, explaining the evolution of a questioning technique developed by two researchers.]
Rothstein and Santana thought the most efficient way to help parents ask better questions at school meetings would be to supply them with those questions. So the two of them began compiling questions for various situations (questioning school budgetary decisions, questioning why a child was being suspended, etc.) and gave them to the parents to take to the meetings.
“We went to one of the meetings where the parents had these question lists,” Santana recalls, “and they’d go up to the microphone and read the questions from the list. But as soon as they were asked a question by someone from the school, they’d turn back to us, like, What do I do now?” Santana says she and her partner quickly understood their mistake: “We realized that the parents needed to think on their own--and come up with their own questions.”
This approach gives you the flexibility to choose what the most powerful and important pieces of your story-teller’s quotes are, and frame them in a way that preserves the tone and voice of the narrative.
3. Have the story-teller write the whole thing!
Sometimes, you may want to preserve the story-teller’s anecdote in its entirety, in their own words. Ask them to write the vignette themselves, and include it as a text box in the book. The benefit of doing this is that it is VERY easy to integrate throughout your book. Besides chasing down stories and getting people to actually send you their words, this approach requires the least amount of finagling with your own narrative. The downside of this approach is that it feels the least cohesive for the reader. You have to make sure that person is a solid writer and can convey their own story powerfully; otherwise, the contrast in voice can be jarring for the reader.
Remember from our series on self-efficacy that learning from others is one of the ways we build up our skills and confidence. It works for writers, and it works for your readers, too. These three approaches allow you to bring in other perspectives to your book, adding nuance, interest, and further validity to the points you’re trying to make. This is definitely a best practice for teaching and guiding your reader!
Photo by Melanie Deziel on Unsplash
