I had a nice piece in mind for today about what the role of the protagonist is in a story and why it is important. I sat down and wrote that piece a little while ago. I even included a powerful client vignette. Yet, no matter what I wrote, it felt dead. Not only dead but deadening! Funny, I just noticed that the word “deadening” has more life in it than all the words I used to explain what being a protagonist is all about. 

Okay, what I’m about to write is not a piece I ever thought to share with you (or me, for that matter!) I have a confession to make. I don’t trust you, my reader to understand me or the points that I am making. So rather than let the drama of a great story enchant, entrance, and transform you, instead I very deftly kill the experience with explanation upon explanation. 


While that’s not helpful for anyone, it’s especially embarrassing for me, who trains people to experience the moment rather than explain it to death! If you have ever been my client, you know that one of my favorite expressions is, “Experience always trumps explanation!” And yet, in writing my original piece today, I totally negated that dictum. 

Perhaps I should give myself a bit of grace here as I know my Self is not just one me but multiple versions of me with multiple strengths and flaws. As a teacher and as a trainer, I often rely on the explainer part of me to shoulder the responsibility of getting my points across. As I write this, I’m realizing that it’s not that I don’t trust you but that I don’t trust the storyteller in me to do the work it is so adept at delivering. 

This realization just caught me completely by surprise!


I’ve spent decades helping people make sense of their lives. I’ve been a librarian, a psychotherapist, a coach, a trainer. Explaining things has served me well.

It’s one of my strengths. But every strength casts a shadow. Mine is that when something becomes uncertain, I reach for explanation. When something becomes emotional, I reach for explanation. When something becomes alive, I often explain it before it has a chance to breathe.

While my original piece was about “Who is the protagonist of your story?” an equally important member of the cast is the storyteller or narrator. But which parts of me are giving the script to the storyteller? The young part of me felt the need to overexplain myself so that people would understand me. Often what made sense to me immediately, took others ongoing explanation. 

Luckily, I found professions where I could use my explanatory bent for good. I could even perfect it for the benefit of the work I was doing. 

But storytelling requires some things I’m still learning how to trust as a writer:

Drama.

Uncertainty.

The willingness to not resolve things too quickly.

The willingness to let a moment stay unresolved long enough for it to come alive.


So here I am in the middle of my own process. I’m inviting you in because I know that I’m not the only one who is choosing to develop a new identity (at least for me as a writer). 


Here’s what I caught myself doing in real time:

·  “I felt discomfort. The piece was dead.”

·  “I told the truth: I don’t trust writing in my storytelling voice.”

·  “I resisted the urge to fix it immediately.”

·  “I asked for help—and the feedback landed harder than I expected.”

·  “I stopped defending my approach.”

·  “I tried something different and wrote this instead.”

We all have an automatic story that we use to help us navigate our lives. Mine is explanation. However, the real gift of doing this work is to move from automatic story to conscious choice. That for me is where transformation lives.

Perhaps the article I meant to write about protagonists wasn’t dead after all.

It just turned out that I was the protagonist.