Transcript for Writing Your Resilience Podcast Episode 92

When Your Best Writing Feels Terrible: Understanding Shame, Vulnerability, and the Creative Process

Lisa Ellison [0:01]

Well, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of the Writing Your Resilience podcast. If you don’t know me, my name is Lisa Cooper Ellison. I’m a trauma-informed coach, your resident story alchemist, and an Akashic Record reader. I’m excited to be here with you today because we’re going to talk about something I’ve seen repeatedly in my coaching practice—and on social media. It’s the tale of two stories around one issue, and that issue is vulnerability.

So let me set this up for a moment. I saw something online recently that I’ve also seen in my clients: a writer works really hard to craft their story, sends it off to an editor, and gets this feedback—This feels like it could be a compelling story. However, it’s not raw enough. I don’t feel like you’ve gotten underneath the surface of this story. I need more details or a rawer place in the work.

Have you ever heard that? Has anyone ever said that to you, and it stopped you in your tracks? Or maybe you’re the kind of writer who has heard this feedback—you’ve poured yourself into your project, shared every heart-wrenching detail, and then sent it off to an editor who says how brave and courageous you are, how raw the material feels—yet they don’t know what story you’re trying to tell. You’ve rendered vivid, high-intensity, disparate scenes, but it’s hard to say how they fit together.

All right, listeners—do you fall into that camp? Either way, I want you to put a comment on YouTube or text the show and let me know, because these are the two poles of vulnerability that get writers in trouble.

So, here’s what we’re going to talk about today: what vulnerability really is, why writers get it wrong—especially when they’re creating work for publication—and by the end of this video, you’ll understand why you sometimes think your writing sucks even when it’s the best thing you’ve ever written.

Let’s start with a definition.

This definition comes from Brené Brown. I love Brené Brown—I’ll just say that out loud. I had the privilege of working with her when I took her Daring Greatly course back in 2015. I met with her online in a virtual community for almost six months, and one of the issues we talked about was: how can we be vulnerable, and what does it mean to be vulnerable?

For writers, it’s crucial to understand appropriate vulnerability when it comes to your work. Brené shares that vulnerability has three ingredients: uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

When people hear this, they often think it means, oh, let it all hang out—that’s what readers want. But that’s not necessarily true. We want to understand what uncertainty means in storytelling, what level of risk feels appropriate to your audience, and how to handle emotional exposure so you’re not overexposing yourself or overwhelming your readers.

So, I’ll talk briefly about these three elements, and then we’ll explore how they show up in the two problems I see most often.

Uncertainty:
As readers, we want to wonder what’s going to happen until the very last few pages. The thing that needs to be most uncertain is the narrator’s big solution. We want to know that a transformation or change is coming—especially in memoir—but we shouldn’t know what it is too soon. If we do, and you keep reminding us that “all’s well that ends well,” why should we keep reading?

Risk:
A great book says the quiet part out loud. It’s the thing we’re all thinking but afraid to say, expressed in an effective, honest way. The writer gets to something about their story that feels uncomfortable—not so uncomfortable that it’s retraumatizing, but just edgy enough to reach a deeper truth than before.

Emotional exposure:
Readers need to know how you felt, not just what happened. Most importantly, they want to know how you coped.

Now, let’s look at the two stories—or poles—writers often fall into.

The “Not Raw Enough” Side

When your work doesn’t feel vulnerable enough, here’s what’s happening:

Uncertainty.
Writers often reflect too much, especially in early chapters, reminding readers over and over that they’ve already arrived at wisdom. “There was this broken person, but now I, the wise narrator, know better.” When that happens, the dramatic tension drops, and readers lose interest.

So, pull back. Don’t give so many hints. Don’t make yourself seem like you’ve already arrived. Show us that vulnerability and some of the brokenness—that’s what readers crave.

Risk.
You might be telling too much and showing too little. “Show don’t tell” means moving away from summary (“This happened, then that happened”) toward cinematic scenes that unfold in specific time and place, full of sensory detail. When you write in scene, you relinquish control. That allows you to get underneath the surface and reach the quiet parts—the truths we all think but rarely say.

Emotional exposure.
If you’re relying on a rehearsed story—the version you tell at dinner parties or to close friends—there’s probably not much emotional exposure in it. Even if you write “I feel” or “I think,” something’s missing. The more you write in scene, the easier it becomes to weave authentic emotion into your story.

The “Too Raw” Side

Now, let’s look at the other extreme—the story that’s so raw it leaves nothing to the imagination. You’ve given every detail, poured out your heart, and bared your soul. Yet readers—or editors—say, “This feels like a collection of intense, vivid scenes that don’t quite fit together.”

So, what’s going wrong?

Uncertainty.
When you share graphic details without showing how your character is coping, the reader doesn’t know what to do with it.

Lisa Ellison [9:51]
 For example, maybe you have an abusive parent. In a scene, your parent is screaming, yelling, maybe even hitting you. You describe every blow and every horrid word. We see all the terror and awfulness—but we don’t see how your character copes. Without that, readers can’t process the scene, and they can’t follow your transformation.

Lisa Ellison [11:22]
 And if it’s so specific—if you’re sharing so many details—it’s possible you might actually traumatize your reader. When we’re overwhelmed with detail, we don’t know what to do with it. We just take it in, and the nervous system begins activating as if it’s happening to us.

Here’s one way to think about it: have you ever watched a movie where so much was happening—scene after scene after scene—that you felt dysregulated just from watching? That’s what this can feel like for readers. Action movies, horror films, and certain psychological thrillers can all have that effect—so much intensity, moment after moment, that we never get a chance to breathe.

If your story contains too many graphic details without meaning-making, your reader will feel the same way—overwhelmed.

That brings us to the risk piece. If you’re oversharing, you’re likely to feel it yourself, and your reader will feel it too. And it’s possible you’re sharing the wrong things. Readers don’t need every single hit, smack, or horrid word. They need the one or two moments that show how those experiences shaped you—how you coped, what belief you formed, or what action you took in response. That’s the detail that matters.

We want to ensure that every detail serves a purpose—and that purpose is sense-making. Readers want to know that you understand what your story is about, that it serves a deeper meaning, and that you’re guiding them through your transformation.

So, what do readers really want from you and your story?

First, they want to feel like your problems are their problems. Not that your life is so unique, outlandish, or extraordinary that no one could relate—but that within your story, there’s a theme or truth they recognize in themselves. I often say that your story is a mirror for your reader’s soul.

When readers pick up your book—whether it’s a memoir, novel, or narrative nonfiction—they want to see themselves reflected in it. That’s why it’s essential, especially in memoir and narrative nonfiction, to understand your audience’s struggles. Ask yourself:

·       What are my readers’ problems?

·       How have I experienced those problems?

·       How am I showing that in my book?

·       How did I cope, and what did I learn?

That leads us to the second thing readers want: they want to see the decisions you made. They don’t want a story where the narrator is simply a victim, even if that’s how it felt at the time. If you’re alive now to tell your story, you found ways to cope—even if those coping mechanisms weren’t ideal in the long term. Maybe you shut your feelings down, went along to get along, or fawned to stay safe.

If you want to learn more about fawning, check out my episode with Ingrid Clayton—it’s all about the fawning trauma response. But here’s the point: we all developed strategies to survive. Now, we’re deconstructing those strategies and seeing them in a new light.

So, in your writing, make sure you show how you coped, what choices you made, and how those choices shaped you. If your coping was complex, let us see how you got there.

Here’s an example: I’ve read memoirs where someone has a strong meditation practice and suddenly appears as the inner witness—the detached observer watching everything happen without being immersed in it. That’s an advanced skill, and if you’ve meditated long enough, you’ll experience it. But for a novice reader, that can feel inaccessible. So, show us how you got there. What struggles did you face on the path to that awareness?

Another example: many of us in Gen X grew up hearing, “Rub some dirt on it,” “Pick yourself up by your bootstraps,” or “Quit crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” So, what did you do? Did you keep crying? Did you stop? What happened inside you when you shut your emotions down?

These early responses might not have been healthy, but they were adaptive—and they reveal how you survived. When you show readers how you coped, they get to live vicariously through your transformation.

Especially in memoir or fiction, readers don’t want a five-point plan for how to heal. They want to watch you cope, change, and evolve so they can extract insights for their own lives. That’s why stories are so powerful.

Okay, so we’ve talked about uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure—and about what readers want. Now, I want to give you something special to think about, a mantra-style question to ask yourself again and again:

Am I confessing to my reader, or am I confiding in them?

I’ll say it again because it’s so important: Am I confessing to my reader, or am I confiding in them?

These two words—confessing and confiding—sound similar, but they have very different energy. They create very different experiences inside your reader.

When you’re confessing, you’re often sharing in a raw, graphic way, and what you’re unconsciously asking your reader to do is bear witness—to see how awful it was—and then to reassure you that it’s okay, that you’re okay, that you’re forgiven.

But here’s the hard truth about being a writer: readers won’t give you that. You have to give it to yourself.

That means doing the inner work on your manuscript until you reach insight—the aha moments that help you understand why each scene matters and how it contributes to a breadcrumb trail of transformation leading to your story’s big revelation.

There are a lot of writing techniques and tools that can help you get there. If you’re curious, leave a comment on YouTube and let me know—it might become a future episode.

For now, just remember this: it takes time. It takes multiple drafts.

Here’s a simple exercise to help you go deeper:
 Write the sentence “This story is about…” and finish it.
Then write, “But what it’s really about is…” and finish that too.

When you can name what your story is really about, that’s when you move from confessing to confiding. That’s when you create resonance. That’s when you know where to show your coping, your decisions, and the steps that lead to your big aha—the transformation that anchors your book.

Lisa Ellison [19:08]
 All right. So now that you know that, here’s what I want you to do: whenever possible, write in scene.

Remember, scenes take place in a specific time and place, and they’re written cinematically. When you do that, you automatically get beneath the surface of your story. Even if you’re not entirely sure what’s going on, a trusted writing community—one I highly encourage you to have—can help. Your readers will ask deeper and deeper questions, reflecting insights you might not yet see. That reflection will lead you to the quiet part you’ll eventually say out loud—the deepest level of vulnerability your readers crave.

We’ve covered a lot about vulnerability, but there’s one last, essential thing I want to share. It’s this: there will be times when you’ve written the best thing of your life, and you’ll think it sucks.

And on those days, your writing group can save your work.

Let me tell you a story. In a class I was teaching, we had a writing and feedback session. One student read a piece that completely wrecked us—in the best way possible. Every single person in the room was blown away. When we told her how powerful it was, she said, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you’re saying this. I almost didn’t read it to you. In fact, I almost crossed it out.”

She almost deleted it because she thought it didn’t matter—that it wasn’t important to her story. But it turned out to be critical and pivotal.

So, why does that happen?

Sometimes, when you’ve been vulnerable in the very best way, you’ll feel that rush of emotional exposure and risk—and it will make you deeply uncomfortable. That discomfort can trigger a chain reaction of emotions:

I feel uncomfortable → I must have done something wrong → therefore, I am wrong → and then you land in shame.

And when your emotion chain leads to shame, shame will make you think your writing sucks.

That’s when your inner critic steps in. It’ll tell you to delete your work, that it doesn’t matter, that it’s not good enough. And while your inner critic thinks it’s trying to protect you, it’s really sabotaging your art.

That’s one reason I created my Ditch Your Inner Critic Now masterclass—because I wanted to offer quick, easy tools to shift your perspective before you throw something valuable away. If that speaks to you, the link is in the show notes. It can help you save your work.

And, of course, your writing group can save it too. That’s why community is so important. When we feel overexposed and slip into shame, we need others to reflect back what’s working—to remind us of our brilliance when we can’t see it ourselves.

I’m so grateful that the writers in my class did that for their peer. I wish I could share her piece with you, but it’s not mine to tell—and honestly, I can’t wait for the day when it’s published so you can read it. I felt that story in my bones, and I knew how vital it was for her to hear, “This is your best work.”

Because we all fall into that trap. I’ve fallen into it, too. It’s why I make sure I have my own writing group—because I know how easy it is to sabotage yourself when you’re truly trying to be an artist.

So now that we’ve explored vulnerability from every angle, let’s recap what we’ve covered in this episode.

First: to write well, you must be vulnerable. But it has to be the right kind of vulnerability—somewhere between “not raw enough” and “too raw.” The sweet spot is where both you and your reader experience emotional exposure, but in a way, that’s grounded in sense-making and transformation. You show your reader how you coped, why you made the decisions you did, and how those choices led to real change.

If you’re feeling overly exposed—like you can’t bear the material, or if your body feels dysregulated—pause. Take a break. You may have struck a nerve of trauma, and that means you need care, not pressure.

On the other hand, if you’re feeling shame and tempted to throw your work away—but it doesn’t feel dangerous or retraumatizing—share it with your writing group. Let them reflect on it before you decide to cut it. You might discover that what you thought “sucked” is actually your most powerful, authentic writing.

Don’t let shame silence your best work.

And if the material feels like too much even for your writing group, seek support—from a therapist, or a trauma-informed coach—so you can regulate your nervous system and safely return to your writing practice.

That’s it for today’s episode on vulnerability. We’ve gone deep, and I’m so grateful you’ve stayed with me through it.

If you’re just beginning to practice vulnerability in your journal, these same principles apply. Use what we talked about today to write your truth for yourself. And if you’re preparing work for publication, you can use these same tools to shape your story for readers.

Either way, this process will help you become your most authentic self. You’ll open to the story inside you—the one that will set you free.

I can’t wait to see where that takes you.

Keep working on your stories. They all matter. They all have the power to change the world.

Peace, love, and blessings to all of you, my friends. Until next week, keep on writing—because I am cheering you on.