Hi Reader,

This weekend, I spent about ten hours writing out descriptions of my work: what I do, whom I do it for, and how each of my services work.

In essence, I was telling myself the story of my business.

Correction: I was telling myself the story of my business again.

It’s a story I’ve been telling for almost two years. Over that time, I’ve added layers and taken layers away. I’ve tested and tweaked, revised and refined.

Each time I add layers, the story becomes richer and deeper. And each time I take layers away, it becomes clearer and sharper. Both steps—the enriching and the clarifying, the deepening and the sharpening—are essential. Both steps make the story better.

This weekend’s retelling was about taking layers away.

I started by telling myself the teeniest, tiniest possible story of my business, summing it all up in just two sentences. That took about an hour, a half dozen drafts, and multiple rounds of feedback and workshopping.

Then, I told myself the story of one of my core services. That took another hour. It’s a story I know like the back of my hand. And yet telling it again helped me hone it just a little more.

And finally, I told myself one more story: that of a service I’m still refining. That took a full seven hours. I know this story, yes, but I’m still editing it, still finding its shape and its value shift and its resolution.

Peeling away those layers? Sharpening and clarifying that? That was deep work.

In some ways, it felt like going all the way back to the beginning to create the entire story again from the ground up. In other ways, it felt like I was simply repeating things I already know and have said to myself a thousand times.

And I cannot express just how helpful that work was.

When I finished, I shared these three business stories with my editor friend Kim. And I loved her response:

"Nothing that we're saying is new. It just feels like renewed awareness."

Why am I telling you this story?

Because this is how to craft a novel, too.

Every time I sit down with a writer, this is what we do. We tell ourselves the story, again and again and again.

We distill it into its most essential parts. Then we add in more detail and all kinds of new, fun, inspiring ideas. Then we go back to the beginning, back to the original core, and hone and refine and sharpen it again.

Nothing that we say is new. It’s just renewed awareness, over and over and over again, of what the story is really about, how it really works.

Every layer we add makes it richer and deeper. Every layer we peel away makes it sharper and clearer.

And each time we tell it again, we get one step closer to the story the writer envisions, the one they’ll be so unbelievably proud to share with agents and editors and especially readers.

So here’s my invitation for you today:

Tell yourself your story again.

What’s the smallest version of your story you can tell? What does your story look like in six sentences? In two sentences? In one?

It might feel like you’re just repeating to yourself things you already know.

Honestly, though? That’s the heart of storytelling.​

Happy editing,

Alice

P.S. I’m so excited to share the stories of my services with you. They’re not quite ready yet, but when they are, you’ll be the first to know.

I can share the two-sentence story of who I am and what I do, though! Check it out:

Alice Sudlow is a developmental editor and book coach for fiction writers who are already good and who want to become amazing. She’s an expert at helping them to craft the most powerful version of their stories by making every scene unputdownable.

It’s a story I’ve known for a long, long time. But I had to tell it again to uncover it.

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