The Power of Vulnerability in Storytelling

Webster's Dictionary defines vulnerability as--haha! Just kidding, I would never start a post this way. At least, I haven't since I was an edgy middle schooler writing fanfiction for my friends to gobble up by the chapter.

Vulnerability was, unfortunately, an idea that was lost on me until about my mid-twenties when Brené Brown broke out on the scene with her research on human emotions. She had a special about it on Netflix that took off, and after I watched it, I was obsessssssssed. I couldn't get enough of her content. I watched her viral TedTalk, started sharing her findings with my circle of friends, and even went so far as to pick up one of her books (back when I was a fool who thought non-fiction was the end all be all).

This concept of being brave enough to be honest about how we perceive the world was enrapturing. How could I not be boggled by it when I was raised in the late 90s-early 2000s when every woman was told to be mysterious to get a man? The media fed us lies about playing hard to get, no doubt in an attempt to get women to sit down and shut up (because, as it turns out, when we share ideas, we're actually kind of powerful???? More on that later).

So, when I sat down to write (more accurately, finally finish writing) my debut novel, Remember Me, Brené's words were deep in my subconscious, infiltrating my mind, begging the question, "What would happen if you just wrote the character as messy and flawed instead of the perfect heroine she was taught to be?"

To say that was only the tipping point of my journey with engaging with vulnerability in my storytelling would be an understatement. If only baby Kristin knew she would go on to finish that series, turning it into a story of self-love, inner child healing, and embracing grief, she might not have second-guessed every step along the way.

I'm still so grateful to the Remember Me books as they made way for even deeper stories like the one in If I'm Being Honest, where I touched on losing someone to suicide, the survivor's guilt that comes with it, and the toll it takes on one's mental health.

And let me tell you, that one was scary as hell to push publish on...

Though I'm six books deep into my career, with every story I put out, I still feel waves of fear intermittently that coo, "What happens if no one likes this? What if no one can relate to this? They will have seen my deepest scars and mocked them." I felt that tenfold with If I'm Being Honest because Eli's story was so close to my heart. Unfortunately, my first time losing a friend (and my first real experience with death in my early adulthood) was from suicide.

Understandably, it was a hard loss for me to process. I went through all the stages of grief that Eli went through--anger, betrayal, and ultimately guilt. That loss stuck with me throughout the years, and when I decided I wanted to explore the topic in that book, it was both selfishly so that I could process and move through it and unselfishly so that I could connect with other people who had gone through it, too.

Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that that book would be the one to gain me a bit of success, get my name out to more readers, and ultimately snowball my career further into what I wanted (selling nearly 1,000 copies of my books in a year!).

But it was in laying my heart at my reader's feet, saying, "Here, have this part of me that still feels broken, this part that I don't know how to fix and it scares me," that I learned a lesson most of us could stand to hear: when you are vulnerable (with the people you can trust) you create space for more connection.

The influx of messages I received from readers after publishing that book, thanking me for putting into words what they had been feeling (mostly alone) for some time, was almost unbelievable. To this day, that book still finds a way to touch people, and I love it every time someone tells me how they connected to it.

Embracing vulnerability within my character's lives has taught me much about our resistance to it in human nature. Brooklyn and Eli's story is one of wanting connection and being unsure if they can trust the other with their scars. Because that's what we do, isn't it? As a way of coping, we hold the things that hurt us most close to us. But in closing people off from what's going on in our inner worlds, we have no way of explaining why we are the way we are, and they have no way of knowing. As a result, we start to project our hurt onto the world, and the world will often retaliate.

And trust me when I say I am by no means perfect at doing this in my real life. I struggle with showing up with truth and honesty when I would rather shut down and shut people out. But Brooklyn and Eli were a way for me to play out what would happen if I had someone who was on my team from start to finish (like Eli is with Brooklyn) and someone who just wants to understand me better so they can feel close to me (like Brooklyn does with Eli). What would that look like?

And thus, their romance was forged.

And to think they were only the beginning...

Somehow, some way, I was even more scared to release The Patron Saint of Holy Sinners. Actually, no one is shocked by that because the themes I touched on in that book are still as relevant today as the day I sat down to write it, and maybe even more controversial now with the direction our country is heading in.

For those who don't know, The Patron Saint of Holy Sinners (I will lovingly just refer to as Holy Sinners from this point on because that is a lot to type lmao) is a single-dad, small-town romance that I began to write the day that the overturning of Roe v Wade was announced. And given the story I chose to share, I was terrified that the book community (predominantly white women) wouldn't take kindly to it.

And despite every fear willing me to stop, one voice in the back of my mind kept saying, "Publish it. Someone needs this story." And boy, was I right.

If you thought I received an outpouring of messages about Brooklyn and Eli, you can't even imagine what happened with Charlie (and Tanner, too, but it's no surprise that my readership connected deeply with Charlie). Through that book, I have had the honor of hearing and holding space for women's stories (from all over the world) who both, unfortunately, could relate to Charlie's character and fortunately found so much hope through her journey with Tanner.

It was the first time in my career I cried because of what my readers were feeling and were able to trust me with.

So that's why I continue to write the stories I do. It's why I go deeper with every new book and set of characters. I try to breathe life into the things most people would rather shy away from. The things we've been taught not to talk about. Because embracing what we think makes us different, I have found more connection than I could ever have hoped. And in a very beautiful way, I have been able to help my readers make sense of the world.

In another post, I could go on a very long tangent about why Romance is the best genre to set the stage for these conversations, but I won't bore you with those ramblings now.

Instead, I'll leave you with this: I believe that as the kind of author that I want to be, it is not only my job to write entertaining stories but also ones that make readers feel seen and understood in the messy parts of life. I want to continue to put out work that shows that even when life can be painful and heartbreaking, there is still happiness and hope to be found. And I will keep writing characters that reflect to you, dear reader, the parts of you that you thought were unloveable and unworthy. And I will give you the happiest ending possible because that's what you deserve. It's what we all deserve.

Xoxo Kristin