How Can We Do Justice to Deep Stories?

Writers are eager to bear witness to secret truths. But figuring out what to do with a Deep Story when you finally find one isn't so easy.

I was in a bodega on New York’s Lower East Side years ago when a cashier asked me what was inside the leather pouch around my neck.

It was an unexpectedly personal question, and there was no way to answer it except with an intensely personal answer.

Being an introvert/INFJ/generally high-strung human, I was there for it. I told her about the crystals in my pouch, and my recurrent miscarriages, and my search for a cosmic good luck charm to keep the psychic terror at bay as I tried for another pregnancy.

She listened carefully, asking a few pointed questions. She was compassionate, curious, and unflinching.

And just like that, an ordinary moment transformed into an almost unbearably intimate one.

Just like that, we found ourselves together in Deep Story.

The exchange only lasted a minute or two, and then we parted ways and moved on with our days, but I’ll never forget that moment.

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Back then, I didn’t even have a name for what had happened to us — that unexpected and powerful moment of spontaneous connection — but I’ve since taken to calling these moments Deep Stories.

Every writer longs to uncover secret shared truths, and many of us spend a good portion of our creative energies in search of them. Journalists and non-fiction writers, in particular, have a hunger for such interactions, because they supercharge our stories and make them profoundly relatable.

These kinds of truths, however, tend to be tricky to wrangle, and doing them justice on the page can feel intimidating. The work is worth it, though, cause these stories are also the ones most capable of capturing a reader’s imagination in an era of psychic whiplash.

Looking back, I can point clearly to times in my life when I’ve encountered Deep Stories. Usually, I was not looking for them. Deep Stories can be coaxed and encouraged, but usually, they seem to occur spontaneously.

For example.

When I was 16, a man I didn’t know gave me a ride home from a house at which I was babysitting. (Hey, it was the ’90s! Sticking a teenager in the car of a random grown neighbor man and sending her off into the yonder was par for the course.)

As we drove, he asked me about my teenaged life, and I told him my parents had just divorced. And … boom! Out of nowhere, he confessed to me that he and his wife were unhappy and had been talking about divorcing, but felt they ought to stay together for the children, and did I think that was wise?

I told him not to do that, that his kids would be better off if he and his wife were happy instead of just stuck with each other. That he should get a divorce if he wanted one. And it would be OK.

He nodded, we said goodbye, and I never saw him again.

I was so young, but I sensed something profound and intimate had just occurred.

When I was 26 and deeply grieving the end of an ill-fated romantic entanglement, I found myself sitting in a small hotel courtyard in a small town in Egypt, having mint tea with the proprietor. He took a sip from his dainty, British-issue teacup, looked at me intently, and said, “Don’t be afraid to lock up your heart and throw away the key. When love comes to you, you won’t need a key. Your heart will open up by itself.”

And I cried, nodding vigorously as the tears fell. Neither of us said a word more on the subject because everything was already somehow perfectly understood.

Again, I was struck by the unexpected, almost unbearable intimacy of the moment.

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We all have these moments. Some will find their way onto the page, and others are too deeply intimate to share with anyone, ever.

The common thread is vulnerability: One person risking something in the presence of someone else. Saying, “Here, take this truth, and help me figure out what to do with it.”

I’ll never know if that man chose to leave his wife. The guy in the Egyptian courtyard will never know what became of my quest for love. And the woman in the bodega will never know that I was actually already unwittingly pregnant when we had our exchange, and this one would stick.

All we share is those moments of spontaneous co-creation, of Deep Story. And that’s a beautiful thing.

If you work with words, getting comfortable with Deep Story is essential. Because Deep Stories resonate due to their intensely personal nature. To paraphrase Carl Rogers, the more personal a thing is, the more universal it is.

Deep Stories are precious because they are scarce. They like to stay hidden. You can’t pry them out of people or generate them on demand. You can only be observant and careful while you wait for them to appear. Kinda like that one really smelly flower that only blooms every 10 years, they call the shots, and all you can do is prepare yourself to receive the magic. (OK, I had to look the stinky flower up, and it’s called the titan arum! FYI!)

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But how will I know I’m in the presence of a Deep Story?   

Your conversation partner’s body language will change, their tone might change, the air in the room will change. Eye contact grows more sustained. Everything around the two of you gets smaller, and the conversation gets bigger, and a sacred sort of bubble materializes.

And, of course, the content of your conversation will veer off into the deeply confessional. D.H. Lawrence called these mask-drop moments confrontations between souls, when the veil slips away and you stare into the bald-faced truth.

But whenever something is revealed, something is risked. So you must proceed carefully.

How can I do justice to a Deep Story when I find it?

By dropping everything!

When a deep story presents itself, you MUST DROP LITERALLY EVERYTHING. Like, immediately. There is no other way. No matter what it complicates or inconveniences. You must empty your hands and pockets and mind and heart of all distractions and preconceived notions so as to receive it fully.

By shutting up!

A person who is revealing something intensely personal needs, most of all, a steady witness to their act of disclosure. When a deep story begins to reveal itself during an interview or even a regular conversation, keep very still and silent! This is the time to let the teller have the full stage.

I cringe thinking back on times when people have brought to me their close-held secrets and my first reaction was to lob my own complementary secrets back at them. The intention was usually pure — a desire to relate, to validate, to commiserate, to connect. (And, I’ll admit, on occasion, to match tragedies or bring the focus back around to myself.)

But reciprocity isn’t what a person revealing deep and difficult truths wants. They certainly don’t want you to direct the conversation back to yourself! They want you to stay right there with them in their own depths. Just right there, listening and affirming, asking questions as needed but otherwise keeping quite still while they do the difficult work of saying this thing aloud to another human.

This is how we as writers can validate the most vulnerable of disclosures; by becoming an empty vessel into which the hardest true things can be poured and stored. By witnessing those truths rather than moving to match or dissect, by affirming them rather than countering, by having the presence of mind to bookend the deepest truths with only the most profound and companionable of silences.

By asking brief, pointed questions.

You do get to talk a little bit, though! Tease out the elements of the story by asking questions that encourage ever-deeper engagement. This requires trust and finesse more than cold hard time; the cashier in the bodega who drew my story out did it in the time it took to ring up a small basket of groceries. How? She was judicious and intentional in her questions and we got to the heart of things in 30 seconds.

By honoring the gift.

Some deep stories will never be yours to tell; only to witness for a moment or two. (I cut two of my own examples from this essay before publishing it because they felt too personal to share out.) Others can be safely offered to the world, either with or without close attribution, depending on the situation at hand. But whatever you decide to do with the story that has been gifted to you, seek always to pay it and its teller proper reverence. This is not the time to fudge quotes, create composite characters, or wax long on your own personal feelings. If you’ve listened properly, the story will instruct you on how and when and where it wants to be told, if it is to be told at all.

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Your Turn!

Journal on these prompts, or just mull them over in your noggin.

List three moments when you’ve found yourself in the presence of someone else’s Deep Story. How did you know you were in Deep Story, and how did you respond?

Which details from these intimate conversations still stand out in your memory?

List two moments when you’ve shared your own Deep Stories with others. Did the listener make you feel heard and respected, or did they fall short?

How can you incorporate more elements of Deep Story into your current work-in-progress?