On The Importance of Storytelling
By Melissa Payne
Our stories are important and sharing who we are, where we come from, how we grew up is part of getting to know one another. Learning someone’s story helps us to understand, empathize and sometimes, do something to help others. When I wrote letters to raise money for children who had been abused and neglected, my goal was to share the tragedy and triumph, the heartbreak and the strength it takes to overcome incredible obstacles the children faced nearly every day. And then to show how donations fund programs and staff and a mission to stop generational cycles of abuse and trauma.
As much as fundraising is about the money, at its core it’s about sharing stories. Writing those letters had a great impact on me because I felt the significance of sharing someone else’s experiences and I made sure I did so with compassion and care.
Years later, I relied on that insight when I started writing fictional characters. Each character I create has a story and it’s my job to share those stories within the pages of my books in a way that makes readers care and want to keep reading. With every new character I create, I’m reminded that they often reflect very real people and I take the time to learn their stories so that I can write them with the care and respect they deserve.
About A Light in the Forest
Vega Jones escapes an abusive relationship with nothing but her two-month-old baby and the van she grew up in. Her destination is a small Ohio town her late vagabond mother left years ago. It’s one full of nobodies, her mother warned. That makes it the ideal refuge for Vega to lie low, feel safe, and maybe learn more about a past her mother never spoke of.
Vega warms to the town and to new acquaintances like Heff, the young deputy and artist who prefers his yard art to actual policing, and empathetic Eve, a local farmer whose near-death experience gave her more than just her life back. But even in this welcoming community, there’s an undercurrent of something unsettled, talk of a tragedy that unfolded in the woods years ago, and a mystery connected to Vega in ways she couldn’t have anticipated.
As a mother on the run and following a path of mounting risks and illuminating secrets, Vega discovers that even during the darkest of times, there’s light in unexpected places.
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About Melissa Payne
Melissa Payne is the bestselling and award-winning author of The Secrets of Lost Stones, Memories in the Drift, and The Night of Many Endings. For as long as she can remember, Melissa has been telling stories in one form or another—from high school newspaper articles to a graduate thesis to blogging about marriage and motherhood. But she first learned the real importance of storytelling when she worked for a residential and day treatment center for abused and neglected children, where she wrote speeches and letters to raise funds.
The truth in those children’s stories was piercing and painful, written to invoke a call to action in the reader: to give, to help, and to make a difference. Melissa’s love of writing and sharing stories in all forms has endured. She lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and three children, a friendly mutt, a very loud cat, and the occasional bear. For more information, visit melissapayneauthor.com.
Category: On Writing
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