APX-VI-0047
“I traded the victim's seat for the author's chair and everything shifted.”
For years the story had a villain and a victim, and the victim role was comfortable because it explained everything and demanded nothing. Then you moved seats. The facts of what happened didn't change — but the one telling the story did. That move is the whole game. Stay in the author's chair. The plot bends to whoever holds the pen.
Your Practice
- Write the old victim version of your story in one paragraph. See it clearly.
- Rewrite the same facts with you as the author who acts, not the one acted upon.
- Name one chapter you're writing next, and the first line of it.
- Each time the victim narration returns, retake the pen. It's a daily choice.
The Architects
“From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.”
— Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Chapter VI, 1845