The Expansionist Podcast

Your Story Matters: Finding Your Voice Through Impact Writing

• Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake

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What makes writing truly impactful? How do we craft stories that transform both writer and reader? Bestselling author Lori Beth Jones joins Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake to unpack these questions through reflections on their recent Impact Writing Retreat.

Jones, whose books continue earning royalties 27 years after publication, shares her proven approach to writing that makes a genuine difference. "If you change one person, that's impact writing," she explains, "and the person you really want to change is yourself." Drawing from her background in advertising and spiritual writing, Jones reveals her "short form" method—using a hook, story, and question to capture attention and inspire action in an increasingly distracted world.

The conversation takes a powerful turn when discussing how to write about profound grief. Laurie Beth Jones' approach draws inspiration from Jesus as master storyteller, using metaphor to make complex concepts accessible. "How do we unbind this pain and set it free?" she asks, creating what she calls a "holy space" for transformation through writing.

For listeners who've struggled to bring their own stories to life—especially difficult ones—this episode offers both inspiration and practical tools. As Heather notes, the approach feels like receiving "a tool belt and beginning instruction" that makes the writing process less overwhelming. Whether you're working on a book that's been in your heart for decades or simply wanting to communicate more effectively, these insights on impact writing will help you tell a better, more hopeful story.

Want to experience impact writing for yourself? Join Lori Beth Jones at her next workshop in June—visit lauriebethjones.com for details and transform your storytelling.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love. Hello, shelley Shepard.

Speaker 2:

Hey, heather, welcome, welcome. It's good to see you.

Speaker 1:

Nice to be seen. Of course, we just saw each other this past weekend because we were at the Impact Writing Retreat or event with Lori Beth Jones, and so we got to see each other in person and be with each other in person, but we had such a marvelous time. We wanted to talk about it and explore just all of the richness that we took away as writers and as hopefully, better writers, so that we can tell a better story.

Speaker 2:

So welcome, Loybeth. We're delighted to have you in this moment to rehearse, rethink, reflect this weekend with you about impact writing. So I'm excited. I'm excited to have you here as kind of a follow on to the weekend. So thank you for doing that with us.

Speaker 3:

Well, I'm excited to get to see you both again.

Speaker 1:

I would like to ask Lori Beth, who is with us now, like why did you want to offer what was big in your heart, to offer this impact writing workshop?

Speaker 3:

I think that, as I contemplate a lot of the writing that is out there, what draws me is the kind of writing that makes a difference. That isn't writing that just stirs people up and makes people angry or just escape just stirs people up and makes people angry or just helps them escape. Or people who want to drown in sorrows. Or people who just want to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and never come to any kind of solution. And as I thought about my style of writing and the books that I have written and, in discussion with Shelley about this, the fact that you know I'm still getting royalties 25, 27 years later from books that were written that long ago, I believe it's because they were impact. They had impact. You know, they excited people, they grounded people with principles, they transformed them with new thoughts and then release them with action steps they could take to go forward.

Speaker 3:

So really, it was Shelley's encouragement for me to share what I've learned. Is there a process that I could share that would help other people write from their hearts in a way that made an impact in the world and even within their own family? We talk about that in the workshop. If you change one person. That's an impact, that's impact writing, and the person that you really want to change and be transformed is yourself. We learned that also. It's really about yourself.

Speaker 1:

That was beautiful and I was actually in attendance at the impact workshop and I can tell you that it absolutely exceeded all expectations that I had for that.

Speaker 1:

But I really appreciate what you're saying is that you don't necessarily have to want to write an entire book or be a writer as a career professional, but for all of us, our responsibility is to grow and to tell a better story. Our responsibility is to grow and to tell a better story. The stories that we told are, I think, why we're in the space that we're in now, all around the world. And so to allow our consciousness to expand, to allow love to change the way that we think about something, and then learn how to tell our story with a slant or with a more hopeful, and not in a way that is diminishing or that is not being present in our reality, but to say what does it look like to really tell this story, but tell it with impact, tell it where it makes a difference, and I thought that was just such a was such a hopeful takeaway for us and again, you did such a brilliant job in the workshops and in the writing prompts.

Speaker 1:

and then such a beautiful group of people who were also there and traveled quite a while to actually be there and say I want to make an impact with the stories that I'm telling.

Speaker 2:

Beautiful. You know one of the things that there were several pieces that you taught us regarding what impact writing is, and one of the things I think, in following your work over these 14 books that you have authored many of those bestseller books there is something I wonder if you could expand for us a little bit. You talked about this short form, this way that you write, that you're calling impact writing. That has a hook, it has a story and it has a question. These are the ways that you have demonstrated to the world, and to us particularly, that writing can have impact. Can you expand on that? Just that one piece? We won't ask you to go into all the pieces and wisdom that you shared, but that particular strand, I think, sticks out to me in many ways on how your writing has become impact writing.

Speaker 3:

Well, we each draw from our past as we tell our stories, either our own past or the collective past. And I think for me the fact that I declared at the age of 10 that I was going to be a writer, that I started writing poems I was also a reporter, then I became a yearbook editor and then I had my own advertising agency for 15 years, before I actually wrote. Jesus, ceo, and as I share there the challenge in advertising, if your words don't impact people and move them to action, your client's not going to keep paying you. Right, the short form was a form was a seven word billboard. How do you state the problem and get people to see your client or your situation, as the answer got? Milk is a very famous one. It, you know it states the problem, states the solution, and then it shows at the bottom you know who it.

Speaker 1:

We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom.

Speaker 3:

And so for me, when I declared one day that I thought that Jesus needed a new PR agent because the stories that were being told about him were not his essence, and I heard this voice saying you're hired. And it was like whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, and I did not realize at the time I would have to let all my other clients go and dig deep into pay myself, borrow money in order to. This client at the time was not paying me but evidently, and later paid off in a huge way. But it was a relationship. So the short form is how I was trained. I think that there's a lot of words in the world and, with people's attention span getting shorter and shorter, how do you make an impact so that people aren't nodding off when you're talking or going, blah, blah, blah. You know, and Twitter was what? 15 words, and you know it's just getting shorter and shorter. So how do we capture the attention of people in a way that's going to get their attention first and then make a difference in?

Speaker 2:

their lives. Thank you for that. A lot of insight that you shared over the weekend was just impactful in how you've been able to continue writing and then now that you want to share some of those secret sauce and recipe with us was just a beautiful, beautiful weekend. Thank you for that.

Speaker 3:

Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Heather go.

Speaker 1:

Just phenomenal and I felt like so practical too. That was something that was. I was hopeful that we could get some practical tools. I felt like we went to a workshop and we actually got our own tool belt on the way out. We'll still have to do the work, the writing will still have to come from us, but we got a tool belt and some beginning instruction on how to use the tools there, like a template on how we can fit our own stories or the stories we want to tell and tell them with impact. But the work doesn't seem overwhelming now that we have these templates or we have this tool belt.

Speaker 3:

Thank you because I prayed intensely before I did this workshop. You know there's so many wonderful workshops out there and you know, on Google you could Google writing prompts and you could join writers groups and there's all sorts of ways on how to write a book. But what I wanted to do was how to bring a book from the ether into reality, right, and so, as I said in the workshop, I feel like I'm a midwife, that everybody there has a book in them, or they wouldn't be there and almost everybody in there had been thinking about a book for 20 years. So if you just show up at a workshop and say, read me what you've written, and so it's like that's not where I wanted this workshop to be. It was like how are we going to take this huge topic and give you an entry point and make it not so fearsome, but say, okay, I can get in this, I can dig into it. And one of the principles and we can share this is that many you know many of the people there were dealing with grief, profound grief. Well, where do you start with that?

Speaker 3:

And as my role model for storytelling was Jesus as a storyteller, and he would when he was trying to explain a story about a huge concept. He would look laterally to something that was real. So what is the kingdom of heaven? Like he didn't go into theology and da-da-da-da. Well, it's like a farmer who scatters his seeds and some of them come up and some of them don't. This is like this. He was just a master of metaphor. In fact, his own identity was a metaphor. I am the gate, I am the shepherd, I am the living water, everything. He took this concept of the divine and made it practical and real. How to take this thing? Not only is it a huge topic, but it is so painful to write about and so profound.

Speaker 3:

And two of the people there who had been friends had never shared the full story of the loss that they'd experienced. Each of them had lost a child to early death, and it was a holy space and we prayed about the space and it was what? How can we bring them forth? You know my story of the gospels. Lazar said unbind him and set him free. You know he's standing there watching this person stumble out half dead from death and the direction is to unbind him. So part of what this workshop was how do we unbind this pain and set it free the death clothes around this person who was no longer dead. How do we set them free? So there's really and I think we had fun with it too there was skits and a lot of two-minute prompts, seven-minute prompts saying you know, it's not hard, you can do this, you can do this. So that was part of it. I liked the skits part the best.

Speaker 1:

It was wonderful. It was wonderful.

Speaker 2:

Just going to add that we'll we'll provide some links and stuff like that to hopefully that that will be live on the website soon. The next um laura, you were sharing this morning that the next um, the next impact writing, is looking like it's going to be june for you early june.

Speaker 3:

We talked about that, yeah fantastic so okay, so we'll put those things.

Speaker 1:

We'll put those things together, yeah it was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.