Writing your story

If you have an experience you would like to share, why not write a personal story about it. Get in touch about your idea through this contact form. We'll get back to you and give you all the information you need to get started.

Remember, Step Finder is all about overcoming obstacles to support. By sharing the barriers you’ve come up against and how you tackled them, you can help reassure and inspire others who might be in a similar situation.

Here are a few tips to help you write your story:

Keep your story concise

Ideally, personal stories are approximately 500-800 words. People don’t tend to read stories or blogs that are longer than this, so keep them short and to the point. If you have lots to say, it's usually preferable to post your stories as a series.

Focus on your own personal experiences

It’s often easier and more beneficial to the reader to write a personal story about something you have been through rather than something you are currently going through.

Choose a topic covered by TheSite.org

Does your story fit in with TheSite? Have a look at the broad topics we cover on TheSite and make sure it’s relevant before you start writing.

Broadly these subjects are:

• Sex and relationships
• Health and wellbeing
• Drink and drugs
• Home, law and money
• Work and study
• Travel and free time

Summarise the issues you're talking about

When getting started you might find it useful to make some bullet points covering the barrier(s) you will be talking about first, to ensure you stay on track. Another way is to add categories or tags to your post about the kinds of issues and topics you cover.

Try not to overload your story

You don’t need to tackle lots of barriers in one story. You can do more than one if needed and it is better to go into depth on one or two barriers rather than list lots of them but never really explain them in depth.

Focus on your story

Focus on telling your story, rather than conveying a message. Don't feel like your story should offer specific advice. There are many articles on TheSite.org that give advice and signposting about a range of issues and the personal stories aim to complement these, rather than replace or duplicate them.


Starting a conversation

Personal stories can start a conversation which others can add their comments and own experiences to. If you’d prefer not to get comments, it’s possible to close commenting so don't let this put you off sharing your story.