Kelly Lake · Narrative Partner
Finding the language for what you are trying to express.
A writing and narrative practice for individuals, founders and purpose-led organisations. I help you uncover the story, voice and meaning beneath an idea, experience or body of work, and shape it into clear language that still sounds like you.
Sometimes you know exactly what you want to say but can’t find the words.
Sometimes you’ve written thousands of them and still can’t find what you’re really trying to say.
Sometimes you have a vision so alive inside you that ordinary language seems to flatten it.
That’s where I come in.
Not to make you sound like me.
To help you sound more unmistakably you.
Read my storyHow I work
Listening first. Writing second.
Deep listening
Making space to hear what you're saying, and what sits just beneath it.
Reflective questioning
Gentle questions that bring the themes, motives and meaning of your story into view.
Writing
Shaping what surfaces into clear, authentic language, while keeping your own voice.
Where people often get stuck
You know what you mean. But is that what someone else hears?
The gap I work with is often between what you know, feel or mean, and what another person can currently see or understand in the words. It might look like:
If one of these feels familiar, that’s a good place to begin. Start a conversation
Ways to work together
Stories, voices and the work behind them.
Kind words
“My words still felt like my words.”
Kelly helped me experience my own story from my readers’ perspective. She understood not only what I wanted to communicate, but how I wanted my readers to feel. She helped me uncover the emotion and depth that were already there without ever taking away my voice.
“Kelly helped me see me.”
I felt in safe hands with Kelly while discussing and sharing my story. She has a way of explaining how to improve my work without degrading or belittling it or me. That itself was a necessary shift from where I had come from. Kelly helped me shape my work and draw readers into the story.
“It made both me and my daughter quite emotional.”
I shared a poem I’d written for my daughter Chloe with Kelly, and she offered to reshape it for me. It was to celebrate my love for her on her wedding day. Kelly made it flow so beautifully, carrying the ocean theme throughout with words like storms, lighthouse, ripples and waves. It was so clever and personal. Kelly, you are very talented.
Also in the practice
Alongside client work, I'm developing my own creative writing, and exploring how narrative and reflective writing could be used in facilitated group and community settings.
Read the journal