Daddy, can you tell me a story?

First off, I’m sorry for such a delay in my post. This is a topic I have been contemplating a lot recently and wanted to nail it down before I shared it with you guys. Also, if you haven’t already check out my YouTube channel where I talk more about writing in a more direct way. It has the added bonus of use being able to discuss until your heart is content in comments about what I’ve said. Without further ado:

What is a story? Recently I would guess most of us would point to a book or movie as an example. We could try to explain it with ethereal sentiments like ‘you’ll know when you read it.’ Others of a more scholarly nature would attribute rules and laws to it nailing it down into definitions. We could explain it by its parts, characters, plot, settings, and conflict. Some may even get poetic and say it’s a collection of words. But in all of those attempts of breaking a story down we miss what it is. Not that I have all the answers, and this is simply an opinion piece based on my own thoughts. I don’t think any of these attempts at explaining what a story is, are wrong. I think they are too narrow of a scope. For me a story is a way for people to connect.

When I think story, I’m immediately struck by the book and movie, The NeverEnding Story. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a tale about a boy who is reading a fantasy story then ends up included within the climax of the tale. The subsequent movies continue the theme of the book being about the main character Bastian, even going as far as Jack Black reading excerpts from the story as Bastian is doing them. It speaks to the joint relationship between story and reader. As we read, we interact with the characters on the page imagining them in our mind and feeling the emotions they feel. This fictional novel adds in the fantastical element of the characters being able to interact with those who read The NeverEnding Story as well. This story comes to mind because it enforces my thoughts on Story.

As with The NeverEnding Story, a story is a medium in which we share thoughts with one another, connect on a level spanning distances physically and temporally. We interact with the characters, but also with the author. When I say Story I’m intentionally using it as a noun. I think this thing we claim to create is an entity in its self. A piece of reality we tap into when we write. A place where our minds go and mingle with our thoughts. See, Story is anything we want it to be as long as we are sharing ideas. It permeates all that we do. A grocery list for example can be a story, or the foundations of one. The number of times where a simple anecdotal piece of information starts off a story told from one person to another is numerous. ‘I was at the grocery story’ turns into a story about a car and a sidenote about how you were with your friends and then something funny happened. These do not follow the traditional story arcs we have become accustomed to, but they are stories none the less. Why? Because we share in the experience.

The written word changed how we interact with out ancestors in that we can now read what they thought as opposed to hearing it passed down from word of mouth. The system changed and one could argue the impact of interpretation is mitigated now, but the actual thing in which we do is the same. The same could be said of intimacy of the transfer of those stories. A communal closeness hearing the elder tell tales compared to the close intimacy of a quiet room left to read letters from your grandfather. To some these are stories at least in the passing down of history from one generation to another, while to others these may seem facts relayed from person to person. There is no story there. Now I could be making light of the arguments against my claim, but I do think that most would not call a letter a story or a blog post a story, and I would.

Why would I? There are no characters, no plot, no epic tale marching an army from the midlands to D’hara to face off with Fantasy Darth Vader. (Check out the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind for reference). Yet, in the sentences written, is there not a character? Would we not say that the author of the diary entry takes on the roll of character? In fact we have hundreds of novels with this exact premise. Dracula by Bram Stoker is written from the POV of diary entries and newspaper articles. The common thread is sharing thoughts and ideas in a way that engages an audience. From the peddler on the corner hawking fake Rolexes so that he can pay for his studio apartment on the bad side of town while his landlord refuses to fix the ac to the little bunny hopping from flower to flower nibbling up the farmers carrots we can read, relate, and interact with the author through the words they chose to write.

I’ve been to a handful of creative writing classes, read my fair share of books, even wrote a little, but what we call STORY isn’t in those examples. It’s in life, experience, emotion, observation, and people. It’s in the thoughts and conversations we share with one another. Life is Story, it is the universal connecting piece we all partake in from our first ancestors to the future generations we have yet to meet. When we are sharing thoughts, we give those reading or listening a glimpse into our own character sharing a piece of our soul if you will in that moment. It’s a special attribute humans have that other species may not. So, the next time you want to write, if that is your outlet, remember a scene can be a story, a drive to the doctor’s can be a story, and a joke can be a story.