WHAT IS A STORY?
-
Definition of a Story:-
- a) something
of importance has happened
- b) something
has been resolved
- c) there
is a change; the main character is not the same at the conclusion of the story
as at the beginning
-
- The story is from the moment of
conception, the actions of the characters. A story may, inter alia,
show how a character’s self-concept is threatened or involve an element of
sacrifice on the part of the character.
-
- As adapted from Colin Cheong’s talk on
The Art of The Story at the Substation on 3 May 2003, the three basic elements
of a story like Goldilocks and The Three Bears are as follows:
-
- 1. Orientation - introduces the
setting (eg. a bear cottage in the woods)
-
-
- 2. Complication - introduces the
story problem (e.g. the mess created by Goldilocks)
-
- 3. Resolution - encapsulates the
climax or anti-climax of the story (e.g. do you prefer the ending where
Goldilocks escaped unscathed or would you rather have her receive just dessert for
spoiling Baby Bear’s chair and eating up his broth?)
-
- “Every story is a story of character and
the conflict of characters with each other or with a situation.
-
- Whenever a person is
confronted by an unfamiliar or trying situation or with a striking adjustment
of his or her feeling to a situation, there lies a story.
-
- There are three
essentials to every story: a character, a problem and the rewards awaiting the
solutions of the problem. Settle on these three points and your story has
begun. The problem and the reward are purely secondary to the conflict of the
character with the difficulties presented to the problem.”
-
- (Source: How
To Become a Character copyright © by Louis L’Amour.)
-
- HOW TO TEST A STORY IDEA?
1. Is It Your Story To Tell?
Is this something you
really care about, something I partly understand, something that seems to want working
out?
2. Is It Too Personal For Readers
To Become Involved With?
Can I work this idea in a caring but
uncompromising way to make it meaningful to somebody else?
3. Is It Going Somewhere?
Can I dramatize this in
a series of scenes with a minimum of explanation? Does it have a plot, or can I create a
plot for it?
4. What’s At Stake?
Is there something
quite specific and vital at stake –not just for me, but to one or more of the characters
involved?
(Source:
“What is plot?” from Plot, copyright ©1988 Ansen Dibell)
STORIES TRUE AND FALSE
The word “story” comes from “history”; the stories that historians,
biographers, and journalists narrate are supposed to be true accounts of what
happened. The stories of novelists and short-story writers, however, are
admittedly untrue; they are “fiction,” things made up, imagined, manufactured.
As readers, we come to a supposedly true story with expectations different from
those we bring to fiction.
Consider the
difference between reading a narrative in a newspaper and one in a book of short
stories, If, while reading a newspaper, we come across a story of, say, a subway
accident, we assume that the account is true, and we read it for the information
about a relatively unusual event. Anyone hurt? What sort of people? In our
neighbourhood? Whose fault?
-
When we read a
book of fiction, however, we do not expect to encounter literal truths; we
read novels and short stories not for the facts but for pleasure and for some
insight or for a sense of what an aspect of life means to the writer.
All said, a story, that is written or told,
gives us a sense of our humanity; what it means to be be human, warts and all;
facing trials and yet undaunted in spirit; seizing the day and gathering the
rose buds while we may; looking for the light at the end of the tunnel; and
knowing that when winter cometh, spring shall not be far off.
*** THE END IS BEYOND US ***
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