What is a story?
Dispel the confusion with a simple paradigm shift
When I shifted from academic and nonfiction to fiction editing, I thought it would be a good idea to look up some of the fundamentals (a habit from critical thinking and trivium training). One of the first things I did was look for a definition of “story.”
I suppose I should not have been surprised that such a basic concept was so controversial, that there were so many conflicting opinions about what constituted a “story”. The same thing is true in academia for basic concepts like “truth”.
But a story seems like such a simple, obvious thing. We all know what a story is, after all. Surely it can’t be too difficult to define?
They can’t all be right, can they?
Troy Lambert allows us to define “story” however we like, but insists that a good story involves “interesting people doing interesting things in an interesting setting for interesting reasons.”1
Daniel Schwabauer, in something I enjoyed reading recently, says a story must have five elements: “someone to care about, something to want, something to dread, something to suffer, and something to learn.”2
Ron Tobias, in 20 Master Plots, says that “a story is a series of events strung like beads on a string” but requires something more to make it into a “plot” (which he argues is a richer more meaningful thing than a mere “story”). Ron believes story is fundamentally about plot.
Lisa Cron, in Story Genius, says that “a story is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result.” She seems to think story is fundamentally about characters.3
Robert McKee seems to think story is fundamentally about archetypes.4
James Scott Bell seems to think story is fundamentally about conflict.5
Nearly every agent, editor, established author or screenwriter, story guru, and writing coach seems to have a different definition of “story,” or they join one or another team to defend one or another definition of it, and critique the competitors. The clamor can become confusing, especially when key terms (like “story”, “plot”, and “narrative”) are used ambiguously in the very contexts in which they are supposedly being clarified.6
The Paradigm Shift
Think of the different “definitions” as “descriptions” instead, and all the tension and confusion dissolve.
Instead of choosing sides and fighting for one or another definition, it is more helpful to shift from arguing about whether or not something qualifies as a “proper story” to simply observing how stories are told, what effect they have, who cares about them, and whether anyone does anything in response to them. All the popular definitions of story are helpful, in that perspective. Just because one definition requires the protagonist to change, and another definition leaves that out, doesn’t mean that either is worse or better than another. Each is an accurate observation of the stories that person is focusing on. Think of the different “definitions” as “descriptions” instead, and all the tension and confusion dissolve. Every new description of story can help us all tell good stories, and tell them well.
But still…
I couldn’t help it. I really wanted a proper definition, something universal and primal. I kept digging. Beneath the abundance of story analyses, models, concepts, and structures, I knew there must be some irreducible “subatomic particle” of story, the simplest essence that can’t be made any simpler.
Clint Johnson probably comes closest to crafting a fundamental irreducible truth about the nature of story when he says “Stories are the predominant way in which humans think. They allow us to create meaning out of sensory perceptions, memories, information, conversations, symbols, and emotions that continually bombard us.”7 So, story creates meaning. It attributes purpose to patterns. It takes any amount of facts, feelings, persons, places, events, everything, and (if possible!) makes sense out of them.
They can be as brief as six words8 or as long as five thousand published volumes9, but they must “make sense.” They must, in some way, help us invest meaning in the events they recount. Any series of words that does not do this, even if the words are arranged in grammatically correct ways, might make a coherent shopping list or a curious description, but it would not qualify as a story. But any series of words that does “make sense,” that does “mean something” to the reader, would indeed be a story10 …even if it might not be a very good story.
Ah, the pursuit of the “good story” …we’ll tackle that another time.
Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your criteria for what makes a story “good”!
I am giving myself permission to publish without having my citations all sorted out. But you’ll find this quote in most places where Dan talks about story.
e.g. 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them (1993), bottom of p.16—just two pages further. I don’t mean to pick on Ron. There are many other examples, especially in articles and blogs.
Clint Johnson et alia, Open English @ SLCC …and even this is more of an observation than a prescriptive definition.
“Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.”
Perry Rhodan, Heir to the Universe (the original series in German contains over five thousand individual novellas and it’s still growing, via a team of writers. The English translations are collected into larger volumes so there are fewer of them, but the translators are still struggling to catch up to the writers)
A story is a tale that gives us a sense of wonder, a vision into the cosmos of the human mind and the enormity of it all as old as our existence itself.
Ron Singeron