Yesterday, my writing circle had a nice discussion about style, where we tore apart some of my older writing samples and I explained what I did, and didn’t do, in those days. I mentioned this in my post yesterday, about how there is an element of cringe when I read those samples even though in a bubble some of the words looked pretty enough (and arguably, sometimes prettier than the writing I’m doing now). There just wasn’t enough meat behind them. I could mimic prose when I wanted to, but I wasn’t conveying the story as I needed to. Expression, as I later learned, is not just about re-arranging words around because I saw another writer did it and it looked neat. It requires digging in and being able to produce words that will paint the experience I want the reader to share with me. Substance. A voice–my own.
Which led, of course, to a discussion of storytelling, and what it is and isn’t. And this is something I think that is difficult to explain to people, especially those starting out. Writing, in by itself, is a tool, with a few rules here and there to make it easier for the intended audience. A writer is someone who uses words for an end goal–a technical writer creates manuals or other technical documentation, for example. So a fiction writer is someone who uses words to tell fiction–in other words, to tell a story.
And yet story–the beating heart and soul of the narrative–is so often neglected, especially by beginners.
Stories, I think, often get lost in this world of epic novels and doorstopper tomes. “Well, let’s talk about magic in this chapter, and then show a bunch of gritty realism in the next, and then we’ll drop a bit of plot and then…” and then suddenly you have a book. And it could all very well be enjoyable, even poignant at times, but the shape of the story is often lost in the narrative.
Which is why I always love going back to children’s fairy tales with my kids. “Once upon a time, there was a boy…or a girl…and they changed the world.” A story in a glance. A world of adventure, and emotions, in half an hour.
I’m a storytelling fiend. I really don’t care about the source or the genre. Books, movies, video games, the rambling narrative by a toothless old guy in the back of the bus. Good stories can take any form, but often have a set of characteristics that make them last: they make you feel and they make you care. You may not even like the journey or the characters themselves, but by the end of it all, you react to the story as if it was something you experienced yourself.
So the writing, then, is a mere tool to convey a story. Which is why you will have people who think of it as nothing more than such. Authors use utilitarian prose to get a story across, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.
But it could be something more. You could elevate the reader’s experience into something where they not only see the events unfolding in front of them, but they actually feel everything, too. Anxiety. Pain. Anger. Resentment. Joy. Love.
Mastery of the craft demands that you use every tool available in an attempt to grab the reader by the hand (or maybe the shirt collar) and get them to live the story.
