The Meaning of Story

A story starts with a chain of events.  It follows a character or several characters, showing what happens and showing their choices and reactions to the events of the story. One event leads to the next event until the end.  How do you know when you are at the end?  There is a resolution to the conflict. Without a conflict, there is no story.

The conflict is what gives the story meaning. It is what makes the events important enough for the reader to think about and invest some time in reading. A story is the way we make sense of things that happen in our own lives and in the lives of others.  A story is the way we derive meaning from life experiences, and we are always seeking meaning.

A good story surprises and delights.  It takes us to an understanding that is true but unsuspected.  It makes us ponder and even question our values.  It shows us the other side of an idea by allowing us to see things from a character's point of view, a character that is unlike ourselves or sometimes more like ourselves than we realized.

A story uses many devices to convey meaning.  The setting of the story, the habits and desires of the characters, their tools and skills, their choice of phrase, their station in life, all convey meaning.

I am participating in Nanowrimo - or National Novel Writing Month.  I am coaching a few writers who are also attempting to craft 50,000 words of fiction in a month.  the act of writing fiction rapidly can cause some surprises.  It can bring out ideas and values, conflicts and resolutions that the writer didn't even realize were imbedded within.  As we work on our novels, some of us like to start things in motion and then just let the story unfold without knowing where it will lead.  Others prefer to outline and plan their story.  When they start a scene they already know where it is going and this helps them get past writer's block.

Are you working on fiction too?  How do you get started?

If you like to start with an idea and see where it leads, then you are a panster, flying by the seat of your pants.  You might find inspiration, jot down ideas in a notebook, but you don't plot in advance.

If you are a plotter, you like to outline your story.  You know where you are going when you begin your story journey.

Either way the writer begins, he is still creating a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.  And if he is a true storyteller, he finds the meaning of the story.