Writing Tip of the Week: What is Story?
Every day, we are surrounded by fiction and non-fiction stories. They are part of the human experience and have the power to shape who we are as individuals and alter the views of the masses. Stories are how we communicate good and bad information and channel empathy, sympathy, and connection with others.
We seem to know and understand what a story is from childhood, and our hunger for story only grows over time. Often, we go from being told stories to being the storyteller, which harkens back to ancient cultures and communities.
But what exactly defines a story, and how does it differ from the concept of plot?
Story Defined
Think of a story as a completed puzzle. There are hundreds of pieces involved that interlock to create a finished picture, and a story is similar in design. As John Truby writes, “a story is made of subsystems like the characters, the plot, the revelations sequence, the story world, the moral argument,” and many other elements to complete the full picture of a story (Truby 9).
Most stories have a singular focus, concentrating on the action of a main character for the majority of the story, which is “expecting a useful reaction from [their] world, but instead the effect of [their] action is to provoke forces of antagonism. The world of the character reacts differently than expected, more powerfully than expected, or both” (McKee 144-145). Having this focal character in a story helps the audience identify and connect with them so they have someone to keep track of as the story unfolds. They are the audience’s proxy within the world of the story.
So, a story provides us with the entire roadmap of events that will unfold on our hero’s journey. It comprises many events and elements that combine to create a complete narrative for an audience to follow and connect with. These elements weave around each other, giving the story more depth, meaning, and conflict.
Story Design
A story has structure. Simply put, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
When you tell a story about something that happened to you, it follows these basic principles. A fictional story should as well; our brains expect and even crave this type of uniform structure when it comes to storytelling. It’s one of the reasons why some people get upset when a story ends on a cliffhanger and nothing is resolved.
Robert McKee states, “A story is a design in five parts: The Inciting Incident, the first major event of the telling, is the primary cause for all that follows, putting into motion the other four elements – Progressive Complications, Crisis, Climax, Resolution” (McKee 181). We crave these elements and even subconsciously expect them to exist in whatever story we’re being told. We’ve all either been told a story or seen a movie where nothing seems to happen, which frustrates us. That’s because we are conditioned to need these story elements to enjoy the story we are seeing or hearing.
Western storytelling employs the traditional Three-Act Structure, which I’ll explain in an upcoming post. This structure encapsulates all the conventional elements that audiences expect.
Stories & Communication
Stories have a purpose. They have a reason for existing and a reason why they are told. Even if the storyteller is the only one who truly understands the story's meaning, the transmission of the story from storyteller to audience increases its overall meaning and connection with others. A story can connect with an audience when it “expresses the dramatic code” (Truby 7). This underlying “dramatic code, embedded deep in the human psyche, is an artistic description of how a person can grow and evolve. This code is also a process going on underneath every story. The storyteller hides this process beneath particular characters and actions” (Truby 7).
We can feel this dramatic code as we listen, watch, or read. It’s how a story connects with an audience on a deeper level, drawing them in and keeping them mesmerized throughout.
We’ve all encountered stories that make us ask, “What was the point of that?” To have a lasting impact on an audience, a story must have a purpose and meaning beyond the surface level.
Final Thoughts
As humans, we crave stories. They are integral to our daily lives and help create meaning and understanding of our world. Stories are an amalgamation of dozens of smaller elements that come together to form a completed story that delivers a beginning, middle, and end that keeps the audience engaged and intrigued from start to finish. Through this structure, we connect and empathize with main characters and can follow their trials and tribulations as they succeed or fail.
Next Time…
So, if story includes everything, what exactly is plot? We’ll explore that in the next post!
Sources:
McKee, Robert. Story. Harper Collins, 1997.
Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story. Faber and Faber, 2007.
We seem to know and understand what a story is from childhood, and our hunger for story only grows over time. Often, we go from being told stories to being the storyteller, which harkens back to ancient cultures and communities.
But what exactly defines a story, and how does it differ from the concept of plot?
Story Defined
Think of a story as a completed puzzle. There are hundreds of pieces involved that interlock to create a finished picture, and a story is similar in design. As John Truby writes, “a story is made of subsystems like the characters, the plot, the revelations sequence, the story world, the moral argument,” and many other elements to complete the full picture of a story (Truby 9).
Most stories have a singular focus, concentrating on the action of a main character for the majority of the story, which is “expecting a useful reaction from [their] world, but instead the effect of [their] action is to provoke forces of antagonism. The world of the character reacts differently than expected, more powerfully than expected, or both” (McKee 144-145). Having this focal character in a story helps the audience identify and connect with them so they have someone to keep track of as the story unfolds. They are the audience’s proxy within the world of the story.
So, a story provides us with the entire roadmap of events that will unfold on our hero’s journey. It comprises many events and elements that combine to create a complete narrative for an audience to follow and connect with. These elements weave around each other, giving the story more depth, meaning, and conflict.
Story Design
A story has structure. Simply put, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
When you tell a story about something that happened to you, it follows these basic principles. A fictional story should as well; our brains expect and even crave this type of uniform structure when it comes to storytelling. It’s one of the reasons why some people get upset when a story ends on a cliffhanger and nothing is resolved.
Robert McKee states, “A story is a design in five parts: The Inciting Incident, the first major event of the telling, is the primary cause for all that follows, putting into motion the other four elements – Progressive Complications, Crisis, Climax, Resolution” (McKee 181). We crave these elements and even subconsciously expect them to exist in whatever story we’re being told. We’ve all either been told a story or seen a movie where nothing seems to happen, which frustrates us. That’s because we are conditioned to need these story elements to enjoy the story we are seeing or hearing.
Western storytelling employs the traditional Three-Act Structure, which I’ll explain in an upcoming post. This structure encapsulates all the conventional elements that audiences expect.
Stories & Communication
Stories have a purpose. They have a reason for existing and a reason why they are told. Even if the storyteller is the only one who truly understands the story's meaning, the transmission of the story from storyteller to audience increases its overall meaning and connection with others. A story can connect with an audience when it “expresses the dramatic code” (Truby 7). This underlying “dramatic code, embedded deep in the human psyche, is an artistic description of how a person can grow and evolve. This code is also a process going on underneath every story. The storyteller hides this process beneath particular characters and actions” (Truby 7).
We can feel this dramatic code as we listen, watch, or read. It’s how a story connects with an audience on a deeper level, drawing them in and keeping them mesmerized throughout.
We’ve all encountered stories that make us ask, “What was the point of that?” To have a lasting impact on an audience, a story must have a purpose and meaning beyond the surface level.
Final Thoughts
As humans, we crave stories. They are integral to our daily lives and help create meaning and understanding of our world. Stories are an amalgamation of dozens of smaller elements that come together to form a completed story that delivers a beginning, middle, and end that keeps the audience engaged and intrigued from start to finish. Through this structure, we connect and empathize with main characters and can follow their trials and tribulations as they succeed or fail.
Next Time…
So, if story includes everything, what exactly is plot? We’ll explore that in the next post!
Sources:
McKee, Robert. Story. Harper Collins, 1997.
Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story. Faber and Faber, 2007.
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