What Is A Story, Really?
Judy Ramsook
October 24, 2006
The word story seems to have lost its meaning along the road of the written or even spoken word for that matter. It used to be that the word ‘story’ originally meant a work of fiction; something some one made up or something that did not actually happen.
Nowadays, the word story seems to have lost its meaning or is being used in such a way as to mean other things.
For example, if one is a reporter/journalist, it is not uncommon to hear him/her refer to the project he/she is working on as a story, even though the work he/she is doing is about something real or non fiction.
If something happens to some one during the course of any given day, he/she relays what has occurred to a friend or relative by referring to the incident as a story. If some one writes a non fiction essay/article, that too is referred to as a story.
For writers who do not comprehend what a short story is, they may pen an idea for a story and label it a story. Of course there are certain elements that make a short story what it is.
First it opens with a problem, the rest of the story tells the reader how the main character sets about solving such a problem, so that by the time you, the reader, get to the end of the story the problem is solved. A problem that somehow brings about a change in the main character that was not there prior to the problem at the start of the story.
Such as, maybe the main character was afraid of cats when the story began. As the story progressed, or unfolded, maybe this character ends up saving a cat that ran up a tree, thus making that main character or protagonist less fearful of cats.
It is also known that some individuals who know full well what a true story is also uses that word as a refernce to other written works, for as long as there are people in the world, there will be those who look for shortcuts.
There is nothing wrong with that, what might be annoying to some persons is when the word ‘story’ is used to mean things that are not even works of fiction.
But sometimes though, a story is just that and an essay is just that too, nothing more, nothing less. One is fiction, the other, non fiction.
Nowadays, the word story seems to have lost its meaning or is being used in such a way as to mean other things.
For example, if one is a reporter/journalist, it is not uncommon to hear him/her refer to the project he/she is working on as a story, even though the work he/she is doing is about something real or non fiction.
If something happens to some one during the course of any given day, he/she relays what has occurred to a friend or relative by referring to the incident as a story. If some one writes a non fiction essay/article, that too is referred to as a story.
For writers who do not comprehend what a short story is, they may pen an idea for a story and label it a story. Of course there are certain elements that make a short story what it is.
First it opens with a problem, the rest of the story tells the reader how the main character sets about solving such a problem, so that by the time you, the reader, get to the end of the story the problem is solved. A problem that somehow brings about a change in the main character that was not there prior to the problem at the start of the story.
Such as, maybe the main character was afraid of cats when the story began. As the story progressed, or unfolded, maybe this character ends up saving a cat that ran up a tree, thus making that main character or protagonist less fearful of cats.
It is also known that some individuals who know full well what a true story is also uses that word as a refernce to other written works, for as long as there are people in the world, there will be those who look for shortcuts.
There is nothing wrong with that, what might be annoying to some persons is when the word ‘story’ is used to mean things that are not even works of fiction.
But sometimes though, a story is just that and an essay is just that too, nothing more, nothing less. One is fiction, the other, non fiction.
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