One thing my late brother Reg taught me was
that a story must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Reg was an entertaining storyteller, whether he was recounting tales of the manipulating “Dragon
Lady” that ruled the town in Viet Nam where he was posted, or of the celebrated
frontier Indian fighter that was our distant ancestor. He learned his skill at
the knees of our Appalachian relatives, and was sure to include all the gory
details, pregnant pauses, humor and suspense that kept folks listening. He
never failed to leave his audience howling with laughter or shaking their heads
over the blockheadedness of some hapless fool once the story was done.
I learned how to tell a good story the same
way. In fact, in my family, storytelling is a competitive art, with folks vying
to top each other with a good tale. Even so, I do my best work on the page. I’ve
learned, over the years, that telling a story via the written word is very different
from telling it live and in person. Just because your friends and neighbors say
you’re a great storyteller doesn’t mean you can write the Great American Novel.
Take the “beginning, middle and end” rule,
for example. Listeners will really appreciate that you start at the
beginning and go through to the end. But that approach can be dry as dust in a
book. Sometimes it’s fun to start at the end, then go back to the beginning. Or
jump in the middle and let the reader figure things out as you go along. Just
as long as you have all the elements, and
you’re skillful at applying them, the written word allows more flexibility.
A book of fiction should never be just a
recitation of the “facts.” First this happened, then this, then that, THE END. (I
would argue that the best books of nonfiction are not constructed this way
either.) Believe it or not, I’ve encountered a couple of novels lately that fit
this pattern. Their authors had clearly been told they were great “storytellers.”
The plots were full of incidents. Things happened with frequency, all in
sequential order. But long before I reached THE END, I got bored and bailed.
Not only did these books lack any kind of
structural interest, they lacked any of the other elements that make for a
great story: those gory details, pregnant pauses, humor, suspense and, most of
all, character nuances. A family storyteller can usually sidestep the character
question by simply naming his protagonist. Everyone knows Uncle Joe was a dunce
or Great-Grandma Irene liked the corn likker a little too much.
An author writing
for an unknown audience must make her characters as life-like as those well-loved
family members. A storyteller can depend on tone of voice
and active body language to sell the story. A writer has to season the stew
with vivid settings, sensitive timing, snappy dialogue, sexy attraction between
hero and heroine, the right word, the right image.
The story is just the beginning.
It takes a skilled writer to carry the reader through that sticky middle all
the way to THE END.
Cheers, Donna
I've always found your writings to be interesting and captivating enough to keep me going to the end, usually with a smile on my face.
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