Telling a story--simple? I think not!
We now move into the realm of fiction, that wonderful world where we ask readers to "suspend their disbelief" and enter the world we create for them. This one place we are totally in control...pretty scary if you think about it. To use a cliché', it's both a curse and a blessing.
 | The Blessing: If we provide enough detail, present authentic characters in "real" situations, lay a believable foundation in regards to setting and conflict, and lead the characters through a series of complications that end in some kind of resolution, then our readers have stayed with us and learned the moral or theme of what we spent hours agonizing over. |
| The Curse: If we fail in any one of these areas, readers doubt us, and our hours spent at the keyboard are wasted. |
One saving grace arises: those who came before us. It's imperative that writers read other writers to learn what works and what doesn't. In addition, many tools help when all else fails.
As we continue our foray into fiction, I would like us to keep in mind the genesis of
the short story. You will find in your readings that before we had the novel or the short
story, we had narratives in the form of epics and romances based upon the exploits in
adventures and experiences of some hero or heroine. On the other end of the spectrum, we
had folktales and fairy tales with obvious meanings and morals explicit in the story line.
Often these are based on magical or unreal conditions.
Samuel Richardson changed all that in the 1700s with something called the novel.
Richardson, an editor by trade, had a bevy of daughters at home who suffered the pangs of
the condition of their age. They could not work because ladies did not do such things;
although they were bright and imaginative, they were constrained. Richardson faced
with such lively company would invent stories to tell his daughters each night when he
came home. One particular story was about a fictional woman named Pamela.
Richardson invented trials and tribulations about the chaste young Pam to teach his girls
how to behave in the cold cruel world. He combined a moral with a slice of life, some
experience or event that had happened to some other young woman which he heard about at
his job.
His daughters began to tell his stories to others and soon he was asked to write his
stories, so that a wider audience could enjoy Pamela's exploit. Thus, the first novel was
written. There is, of course, some contention about whether, Pamela was indeed the first
novel, but there is no contention that the point of a story or novel is to combine a
splice of life with some type of moral, or as we like to call it nowadays, a theme.
With those thoughts in mind, please pay attention to your own preconceived ideas and
notions as to what you think stories are about. In addition, notice as you read and write
when you have reactions, whether they be anger, frustration, pleasure, boredom or pain.