What makes a Story?

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about story. Not just plot or characters, but story itself. Last week, I attended a Storyteller’s Symposium, where I attended classes about photography, about film, other forms that I haven’t worked in, or that I hadn’t even considered for storytelling. 

I also went to a concert by performer Lindsay Sterling, who is a YouTuber who writers her own music and creates videos for those songs. She even said that often, before even writing the music, she has an idea of the video she wants to create.

I’ve had the opportunity to experience story in a completely different way. Through music, through video, photos… and I’ve learned a lot.

Out of all of them, there were some of the stories that really touched me in a way that I didn’t expect. There were some that drew me in so that I could use my own experience, my own thoughts to build the story into something that I can relate to personally.

Story, no matter the medium, needs to draw the audience in. It needs to speak to the basic human needs and emotions, to make them feel something that they haven’t felt before or to remind them of something they’ve already experienced. Whether it’s five minutes or 500 pages, there’s always something that the artist needs to say.

What have you learned from other art mediums? What kind of art do you enjoy beyond prose?

1st or 3rd Person?

I read an interesting article on Nathan Bransford’s Blog the other day.  For those of you who didn’t read it, the link is right here.

He talked about how some critics have decided that first person narrative isn’t ‘serious.’  I’m not sure what makes it less serious, though to be honest, I occasionally find it a bit exhausting.  I don’t enjoy being so deep in someone’s head for so long.

Probably one of the biggest reasons why I’m not a big fan of first person narrative is that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it done well.  Well, that’s not true.  I read a fantastic book a few weeks ago that did it well.  (Now that I think about it).  But I stick with what I said before.  There are very few books that I’ve read that makes me actually sympathize with the character rather than get annoyed.  (I’m not saying that I’m the leading expert on this, it’s just my opinion.)

Maybe it’s the genre that I tend to read.  I’m always drawn toward YA fantasy, and for some reason, there are quite a lot of books out there with very narcissistic main characters.  Characters who are ‘wronged’ and then spend pages with internal monologues about how hard the world is or how mean everyone is to them.  It gets tedious, and usually, I toss the book aside before I get to some kind of a resolution, which I hope ends with them thinking about something beyond themselves.

I’m not saying anything about first person, and if you’re planning on writing in first person, I applaud you.  It’s a voice that I don’t know that I’ll ever master.

When I first started writing my White WIP, it was all in first person.  And it was terrible.  Years later, when I came back to it and started working on revisions, I realized that it just didn’t feel natural to me.  I changed the entire story to third person limited and it was like the story unfolded out in front of me.  All of my stories since have been in 3^rd person.  Mostly because that’s what feels more natural to me.  It gives me a chance to take a step back when I need to and to look at the big picture, rather than what’s in their heads all the time.

But that’s just me.  How do you feel about it?  1^st or 3^rd person?  Does it even matter?  And if anyone has suggestions for a 1^st person novel written well, I’d love to hear it!

Contractions: Yes or No?

I just finished NaNoWriMo last month, and it was an exhilarating experience.  Of course, just like any other, there are positive and negatives, but I feel that the positives greatly outweighed the negative. 

And while participating, there’s the chance of hearing advice on how to increase word count if you’re nearing the end of the month and you still haven’t gotten quite there.  Advice like giving your character two names as a first name.  Or deleting contractions, making them two words.

Now this advice I find very interesting because that’s exactly what I did the first time I wrote a novel.  It was set in an older time period, so I assumed to make it sound ‘older,’ I should delete all of the contractions.  I also thought it would make my character sound more sophisticated because she's royalty.  Basically, I made it sound stale and stiff.

Dialogue is something that flows naturally, and yes, there are some people who may not use contractions as often, but more often than not, they’re going to escape at some point.  And when writing narrative, it’s incredibly dull to read something that doesn’t have any contractions at all.  I’ve read some drafts for betas who have left out contractions and I found it difficult to feel pulled into the story.  It almost felt as though I was being held at arm’s length. 

This post is short because I want to know your opinions.  When you read, do you notice contractions at all?  Do you think that not using them sounds more formal or more ‘writerly?’