I found this entry earlier this month, and forgot I’d been saving it for a Wednesday. I’m one of those people who does believe there is a distinction between storytelling and writing, and know I fall into the latter. To me, storytelling is remniscent of the oral tradition, and I’m not the sort of author who can suck a reader into a story without a calculated use of words. It doesn’t come easy to me. Or naturally. Yes, I’m faux. *g*. Keith Snyder’s analysis here really worked for me. He says:
What is writing, and what is storytelling? This is not something you need to be born with. This is something you can learn. So maybe this will learn somebody.Point of confusion #1: The term “writing” is used when the speaker means the completed combination of “writing” and “storytelling.”
So let’s differentiate for the purpose of this explanation, with the understanding that the word actually has more than one meaning. (And with the further understanding that I can pick on as many things in this thesis as you can, but just go with me.)
Storytelling is what you show happening. Writing is how you say it.
He goes to the place and finds the thing? Storytelling.
The reader can’t shake the image of the place? Writing.
The dialogue reveals where the thing is? Storytelling.
The dialogue hits the ear in a pleasurable way? Writing.
Paul Guyot (who is FINALLY blogging again, YAY, even if it is only part time) gets into the subject a bit, talking about the author of a book that I have on my TBR pile already, having pre-ordered long ago after reading about it at Killer Year. About author Marcus Sakey, Paul says (And really, read the whole post; it’s so worth it, and you’ll see why I’m a Guyot fan:
I saw Sakey on this panel and I knew that he was a good writer. Very, very good. Just by listening to him. By hearing the way he talked about writing. See, the people who get it – who truly get writing, they talk about it differently than the rest of us, who are simply trying to convince people we know what we’re doing.(…)
I checked out Sakey’s web site, read some Q&A’s with him, read his thoughts on writing, read a couple of excerpts from the book. And after all that and those forty-seven freaking pages, I knew that Sakey wasn’t just a great writer…
He has the combo platter.See, there are great writers. And there are great storytellers. And every once in a very rare while, God looks down and hands the combo platter to someone. A great writer AND a great storyteller. You may think there’s a lot of them out there, but guess what – you’re wrong. And I know a few of you believe great storytelling is great writing and vice-versa… I used to think that, until I read each without the other.
(…)
I know a large number of you don’t give a shit about great writing so long as the story works. And a lot of you can’t stand reading amazing prose if there’s no story to grab you. As stated, I can enjoy both. I guess it’s because the combo platter is so rare, that I’m used to settling as a reader. Taking what’s out there. So then, when I do find it – especially in someone without a dozen books under their belt – it makes me look in the mirror and think: perhaps if I had understood earlier, or worked harder, studied more, pushed myself more… maybe I could’ve had the combo platter.
Whatcha think?
(Oh, and Holly Lisle is having a one day sale!)
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i’d say i’m probably a writer then. :O)
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Alison,
Thanks so much for sharing these articles. Like you, I’ve often pondered these questions. I always felt storytellers were born and writers were crafted. I consider myself a craftsperson while wishing wistfully that I was a storyteller. Now, maybe I can start working on that combo platter with you.
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I disagree with this strongly:
>Storytelling is what you show happening. Writing is how you say it.
>He goes to the place and finds the thing? Storytelling.
>The reader can’t shake the image of the place? Writing.
>The dialogue reveals where the thing is? Storytelling.
>The dialogue hits the ear in a pleasurable way? Writing.
For mellenia, storytelling was a sensuous, poetic experience in which the way of saying a thing trumped all. He is confusing plot with diction–what he says has nothing in the world to do with real storytelling. Listen to Beowulf, the Poetic Edda, or Homer in their original languages–it is the effect of the word as much as the word itself that matters. It doesn’t matter if you *understand* it; you can still hear, in the patterns of the words, how crucial word choice is for the accomplished storyteller. Then read translations, and despite how much is lost, you can tell in the words their importance that is equal to all the other devices that a storyteller uses.
Storytelling is a performance art. Writing is one element of it, but is only part. A poor writer is a poor storyteller–even if he is a master of plot, he is no master of story. A written story must use other devices than one that is oral. Oral storytelling uses speed, vocal dynamics, pauses, and the like, which the written story must portray in the words and paragraphs on the page. Some must be slow, some fast; some loud, some soft. The “writing” is the tool that the storyteller uses to do all these things.
I started on my path to fiction-writing telling stories around a fire, and I promise you that the same “story” can have people half-listening or on the edge of their seats–because of all the elements of storytelling I just mentioned. How you say something cannot be divorced from the art of storytelling–or there would be no bad storytellers! Delivery–words, pace, volume, etc.–is everything.
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Actually, I take what he’s saying as what Guyot calls the combo platter. Because I’ve read compelling stories that I couldn’t put down, but ones I was rewriting every word as I read because they were crafted so poorly.
The “writing” is the tool that the storyteller uses to do all these things.
Exactly. The way I see it, a writer can become a storyteller through his use of craft. But not all storytellers can write. They can verbally tell stories, transfixing an audience with their voices, but on paper, not the same. They have to know craft. At least this is how it works for me!
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Writer here, definitely. “Making up stories” does not come easily to me (as witnessed by the innumerable “story too quiet/not big enough” rejections I get from mainstream editors). But I sure do love to play with words…
As a reader, I can enjoy a quiet, well-written story more than I can a poorly crafted “big” story. Might be why I love Anne Tyler. And why some hugely popular big name authors leave me cold. I might get caught up in one of their stories enough to want to see how the thing ends, making it technically a page-turner, but not be terribly interested in reading another one of their books.
Clearly, however, most of the world does not work that way. :)
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I just stumbled over this through a link tracker. Alison, thanks for the link!
Lydia, you’re arguing with definitions instead of substance. I think we’re actually in violent agreement, but since you called me confused, I’ll let my grumpy side out.
What I defined is one way writers commonly use these terms–the way they most commonly use them, as far as I can tell. But as your disagreement points out, different writers use the terms differently.
That would be why I defined how I was using them. Argue with whatever you want after that, but you disagreed strongly before I’d even offered an opinion.
But I’ll disagree strongly with one of yours: Delivery is not everything. Has never been everything. Will never be everything.
Would you call a bowl of thyme, cloves, and fennel a bouillabaisse?
Nope–or, at least, I hope you wouldn’t serve it to me. It needs fish, or it’s just a bowl full of delivery. Nice to taste, but not lunch.. Fish is the story. Fennel is the writing. You’re absolutely right that they’re inextricably linked, but you’re absolutely wrong that this makes them the same thing. (And a big bowl of fennel is not Anne Tyler; her books have plots. It’s Gertrude Stein.
On her bad days.
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Karen – I’m right there with you. The making up stories part is hard as hell! I’m a word girl!
Keith – Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the post. Resonated perfectly with me.
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Well, right now I’m feeling sorely like neither, but if I had to choose, I’d say I’m a word gal over a plot gal. Maybe that’s why I’ve gravitated to the written word. I like putting things on the page. It’s putting interesting things on the page that’s the hard part!
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Dang, is that a great post. I totally get the difference, although I didn’t at first, but as I’m shuffling through the stories in my mind I can place them.
Sigh. I want to be a combo platter. But I’m more a writer. Is there more of a leaning according to genre I wonder?
And I do think storytelling can be taught. It may not ever be as good as a gifting, but I believe if you have a strong enough desire you can attain a certain aptitude.
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And Sakey’s Backstory is wonderful too. I hopped right over to amazon.
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Keith–You can’t simply redefine words to suit your purpose. If you want to talk about diction, talk about diction. If you want to talk about plot, talk about plot. Don’t tell me that plot and storytelling are the same, though.
>Delivery is not everything. Has never been everything. Will never be everything.
I still say that it is “everything”–for a given value of “everything,” which I meant as palatability for the audience. Even authors who have terrible reputations for their prose deliver other things, things that people want to read, that they want to experience, even if their wordcrafting abilities are foul. I think that you define “delivery” as something synonymous with “diction,” and once again, I don’t. A brilliant core thread of an idea will never be popular without the right delivery for the audience, even if that delivery has no aesthetically redeeming value.
To extend the food analogy: Delivery won’t change butter into olive oil, but does means the difference between a cake and a mess of eggs and flour. It’s probably true that there are some “ideas” so awful that, like rotted meat, nothing can be done with them. But those are few and far, far between.
>But not all storytellers can write. They can verbally tell stories, transfixing an audience with their voices, but on paper, not the same. They have to know craft. At least this is how it works for me!
There are two arts to storytelling–the oral and the written. They use distinct techniques because of the distinct media, just like painting and marble sculpture are different, but the goal of each in repesentational art is the same! Oral storytelling is also a craft, a TRUE craft, as someone who has listened to award-winning storytellers can assure you–merely one with a different medium. Comparing the delivery of a joke or the recounting of a trip to the store with oral storytelling is like equating a jotted anecdote in an email with a novel. Rarely do either casual conversations or anecdotal emails have craft–but that doesn’t mean that there’s no craft in either medium at all! Nor does it mean that just because a person is successful in one medium and unsuccessful in another that only one of the media has a real “craft”!
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I’m going to talk about this more today I think. Off to put together a post.
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Lydia, not only are you still arguing pure semantics and ignoring meaning, but you’re putting words in my mouth. I haven’t said plot and storytelling are the same.
And I can’t remember the last time the word “diction” came up in any previous conversation between professional writers.
Perhaps this isn’t because everyone but you is ignorant and confused.
Nice chapter excerpt, by the way.