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.

>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”!

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.

Keith – Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the post. Resonated perfectly with me.

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.

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. :)

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!