The Power of Story

Jun 19, 2020

No matter if we write fiction or non-fiction, effective writing almost always includes the use of story.

We learn through stories. We direct our entire lives inspired by stories that have profoundly influenced us. The Nativity story, The Resurrection story. The story of Gautama, the four noble truths and the eight-fold path.

All great teachers use story. Jesus taught in stories called parables. Aesop left us a treasure trove of stories called fables. The original Grimm’s fairy tales were, well, grim reminders of what can happen when wrong choices are made.

What are some of the elements of story?

Well, one indispensable element of story is its core idea. “The key is to … build what we call the core idea,” Summit University’s George Makris noted in one of the recent Writers’ Guild Conversations videos. “Think of it [the core idea] as the trunk of a tree. So if you have the trunk of a tree, everything else is basically a branch and your message is crystal clear and has one thread, one core idea. And therefore it is easy to communicate.”

Consider Aesop’s fable, The Grasshopper and the Ant, which tells of a grasshopper, unprepared for winter, who begs for food from an ant, who turns the grasshopper away. The core idea, though stark and perhaps even harsh, is simple: if you don’t prepare for your own future, others won’t bail you out. It’s a memorable core idea, in fact so memorable that it has remained embedded in the cultures of the world for 2,600 years.

That’s one powerful story!

Story creation starts with research, which is threefold, according to renowned teacher Robert McKee, author of Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. He writes on fiction storytelling but his definitions could easily apply to non-fiction writing as well. According to McKee, story research includes research of memory, which is the mining of our personal experience for use in our stories, and research of imagination, such as a writer contemplating in vivid detail what it is like to walk in her character’s shoes. The third element of story research is the most obvious: research of fact.

Usually—but not always—determining one’s core story idea comes first, followed by story research.

“A beautifully told story is a symphonic unity in which structure, setting, character, genre, and idea meld seamlessly,” McKee writes. “To find their harmony, the writer must study the elements of story as if they were instruments of an orchestra—first separately, then in concert.”

Quite the artistic challenge!

Every good story has a visual element. It doesn’t matter if it is written or spoken. If a story is well-crafted—and quite a lot goes into making that happen—it is easy for the mind’s eye to see. So ask yourself: what is the visual expression of my core idea? If you can see it, you can write it.