RICH - HOW STORY WORKS

How Story Works

An elegant guide to the craft of storytelling

Lani Diane Rich

Chipperish Media

Copyright 2021 Lani Diane Rich

All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Cover design by: Art Painter
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America

For Dr. Kelly Jones.
Kintsugi, baby.
Kintsugi.

Contents

How This Book Works

If you picked up this book, maybe its because youre feeling frustrated in your writing. Maybe youre curious about story craft, or youre stuck at a plot point you cant figure out how to resolve. Maybe its a class text. Maybe, like me, you signed a contract for two books and you have no idea how you wrote the first one, let alone how youre going to do a second one. Thats how I fell down the story craft rabbit hole and now, nearly two decades of study later, Im finally ready to share with you everything Ive learned in that time.

Its a lot. Buckle up, buttercup.

But first, a few things.

Now that weve covered the fact that Im not here to teach you your own magic and Im not here to make you a best-selling novelist or an Oscar-winning screenwriter, let me tell you what I am gonna do.

Im gonna define story for you, teach you basic narrative theory and how to apply it to your work, and give you the tools you need to get the job done. Im going to make you a more effective storyteller, and Im gonna help you get out of your own way so you can get the craft part done efficiently, and let your magic shine.

What happens after that is entirely up to you.

Course Texts

The following stories are used as substantive examples in this book, and there may be some spoilers.

1. On Story

Its the fall of 1989, my freshman year of college, and I hustle over to the local convenience store between classes to buy some gum. Im standing in line behind some kid with a suitcase of beer in one hand and his ID in the other, and I glance at the ID.

Cuz Im just that kind of girl.

And it looks well, weird. Now, I, as an 18-year-old young woman from a very small town who has very little experience of the big, wide world, am no expert on fake IDs, but Im pretty sure this one had to be fake.

I mean, come on.

Its from Delaware.

I chuckle to myself and say a silent prayer for the future of this poor, dumb kid who has been taken in SO completely by such a stupid scam. Selling bad fakes, thats a time-honored American tradition, but come on Delaware?

I mean, everyone knows Delaware isnt a state.

The line moves and Im standing behind this guy, waging an internal war between minding my own damn business and giving the poor guy a heads up that he was swindled before he gets publicly humiliated. The shy part of me wins out. The line moves, it moves again, and finally, the guy puts his suitcase of beer down on the counter and hands the cashier dude his ID and Im cringing as I wait and

Dude sells him the beer.

He sells him the beer .

The fake ID guy trots on out with his beer, so okay. I buy my gum in stunned silence and then go to class, but that night as all my friends are hanging out in the common room of our suite, I say, Oh my god, you guys, I have got to tell you what happened today!

And I proceed to tell the story, just the way that Im telling you now, and when I get to the good parthis ID was from Delaware theres nothing.

Blank stares.

Silence.

Crickets.

Delaware, I say again, waiting for it to sink in. Del-a-ware. Its not a state. Its a town. Its a river in Maryland.

And then they all bust out laughing and Im standing there like, What?

So a friend of mine gets out the dictionary which has a map of the U.S. in itthis was in the pre-internet days when we still needed and carried around actual booksand shows me that not only is Delaware a state

its the first state.

What is Story?

What I just told you was a story, right? You recognized it. A series of events, a retelling a story. Its like pornography; you know it when you see it, but even a Supreme Court justice is gonna have to pause to specifically define it. The reason for that isnt due to the complexity of what a story is; its due to the ubiquity. Go ahead: Describe air.

See what I mean?

So, lets start out here by defining our terms, an important part of the process when learning anything. Now, my definition of some terms may vary a bit from the standard dictionary definitions; Im defining these terms to suit our purposes here, because sometimes, the dictionary isnt quite specific enough.

My apologies to both Merriam and Webster; no offense, huge fan.

Lets start with story ; what is story?

STORY:
A recounted event or series of events

Thats it; very simple [1] . Story is a recounted event or series of events. Lets pause a moment here and pay attention to one word that we might skip over, but we shouldnt: recounted .

A story isnt the event or series of events themselves; a story is the recounting of those events. This is incredibly important; because in order for a story to be a story, it has to be told, and in being told, it will be edited. Random events throughout a day are just events until someone edits out the unimportant details and recounts the story with a specific meaning in mind, thus creating a narrative.