Conflict and the End of Fiction: Appendix and Bibliography

Appendix — What Is a Story?

Here I’ve transcribed the various definitions of story I referenced in the conclusion of Conflict and the End of Fiction. I put them here, alongside my interpretations, for the purpose of transparency. It’s entirely possible for another person to read the same text as myself and come to a different conclusion about the author’s intentions, but I made my analysis in good faith and I hope my notes make that clear.

“The artist is comfortable only with going back to the way in which the chaos is first encountered — that is, moment to moment through the senses. Then, selecting from that sensual moment-to-moment experience, picking out bits and pieces of it, reshaping it, she recombines it into an object that a reader in turn encounters as if it were experience itself: a record of moment-to-moment sensual experience, an encounter as direct as those we have with life itself.” (Butler, l0c 143)

Butler believes story is shared experience via sensation to make sense of the world.

“So in this short piece, we have seen: the development of a complex psychology, a set of startlingly original sentences, a sharp emotional shift from calm observation to rage, an unparalleled style, a knock-out title, a social critique, and a very moving story about one woman’s private crisis while running a common errand. (Unfearth, 137)

Deb Olin Unfearth in Rose Metal Press Guide does not set out to define story, but in response to the question “Can you write a full story in flash fiction, and what even is a story?” she uses this as an example of flash fiction which is a story — Note the presence of contrast and shared experience, as well as the elements of beauty and intellectual engagement.

“The first story ever, I read somewhere, appears on an ancient Egyptian tablet and declares that “John went out on a trip.” How do we know that this is a flash fiction and not a document? Because no one during that time period could have left his town on his own will. Moreover, it encapsulates the high rhetoric of sudden fiction: it has a character (I call him “John,” but he has 1,000 names); there is a dominant action (the storytelling is fully present); and what is shown or said happens in time. Not less important, it announces the very rule of any story — the breaking of a code. John is an adventurer who stands against authority and decides to leave, to explore, to know.” (Ortega, 167)

Ortega lays out his definition of story clearly here: Has a character, a line of action, a frame of time, and, most importantly, conflict between the system of the world and a character.

“CONCEPT — The idea or seed that evolves into a platform for a story. Best and most empowering when expressed as a “what if?” question. The answer leads to further “what if?” questions in a branching and descending hierarchy, and the collective whole of those choices and answers becomes your story.

CHARACTER — Don’t leave home without one. … we do need to root for him.

THEME — … Not to be confused with concept, theme is what your story is illuminating about real life.

STRUCTURE — What comes first, what comes next, and so forth … and why. And no, you can’t just make it up for yourself. There are expectations and standards here. …

SCENE EXECUTION — You can know the game, but if you can’t play it well you can’t win. …

WRITING VOICE — The coat of paint, or if you prefer, the suit of clothes, that delivers the story to the reader. The biggest risk here is letting your writing voice get in the way. Less is more. Sparingly clever or sparsely eloquent is even better. … That’s it. There’s nothing else under the writing sun, because anything you can think of that pertains to developing and writing a story aligns under one of these categories.” (Brooks, 23, emphasis mine)

Brooks considers story to be a conglomerate of six aspects — a story needs to have a dramatic question, a character, a theme, adherence to the Western structure which he describes as Setup, Response, Attack, and Resolution (and he describes these elements as fulfilling a universal storytelling law the same way architecture has rules defined by the laws of physics), and moreover be aesthetically pleasing. Though I don’t know that he intended to give a full definition of story with the line, he seems to describe a story as a series of what-if questions and their answers and consequences.

“A story is built with a beginning, middle, and an ending. … Whatever lingo you use, each of these three components contains specialized elements necessary to the delivery of a good story. These elements include: grabbing reader interest; sustaining reader interest; steadily increasing tension and suspense regarding the outcome; guiding readers through an emotional catharsis; providing a satisfying resolution of events; answering the story question; and delivering poetic justice. They are designed to capture readers, and move them from start to finish while keeping them enthralled. (Chester, loc 156)

Chester gives mechanical definitions for a story, and describes an ideal story as one which grabs and holds reader interest throughout while answering dramatic questions and delivering poetic justice.

“A good story ought to perform a service by making us better, stronger, wiser, or happier than we were before. It makes us laugh or cry. It imparts wisdom. It teaches lessons about human nature and our place in God’s creation. It addresses our need to find coherence in our lives. It gives us a sense of continuity within the overall stream of human experience. That occurs when writers frame off a piece of experience and describe it well, following the intuitive blueprint inside the human soul that has responded to the craft of storytelling since the dawn of time.” (Erickson, 71)

Erickson argues a good story encompasses truth about what it means to be human via shared experience.

“The most important single notion in the theory of fiction I have outlined — essentially the traditional theory of our civilization’s literature — is that of the vivid and continuous fictional dream. … the writer sets up a dramatized action in which we are given the signals that make us “see” the setting, characters, and events; that is, he does not tell us about them in abstract terms, like an essayist, but gives us images that appeal to our senses … so that we seem to move among the characters, lean with them against the fictional walls, taste the fictional gazpacho, smell the fictional hyacinths.” (Gardner, 98)

Gardner calls for story to simulate reality via shared experience.

“A successful story is or seems to be all of a piece — all in harmony, all saying the same thing in different ways, having its own steady rhythm, with nothing out of key, nothing inappropriate or irrelevant. In a story we expect a quality of completion, of roundedness, which sets it apart from a sketch, an incident, or an anecdote. … the incident or the anecdote could be turned into a story by adding complications and characters. … we have established an emotional relationship involving at least two people … and an impediment to a satisfactory conclusion…” (Knight, 48)

Knight describes a story as opposed to an anecdote in that a story is complete — we could interpret this as a variation of beginning, middle, end, but with the added condition of thematic wholeness involving characters in a relationship for whom conflict stands between them and a “satisfactory” conclusion.

“…truth is all that any story worth telling is getting at. … This simple sentence, we are all the same, is the Golden Theme that all stories express. And it is my firm belief that the closer a story comes to illuminating this truth, the more powerful and universal it becomes, and the more people are touched by it.” (McDonald, loc 131, emphasis original)

McDonald doesn’t set out to define what things could be seen as a story, but to say all stories are really about shared experience.

“The writers of portraiture and spectacle, indeed all writers, must come to understand the relationship of story to life: Story is metaphor for life. … A two-hour metaphor that says: Life is like this! … A story must be like life, but not so verbatim that it has no depth or meaning beyond what’s obvious to everyone on the street. … What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.” (McKee, loc 426, emphasis original)

McKee says anecdotes and not-stories simply relate the literal incidence of reality, but a proper story interprets events to evoke universal truth. This implies shared experience but, deliberately, the simple shared experience of a person with no subtextual commentary would not be a proper story.

“A story is structured narrative designed to achieve an emotional effect, demonstrate a proposition, or reveal character.” (O’Neil, 14)

O’Neil’s definition, used for the writing of superhero comics, simply demands structure and some kind of narrative goal.

“Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing.” (Le Guin, 146)

Le Guin argues for motion and change as it relates to human experience — she therefore argues for shared experience. Despite her literal claim against conflict, many of her examples can be described as both conflict and contrast.

“…there are two features that most published books share. First, they’re simultaneously fresh and familiar. … The second feature … is something in the writing that touches readers’ hearts and makes them feel the characters’ yearnings. (Cleland, 10)

Cleland doesn’t specifically give a definition of “What is a story?” Story as described in her book may be self-evident — if you’re telling it, it’s a story. But she claims the key to a good story is a particular kind of contrast, similar to the “Surprising, yet inevitable” hallmark of the Writing Excuses podcast hosts, as well as connection to its characters so that the receiver shares their experience.

“I don’t want to film a “slice of life” because people can get that at home, in the street, or even in front of the movie theater. They don’t have to pay money to see a slice of life. And I avoid out-and-out fantasy because people should be able to identify with the characters. Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out. The next factor is the technique of film-making, and in this connection I am against virtuosity for its own sake. Technique should enrich the action. One doesn’t set the camera at a certain angle just because the cameraman happens to be enthusiastic about that spot. The only thing that matters is whether the installation of the camera at a given angle is going to give the scene its maximum impact. The beauty of image and movement, the rhythm and the effects — everything must be subordinated to the purpose.” (Hitchcock via Truffaut, loc 1570)

Hitchcock explains that suspense is key to storytelling, that the ideal story is a believable, realistic narrative with no dull bits. He believes beauty (through filmmaking technique, analogous to literary style) should never exist on its own but always serve the suspenseful narrative. There is an element of shared experience which is assumed, not emphasized.

“Any manga that can be considered famous, as well as any novel or movie, will share certain story beats that will never stop captivating audiences. The basic version of this structure can be summed up as ki-shō-ten-ketsu … • Introduction: Introduce the protagonist to the reader … • Development: The protagonist encounters the antagonist or some hardship, etc. • Twist: The protagonist rises to face the challenge, but an additional problem creates a dilemma. In this part of the story, the protagonist attempts to strike back at the antagonist/hardship but the difficulties keep building … • Resolution: A victory or other happy end. Creators who willfully eschew the entire ki-shō-ten-ketsu pattern … can still produce masterworks, but only when done with purpose and knowledge of the pattern in the first place. Without exception, you must have ki-shō-ten-ketsu in your mind when creating your stories. This is the immutable law of story writing.” (Araki, 87, emphasis original)

Araki argues for kishōtenketsu, though clearly in a different manner to how we described it earlier. In fact, Araki seems to describe the Western storytelling tradition of a try-fail cycle, though couched in the terms of kishōtenketsu. My best explanation for this, though by no means airtight, is Araki is strongly inspired by Western storytelling. The book from which this excerpt is taken describes almost entirely popular Western films such as Pulp Fiction and Jurassic Park. I argue that Araki’s example of kishōtenketsu does not undermine our previous definition but is simply the result of his essentially Western creative education which he tries to define in terms of the kishōtenketsu structure which is so ingrained into his everyday life. In essence, his definition of story is one which uses traditional Western structure as its reference point.

“I want to share with you something I’ve learned. I’ll draw it on the blackboard behind me so you can follow more easily [draws a vertical line on the blackboard]. This is the G-I axis: good fortune — ill fortune. Death and terrible poverty, sickness down here — great prosperity, wonderful health up there. Your average state of affairs here in the middle [points to bottom, top, and middle of line respectively]. This is the B-E axis. B for beginning, E for entropy. Okay. Not every story has that very simple, very pretty shape that even a computer can understand [draws horizontal line extending from middle of G-I axis]. … after the war I went to the University of Chicago and studied anthropology, and eventually I took a masters degree in that field. … I started going to the library in search of reports about ethnographers, preachers, and explorers … I read these stories, one after another, collected from primitive people all over the world, and they were dead level, like the B-E axis here. So all right. Primitive people deserve to lose with their lousy stories. They really are backward. Look at the wonderful rise and fall of our stories. … [gives an example of Hamlet’s structure according to the aforementioned graph, showing that it is level] I have just demonstrated to you that Shakespeare was as poor a storyteller as any Arapaho. But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.” (Vonnegut, 24)

Vonnegut provides a method of tracking contrast along two axes, but he claims, in his typically opaque style, that the contrast itself is not the most important aspect of storytelling. Rather, truth-telling about human experience creates great story, the act of saying “So it goes.”

Bibliography

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