ENGLISH ARTICLE
Hallo and welcome to this new lesson from Scrittissimo: today I want to explain what is a Story, an extremely important technical term but whose meaning is too often misunderstood and trivialized.
But before starting this lesson there’s something I want to tell you. This article is the translation in English language of another article written by myself in Italian and titled: “Cosa è una Storia“.
So I do apologize in advance for any translation error, for any English grammar error and for any syntax error.
So, let’s go forward with this lesson! 🙂
What is a Story
Look at this images:
It clearly explains a fundamental concept: that is, the Story is all that appens between the point where everything originates – the Initial Balance – and the point where everything ends – the Final Balance.
But that’s not all: the time range between the Initial Balance and the Final Balance coincides in facts and in logic with the complete development of Three Acts Structure!
So, to say it in simple words, we talk about Story when the facts make a clear and specific evolution that goes from the Initial Balance to the Final Balance, passing through the three perfect technical times: Start, Development and Conclusion.
This is the explanation of what the word Story really means.
However, I want to add another important detail.
As you have certainly noticed, not all stories are told from the Initial Balance to the Final Balance! In other words, the Narrator is not always willing to explain to the Reader the whole Story!
It may happen that – for the purposes of Narration – he/she chooses any point on the hypothetical temporal line that goes from the Initial balance to the Final Balance, and – from there – begins to narrate the facts!
Indeed, he/she may even exclude certain parts or may present the Story in a non-chronological order of the facts!
However, what I want to emphasize is that whatever the Narrator chooses, this does not affect the complete construction of the Story!
If you allow your Narrator to present the facts of the Story in an incomplete or non-chronological way, you – the Writer – will have to write your Story completely, from the Initial Balance until the Final Balance, possibly passing through a comfortable Three Acts Structure!
Only after doing this, you’ll be free to allow your Narrator to modify the order of events, to exclude a portion of them, or to start Narrative from a different point than the Initial Balance!
Now is established – definitively – what is a Story and which is the correct distinction between the Writer’s tasks and the Narrator’s tasks.
If you want to know more about the Three Acts Structure, I have published an interesting article in Italian on Scrittissimo and titled Come usare la Struttura in Tre Atti.
That’s all for today.
See you soon on the next lesson on Scrittissimo.
Bye Bye
Simona
Author & Admin of SCRITTISSIMO: ideas, techniques and tips to write a Novel, a Tale, a Story.