We all know the stories we love and the stories we don’t. You might not always be able to pinpoint why, but as a reader, you know when a story captures your heart and when it falls flat, when it leaves you wanting more, and when it leaves you wanting better.

Countless articles and books claim to teach the art of great storytelling. The craft, the practice, the process, the ideation- every aspect of writing has been discussed and dissected, condensed into formulas, plot structures, character templates and checklists, all aimed at helping authors like you and me to take the mess of ideas inside our heads and put them on paper in a way that makes sense. In a way our audience will be expecting. Whatever story you’re trying to tell, you will find literature to teach you how to do it well.

But amongst this plethora of writing advice, whether you’re saving the cat or writing what you know, an important question seems to have fallen through the cracks.

What exactly is it that makes a story a story?

If you remove personal taste from the equation and stop thinking about stories as good or bad, at its heart, what is a story? Who gets to decide? Why does that distinction matter? And what needs to be present for a story to be called a story?

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A checklist written for us

I recently read an article about overused tropes in short fiction. A witty list of clichéd storylines, such as the mid-life crisis affair or the midwestern family falling apart on holiday, that cause a lot of readers to roll thier eyes when scanning the blurbs of new releases. Each theme mentioned had the potential to be a great story; a good writer can take anything and make it into compelling fiction, but without care or skill, or the desire to write something new, I agree that these clichés can too easily become tropes— a weak crutch for the modern genre.

But one thing that stood out for me about this piece was the number of people in the comments arguing, in very strict terms, what did and did not constitute a story.

There was a slew of irate voices, as there tends to be on the internet, that claimed for a story to be a “Story”, it needed set-up, conflict, and resolution. It required a three-act structure, protagonists and antagonists, dialogue tags and prose. The piece needed to contain a whole checklist of recognizable elements, without which it wasn’t able to hold the lofty title of a Story. The work could instead be relegated to nothing more than a scene, a character study, a vignette, or a snippet. An interesting collection of words, but not, according to the outspoken internet, a “Story”.

People argued that they disliked stories that claimed to be stories when they were not, as if the title of Story was something to be earned, something that could only be used for pieces of prose written in the proper way. The way they thought stories needed to be written. Like a writing assignment at school, their stories needed to contain certain predetermined elements, and if they didn’t- well, I’m sorry little Jimmy, but you failed the test. Go home and write it again.

And while I agree that I’ve read many pieces of prose that left me feeling unsatisfied, left me wondering if the writer forgot something, if I missed the point of their work, or if they ever had a point to being with- I would never claim these pieces were not stories. They might not have been good stories; they were obviously missing something, falling short of connecting with me as a reader, or telling me whatever it was the writer wanted to tell me, but they were still stories. Good or bad. Clichéd or not.

Stories are more than the sum of their parts. Three-act structures, conflict resolution, character development: these are all common elements that make up a good story, and can be used as building blocks when trying to tell the story you want to tell, but the heart of storytelling is so much more than that.

The literal definition of a story is “an account of incidents or events, either imaginary or real, often told for entertainment”, but even that definition is too narrow to encompass all that storytelling is. Stories are more than just a recollection of events. Stories can be about feelings or thoughts, about ideas or observations. They can use real events to fabricate a narrative and imaginary events to show us something real. And I am sure we can all recall a story that was more than simply entertainment.

To properly define what it is that makes a story a “Story”, we need to look at the fundamental purpose of storytelling. How does a novel differ from a statement, an essay, a question or a conversation? What is the point of stories? Why do we tell them? And what do we risk by having such strict, exclusionary ideas about what a Story needs to be?

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The origins of story

Humans were telling stories long before written language was created to record them. Cave paintings, hieroglyphics, ancient Greek pottery; as human language developed, so did the ways we recorded our history and the ways we shared it with others. Oral storytelling has been alive for centuries, a practice later developed and interwoven with theater and performance, but existing long before Shakespeare popularized his tragedies or Homer was writing his epics. Storytelling does not need written language to exist. It doesn’t need perfect literary structure or a checklist of recognizable elements. All it needs is two people- a creator and a listener, and the intent for one to pass an experience on to the other. The rest is simply style.

The way we see stories today is influenced heavily by these traditional storytellers. The ancient literary greats that still grace our bookshelves, telling us of a time we barely recognize in languages we struggle to translate. And while these authors have shown us many tried and tested ways of writing lasting, impactful tales, their techniques and structures are not what defines a story.

Any creative writing course will teach you the importance of character, setting, theme, and structure. And while these things are integral elements to understand as a writer, they are not absolute. A story does not need these things to function. They are advisable, and it can be tough to tell a good story without them, but that doesn’t make it impossible.

The protagonist and antagonist relationship, Freytag’s Pyramid or the Fichtean Curve, these are techniques that have been condensed from thousands of tales that have come before. We understand what it takes to make a memorable story by dissecting the stories that have endured, the historical tales that have outlasted the writers that created them. These structures have become a staple for how we see narrative fiction today. We can take them apart, learn how they are stitched together, and break them down into a well-used formula we can try to emulate. But that doesn’t mean a story needs these things to be classified as a story.

The tools used to craft do not define the end result. A story is not a story simply because it contains character development and conflict resolution, and similarly, a story without these elements is not excluded from being called a story.

Often, if a story doesn’t include these common components, it falls flat. It leaves the reader feeling unresolved, cheated. You feel like you wasted your time, like the writer lost their train of thought and didn’t finish what they set out to do. A lack of resolution may stop the piece from being good, but it doesn’t stop it from being a story. Stories can be good, and they can be bad. They can be a collection of clichéd tropes or a beautifully crafted tale.

What they are not is simply a sum of their parts.

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A collaborative process

Dazed and Confused, the 1993 movie starring Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and a host of other young stars who would grace our screens in the early 2000s, is a brilliant example of a story that lacks something most would consider vital to storytelling: a plot.

Dazed is a feel-good, romanticized look at a seventies teenage summer. It has a long list of main characters who interact with each other in various settings, but by the end of the movie, nothing has changed. Nothing has happened. There’s no resolution, no final act reveal. There are moments of conflict, but there’s no crescendo and decrescendo, no rising tension or falling action. There is no point you can pick out and say, “Aha, that’s what this movie is about”. Instead, it’s a snapshot of a time, told through a series of scenes, a series of interactions, a series of character studies, if you will. No plot, no drama, no catalyst; it just is.

That doesn’t stop it being a story.

Through its lack of discernible plot, it becomes a story of teenage wistfulness. A tale of a time stood still. The last day of school leading into a slow summer, when you have all your life ahead of you, all your mistakes still to make. Its slow pacing is intentional, reminiscent, allowing the viewer to bring their own history to the story, their own memories. The story is created not by the script, the actors or the director, but by the viewer recalling their own childhood, their own lazy summers where nothing seemed to matter, their own high school friends and the experiences they shared.

This movie reminds us of one of the fundamental aspects of storytelling: that it’s a collaborative process. The writer may start with an intent, have a point they’re trying to make, or an emotion they’re trying to evoke, but the final impact of a story comes as much from the writer as it does from the reader.

Part of what makes a story a story is what we take away from it, how it speaks to the reader. A reader can see things that a writer never intended. Read between the lines, between the words, between the structures and building blocks to something deeper. A story can speak to different people in different ways, depending on their own experiences and how they see the world, or when and where they are in their life when they read it. A story can change from one reading to the next as our lives change around us, as we live and as we grow. A story is not a thing stuck in time, but rather changing, something that will live and breathe on its own long after the writer believes it to be finished.

And without an audience, there is no storyteller. One can only tell a story if there is someone to tell the story to, even if that audience is you. The writer is only one part of the storytelling process— an integral player but not the only player. And much like Dazed and Confused, what the reader brings to the table can be what makes the story, the writer providing a catalyst for the reader to experience their own memories, their own feelings.

What is art if not a catalyst for thought? What is story if not a bridge connecting one person to another?

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The secret of intent

So let’s go back to our predetermined checklist of what makes a story a story; our high school writing assignment to include one hero, one villain, and an exciting scene between the two, and throw it out the window.

Modern tastes may advise the best way to go about writing a story, might help us present our ideas in a way the audience expects, but the collective opinion of the best way to write does not define the only way to write.

Stories are not defined by the systems used to create them.

A story can be 6 words.

A story can be no words.

I remember a story I was once told while tending bar at university. It was a story of space exploration, a tale of strained relationships and a fear of the unknown, homesickness for a life left behind and a journey of self-discovery and self-doubt. It was told over 45 minutes via a series of projected images set to reverberating guitars and crashing drums. There were no words. No lyrics. No character development or dialogue. It was just music and lights, and I still remember it to this day, more than ten years later.

The realm of story exists far beyond the confines of the written word, beyond the confines of what fits onto a page or a screen, or between the well-worn pages of your favorite book. Stories are often told in the form of prose, but that is not their only medium. A story can be a one-sided conversation overheard in a coffee shop. A story can be a text chain or the contents of a handbag. An email inbox or an obituary. A story can be visual. Musical. Art. Dance. Fashion can be story. Food can be story. Even a life can be a story.

I am not claiming that everything is a story- the user manual for my new blender is not a story. But while everything is obviously not a story, everything can be used to tell a story, in the hands of someone with a story to tell.

You could tell a story in the form of a medical chart; A cold, clinical tale of a life’s experiences condensed to medical terminology and test results. You could tell a story as a credit card statement; A list of transactions that make up a day, a life, a series of spiraling decisions and racking debt. You could tell a story as a redacted government document, a series of un-played voicemail messages. I once told a story in the form of a Google search history.

Format does not define a story.

Structure does not define a story.

What defines a story is intent.

A story is something created with the intent to share an experience with another. It can be created by one or by many, in one sitting or over years. It can be painstakingly edited or improvised on the fly. A story can be anything you want it to be, as long as it is created with intent. To put it bluntly, in a way I am sure will make me sound like a fool: a story is anything created with the intent to tell a story.

Stories make us feel something. They can be used to share knowledge across generations, teach us of our ancestors, or tell us of lives once lived and mistakes once made. They can spark creativity or conversation. Can teach children not to be scared of the dark or remind adults of the dark they used to fear. Stories can connect and they can divide. They can spread misinformation and propaganda, or open minds to the lives outside your own. They can be used to oppress and silence, or speak out and resist. They can shed light on the past or be used to whitewash over it.

Stories can have many facets, many layers of intent hidden between the words. But in all of them, every single story told in every medium possible, is an intent to share an experience, share a story, with another.

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Define but don’t restrict

So if intent is all you need to make a story, where do you draw the line? Is a poem a story? Is a song a story? And though this opinion might be divisive, when has that ever stopped me before?…

Yes! Poetry is a medium for storytelling. Music is a medium for storytelling. As is prose, or paint, or music, or mime. All art is storytelling. All art is created with the intent to share an experience with another, to show something, or tell something, or make someone feel something. The only difference is medium.

Many of us choose to tell our stories in the form of written language, splitting our works into the boxed definitions of flash fiction, short stories, novellas and novels, but the categories we use to define our work to others shouldn’t restrict how you choose to create. How you think you’re allowed to write.

Who says a novel can’t include images? Who says a short story can’t have an accompanying soundtrack? Who says you can’t tell a story through a series of dice rolls and card draws, letting the reader create the narrative as they go, letting them uncover your words in a way that makes sense to them? There are incredible creators pushing the boundaries of storytelling through gaming, who are taking the idea of storytelling as a collaborative process to its extreme, using the structures and mechanics of gaming as storytelling medium, and redefining not only the world of table-top gaming but also the purpose of gaming as a genre.

Spenser Starke, Grant Howitt, Tim Hutchins, Midst, Matthew Mercer: These creators see story as so much more than words on a page. So much more than a simple beginning, middle, and end. Story is an experience. It’s a connection. You may watch it, read it, play it, or be told it, but whatever the medium, the story remains.

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Listen to the Jazz

So what do we risk by having such strict rules about what a story is? And how does the idea of what a story needs to be affect the work we create? The work we let ourselves create?

I believe the abundance of overused tropes and clichéd plot devices in modern fiction comes from people thinking there is only one way to tell a story. That a story needs to fit into a structured little box, with a beginning, middle, and an end, and something interesting happening in between. The idea that there are only X number of plots to choose from reinforces this notion, that everything unique has already been written, and we are simply repackaging and rewording a product that already exists.

This idea can box us in, put walls around our creativity that do not need to be there. We confine ourselves to these structures and formats because popular opinion states these are the only ways it can be done. Writing is an art form, and like every art form, it changes and innovates over time as new artists push back against the boundaries set by generations before. Expressionism. Jazz. These movements would never exist if artists simply conformed to popular opinion about how their work should be. If they followed the checklists written by the creators that came before them. And writing is no exception.

We can, of course, learn a great deal about writing from reading the works of others, from seeing how they did it, and imitating their techniques in our own writing. And I am not arguing against character development, plot, structure, and conflict as excellent devices to include in your work. But we need to stop thinking of stories as things bound by the tools we use to create them. Those tools may be handy, they may be very helpful when staring at a blank screen and wondering how to begin, but they are not required in order to tell a story.

There are no rules as to what defines a story. There is no recipe to follow or “must include” checklist. There are recommended best practices, and things that can make your story better or worse, but they’re only suggestions. To be taken on board or ignored as you see fit. The end result is what matters, the intent is what matters, not how you get there, and if a story connects with someone, makes them feel something, then it’s a story, no matter what your creative writing textbook says.

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I can guarantee there will be purists that disagree with me on this. That will continue to argue that a story needs A, B, and C to be classified as a story. And for those people, that may well be true.

But for me, I love the wacky and the weird. The stories that push the boundaries of narrative, and aren’t afraid to proudly sit in the category of “Other”. The undefinable, the unexplainable. The tales that leave you questioning what really makes a story, and how much one can take away before a story stops doing the thing it set out to do. The stories that ask you to roll a dice or draw a card, and the ones you don’t even realize are stories until they’re over.

So go forth and tell your story in the way it needs to be told. In the way you want to tell it. This could be first-person POV or third-person omniscient. Flash fiction, poetry, or a series of novellas. But this could also be a conversation, a singular scene, a list of observations, or a complex narrative. You could have one character or no characters. Three acts or many. Put your plot front and center, or make the reader work to find the meaning beneath your words.

Let your story become whatever it needs to become. Let it show you what it needs to be to exist in the world. What it needs to find its feet, to breathe, to step out on its own and do the thing you wanted it to do.

And let other people worry about classifying what it is when you’re done.

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