Critical Thinking: Authors and Storytellers

It’s actually unfair to compare the Twilight series to Harry Potter. Partially, because they’re two different genres with two different standards. Twilight is YA-super natural-romance. Harry Potter is…Harry Potter.

Another reason is that Stephanie Meyer, herself, claims no equality. In an interview, she readily stated that JK Rowling is an amazing author, while she is a storyteller and doesn’t know if she’ll ever be anything else.

What’s the difference? It’s one of those things you know in your gut but can only put into words if you’re an author and actually know how to use words. Did you know a lot of Native American legends don’t have a resolution? It’s like an elder’s sitting at the fire, telling stories because it’s getting dark and no one has a TV, and he just keeps talking. Every night it’s a little different. But every night, he just talks until people get up and go to bed. I have a friend who writes like that. She gets an idea and writes chapter one and then chapter two and knows that when she hits about 90,000 words, she needs to have the plot sewn up. She’s both mesmerized and horrified with my habit of plotting.

I think that storytellers probably work this way, in general. But I don’t think my friend can strictly be called a storyteller. Her writing is too precise. Storytellers don’t search for the perfect, exact word too much. They don’t write one beautiful sentence and show it around like a work of art. They don’t read “Spunk and Bite.”

But, at the same time, storytellers’ books flow. One word skips to the next. One sentence to another. There are no jarring phrases to pull you out of the story. You can see the house or the forest. You can hear the characters’ voices in your head. Partially because more words are used on environment and character than plot. But partially because the writing’s not pretentious.

Eugene Peterson’s talking about poetry, here, but I think it fits. “Poetry is not the language of objective explanation but the language of imagination. It makes an image of reality in such a way as to invite our participation in it. We do not have more information after we read a poem, we have more experience.”

Writers care about the words. They make sure their plot is tight and their commas are appropriately used. Words don’t generally fly from their fingertips to the keyboard like rain from the clouds. They have to think too much to get it right.

The difference is generally apparent to the reader. You have to work through a book written by an author. You have to imagine the setting and what the characters look like. In the end, hopefully you’re rewarded with the knowledge you’ve accomplished something, and maybe even learned something. Storytellers write books you take into the bath and keep flipping pages until it’s four hours later, your toes are pruney, and the water’s cold.

(Of course, this is relative to the familiarity you have in the story’s setting and elements. If you’re already conversant in the technical background the author is building on, you can get more wrapped up in the story than someone who is learning as they read. Until, of course, the author gets it wrong. See: Maj. Tom watching “Crimson Tide.”)

Back to emotional arousal and memory. I think (this coming from an uneducated amateur) that the best way to set up an arousing scene that your readers will remember, is to write like a storyteller. Smooth prose will draw your reader in, keep their attention, drown out the barking dog and the kid knocking on the bathroom door. The reader will already empathize with the character when the emotionally-charged scene comes in. (Remember, this isn’t necessarily touchy-feely emotion; anger, fear, suspense, etc., count too.)

And, by “smooth,” I guess I mean “appropriate.” An action scene isn’t going to be smooth per se; it’s going to have short, choppy sentences. But the writing’s going to set the tone in an aural, organic way—not by using descriptive words that super-accurately represent the thought and impress the reader with the cleverness of the author.

It helps to have a fairly simple plot, as well. It’s hard to get lost in a book so complicated you have to remember who’s where and what’s when. At least, the first four times you read it.

Does that mean books written by storytellers are “better” than those written by authors? Are simple plots and flowing prose superior to challenging concepts? Heck no! I think they’re just more conducive to the emotional arousal that promotes memory.

If you’re like me, you read books several times. I think I return to storyteller books for a different reason than writer books, though. For storyteller books, it’s to relive that emotional response. Another characteristic of emotional arousal is that it narrows the attention range. So, I don’t hear the barking dog, but I don’t remember what happened before and after the one exciting scene, either. The problem with that is that it eventually puts me into a literary diabetic malaise. I come to realize the book has little redeeming value beyond that emotional indulgence.

Author-written books, though, I read again because I didn’t understand them the first time. If the concept and characters were intriguing enough, I’ll want to go back and try to figure out what they were doing. The more I read it, the more involved I get at a deeper level. And the more I can geek out about the whole thing without being embarrassed. (Have you seen the website My Life Is Twilight? Oy, vey!) And, being less emotionally distracted, the more I can read them without getting tired of them—partially because I don’t remember them that well. Partially because there are fewer sharply-peaking arousing scenes, and I can see the story as a whole better.

I think I plot like a writer, but write like a storyteller. I’m not clever enough to come up with extraordinary metaphors and sparkling narrative. But the engineer in me wants all the plot lines neatly tied together with a big bow. The friend I mentioned above is opposite—she writes simpler plots with amazing prose. I don’t know that one way is more noble than another. It probably just depends on what you want to do, what method fits your story and genre the best, and what reader you’re trying to attract.

One advantage to being an author over a storyteller—if you’re a storyteller and you realize your scenes are out of order and need to be rearranged, God have mercy on your soul! Part of the reason a storyteller’s narrative flows for the reader is because it flowed for the author. But moving one scene to another location (to break up POVs or reflect the timeline more accurately) can have a violent effect on the mood. Authors, who write for the plot and not the ambiance, can rearrange with less assault on the prose—cus it was always about the plot, anyway.

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Kersley Fitzgerald is an accidental author--writer--whatever--who is addicted to writing books that a handful of friends clamor for, but not books that editors would actually want. Because that would be bad.