Where Writers Learn

If you have read a lot of writing manuals, you will undoubtedly have found instruction in how to create a plot. You may have come to the conclusion that plot and story are the same thing. But they are not.

The stories told in oral cultures do not have plot as we moderns are likely to understand the term. In Orality and Literacy, Professor Walter Ong observes that highly structured plots of the kind we are used to reading can only be created through the use of writing. We are usually taught that plot structures— climactic and linear— are the only way to organize story materials. But plot came into being only with writing. It was first discussed (in writing, of course!) by Aristotle, not in reference to oral storytelling, but in reference to Greek drama, which was composed in writing. Read More 

As we’ve seen, the world of story exists outside of real time; that may be one of the key sources of its power. Any time we hear or read a story— if the enchantment is strong enough— we may leave the realm of ordinary life, where the clock ticks on and a hour passes unnoticed; we may enter the story-world, where a hundred years pass between the moment Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on the spindle and the moment when she is awakened by the prince’s kiss, or where in an instant a twig grows into a tree.  Read More