A piece of your heart for mine*
LJ Idol Week 12: My Favorite Story
In school we are taught how to write a story. We build characters that grow through the telling and we add plot to move the everything along. The best stories have both, and a good writer knows how to implement them so the plot pushes the characters and the characters push back on the plot.
It may be cliché, but life is also made up of stories. We are the characters that grow through each plot-driven chapter. Even an uninteresting life has some sort of plot and every plot makes the characters grow. I've never been great at writing stories, and my favorite story is devoid of the proper structure.
It was summer in Ireland and the Husband and I had spent days exploring the beautiful country. We stopped for the night in the city of Sligo on our way further north to see the Giant's Causeway. We finally found a place to eat around 9:00pm, a pizza joint with surprisingly good pizza. We sat on round, hard stools alone in the restaurant eating pizza, listening to 80s music, and talking.
I admit, structurally it's a horrible story. Any self-respecting English teacher would give it a failing grade. Every publishing house would turn it away unless the pizza turned around and ate us or someone admitted infidelity with a garden gnome. I don't think that is the point. Stories need more than plot and character development. They need a purpose, but sometimes that purpose is just to make ourselves feel warm and fluffy inside. Sometimes a good story is just a simple moment where nothing really happens. It's not a story for everyone, just something special for one person. It's my story and sometimes that's all that it needs to be.
* "A Different Story" by Deadeye Dick
In school we are taught how to write a story. We build characters that grow through the telling and we add plot to move the everything along. The best stories have both, and a good writer knows how to implement them so the plot pushes the characters and the characters push back on the plot.
It may be cliché, but life is also made up of stories. We are the characters that grow through each plot-driven chapter. Even an uninteresting life has some sort of plot and every plot makes the characters grow. I've never been great at writing stories, and my favorite story is devoid of the proper structure.
It was summer in Ireland and the Husband and I had spent days exploring the beautiful country. We stopped for the night in the city of Sligo on our way further north to see the Giant's Causeway. We finally found a place to eat around 9:00pm, a pizza joint with surprisingly good pizza. We sat on round, hard stools alone in the restaurant eating pizza, listening to 80s music, and talking.
I admit, structurally it's a horrible story. Any self-respecting English teacher would give it a failing grade. Every publishing house would turn it away unless the pizza turned around and ate us or someone admitted infidelity with a garden gnome. I don't think that is the point. Stories need more than plot and character development. They need a purpose, but sometimes that purpose is just to make ourselves feel warm and fluffy inside. Sometimes a good story is just a simple moment where nothing really happens. It's not a story for everyone, just something special for one person. It's my story and sometimes that's all that it needs to be.
* "A Different Story" by Deadeye Dick