Chapter 2 - What is a Story?

Richard Cohen, author of Writer's Mind © 1995, defines a story as containing five elements:

1. We care about the character.
   
2. Something happens to him or her.
   
3. The thing that happens is significant; it makes a different in the character’s life.
   
4. The thing that happens is not a single event but a sequence.
   
5. The sequence is narrated; it is recreated by a writer.

He states that a story helps us see life’s meaning and form and that the narrative is the machine that manufactures meaning and form. The narrative components also have to fit together; the events that occur, the decisions the writer makes, have to appear natural and real to the reader. Also, a good story should have elements of surprise. There should be something in the story that changes the reader.

While reading the selection of books for this chapter, I’ll focus on how well each contains the five components of a story, what kinds of decisions the writers make throughout and whether they appear natural and real, and whether the stories contain elements of surprise--do they change me somehow?

The bookshelf for this chapter is:

• Winter's Tales by Isak Dinesen
  
• Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen
  
• Woman Who Talked to Herself by A. L. Barker
  
• Metamorphosis by Ovid (translated by Rolfe Humphries, 1955)
  
• Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso (translated by Tim Parks, 1993)
  
• Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino (translated by George Martin, 1980)
  
• Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, translated by Edward William Lane