storytellers and writers
Patricia Rice
work done in the process, so I figured I'd fall for this one.
Bernadette writes: <<So, folks: What is a storyteller? What is a writer?
Is there a
difference? If so, what is the difference? How is it manifested? etc and
so forth.>>
Writers tend to throw these terms around a lot, although I've never tried to
define the difference. I think of myself as a storyteller simply because
it's the telling of stories that I enjoy, not particularly the play of words
against words. I try to use the right word to get my point across, because
words can be tricky and say things we don't see right away, but I don't spend
much time painting beautiful pictures and images with those words. I say
what it takes and go on. I think of Kinsale as a "writer." Yes, she tells a
story, but she does it with graphic images she creates out of sounds and
letters and symbols and too many things for us to grasp in one reading.
Perhaps it's the difference between snapshot photography and an oil artist?
Both pictures may tell a story, but one is an actual scene while the other is
interpretive?
Patricia Rice
Leïla
> Writers tend to throw these terms around a lot, although I've
> never tried to
> define the difference. I think of myself as a storyteller simply because
> it's the telling of stories that I enjoy, not particularly the
> play of words
> against words. I try to use the right word to get my point
> across, because
> words can be tricky and say things we don't see right away, but I
> don't spend
> much time painting beautiful pictures and images with those words.
I'm not sure which is which. However, a storyteller who uses words well can
paint for me mental pictures that make the story memorable. It's not a
science. It's an art. It's painting with words. The right turn of phrase
can evoke scents, moods, sounds, tastes and pictures amazingly. I don't
think calling this artist a writer is sufficient. A writer can be someone
who writes copy for a newspaper. The words may be precise. The headlines
concise. But the overall product is rarely worth remembering.
A storyteller, on the other hand, does not just tell stories. A storyteller
makes that story alive for me. And whatever the medium, the storyteller is
the artist. This art form is not just wit, or grammar, or punctuation, or
even a great vocabulary.
And the storyteller is not just someone with a clever plot. Otherwise, I'd
read comic books. That clever plot must be accompanied by the mastery of
language necessary to paint these pictures for me.
Cuevas (Ivory) and Kinsale were mentioned (as always ;-) . Loretta Chase is
another one that can make a poignant scene leap off the page. By magic.
And I remember a discussion long ago, where Bernadette tried to analyze the
magic... I couldn't begin to start....
Happy reading,
L.