According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, a story is an "account of some happening". I like to whittle down the definition even more though: a story is an event. The definition may sound off. Popularly, people define stories as having a beginning, middle, and end. But that says what a story has, not what a story is. Besides, how long does the middle need to be for it to be a story? Consider this: time has infinite points. We can go down to milliseconds, nanoseconds, even further in measuring time. There's no end to the precision of time. Which means, that between any two points of time, there is a middle. Unless we define the beginning and ending as being spreads of time and meeting exactly together; if you can think of an example where that works and you think it's a story, let me know. A story covers a specific thing- a specific happening. It may be how Bob and Jill fell in love, how Cumference became Sir Cumference of the Round Table, or how a superhero saved the universe. Again, it's an event. I get a lot more into how this all works in this post, but it's beyond 101 so you may want to go through some other posts first. To have a happening, time needs to be passing. "Bob stood" isn't a story; "Bob walked" could be argued as a story because we can see an action that is following through- there is a "happening". Yes, it's a lame story, but it fulfills the requirements. Paintings can tell stories because we can see that there is a happening; can can interpret around the moment of time motion and events. So when I discuss "story forms", I mean a way you can recount a happening. Examples of story forms (in no favoring order): Novels Movies/TV Shows Graphic Novels/Manga Paintings Photographs Songs Music Poetry Videogames Oratories Plays Musicals Operas Audiobooks Board Games Picture Books Animated Movies/Cartoons Also, I want to address why I sometimes capitalize "Story Forms" and other times don't. When I capitalize, I'm referring to the theories for defining story forms. When I don't, I'm simply referring to "a way you can recount a happening". If you appreciated this post, please like and share! If you'd like to read more, check out the fundamentals of story forms, or how to define novels, movies, paintings, videogames, or graphic novels for starts!
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