Heart of Writing lies in the Art of Storytelling…
We are all a treasure-house of stories, houseful of stories that are beautiful to dutiful to bad to sad to mad captured in our moments of life’s journey and incidentally get stored in our memories. We have so many of them, and many of us just don’t know what do with those stories seeded with our emotions and nurtured by our motions over years that keep piling in our cupboard.
They are locked.
They are sketchy.
They are not skeletons that come tumbling when we open the lock; they are sketches of our thoughts layered in those hidden shelves of the board.
How to creatively bring out those subtle stories inside us and compassionately share with the world outside?
The art of storytelling is not easy task and hence it is an art.
Like any art form this art also needs the “will and skill” to craft the story.
There is always that uncanny debate on the shorter version vs. longer version of the art of storytelling. The shorter versions of stories are the short stories and strangely, the short stories are in short supply. This has been the case for years and still it continues to be there, though in recent time there has been subtle change in the trend with shrinking attention span of readers. Technology is perhaps the culprit. It is taking away much of the quality time from our repository. We are drawn into the phenomena of quick consumption.
The faster the better…
The lesser the better…
There is a tussle between the short and the long. The short stories and the novel, though both tell stories, one does it in few thousand words and the other needs hundred thousands words get the story get its act in place. With the crumbling of physical place and conquest of virtual space, the dynamics are changing and changing so fast for us even to catch up. These facets of writing, the short stories have been given a secondary treatment as against the longer versions called as the novel.
There is a pride and prejudice in writing short stories.
Unfortunately, the prejudice has taken precedence over the pride.
There is discrimination and is not justified. If we go back to the roots of acclaimed literature and peep into the works of great writers from O Henry to Ernest Hemingway to Mark Twain to Anton Chekhov to Edgar Alan Poe to Alice Munro; it is their wonderful work on short stories that laid the foundation for building the longer version of their literary work.
The heart of art and literature resides very much in the craft of writing short stories and art of storytelling.
The heart of great stories lies in the body of mind inflicted with “agony and anger”.
Great Stories just cannot emerge out of vacuüm or thin air, it has to have a seeding and it needs to get nurtured with emotions and it needs to get the smell and the sense to raise above the rest to become the best. We all have certain traits that predisposes us towards certain passion in life. The work that we love to do and we enjoy doing it more and the more we do we refine our thoughts and we hone our skill, the thinking skill to the writing skill.
Writing is a Skill like any other skill we need to sharpen our saw to keep our skill relevant and useful. Writing short story is beautiful way to express ourselves and make our emotions get an outlet to come out of the cudgels of life’s heavy hammer that keeps hitting hard at us everyday on our sensitive senses.
There are technicalities that go in the structuring a short story and heart of the structure lies in the art of plotting and the craft of characterization.
Plotting is an action verb. There are series of events in the story, and these are discrete events that needn’t follow a sequence but they need to form a pattern. Short stories are so much about the plot as there is very little room left for setting and the expanding the characters as it calls for few of them.
The art lies in crafting the plot. The plot revolves around the conflict and the resolution. It has to be done in such short scenes that space for maneuvering is very much limited.
This very inherent limitation enhances the finesse of the “Art of Writing”.
There is this danger of quickly hopping from one scene to the next without giving the reader the smooth ride; the reader may feel the bump and the jerk. The reader can absorb one or max two in such a short ride but if we ignore and continue the bumpy ride we will force the reader to get rid of us and get off the ride. There is this delicate balance which we need to build between the “form and flow” of the short story and that comes with experience of writing and the exploration of reading. This reading goes so much hand in gloves with the writing that it is impossible to achieve excellence in writing without excelling in the habit of good reading. The more we read the more we understand and appreciate the finer nuances of writing and reading are not restricted to books on good writing but writing that have failed the litmus test of good writing.
One of the fundamental differentiator of good writing from the not so good writing larger hinges on the hold one has on “the language”.
All of us have lovely tales to tell, and the question comes down to the skill of writing, though the will to write makes a huge difference. If there is no will there is no way we can share our stories and “will is intangible” and “skill is tangible”. Initially, we all get caught in this “skill-will” conundrum and get pulled apart by the forces of will on one side and the forces of skill on the other side.
The spectrum of skills that governs our storytelling ability are reading skill, thinking skill, imagining skill, language skill and of course the writing skill. The will is about the passion we posses and the way we want our passion to push us beyond the boundaries and power us to break the glass ceiling and reach beyond the sky, sky is not the limit in storytelling, imagination is the limit and in writing and telling stories imagination is limitless.
The conventional body structure of the short stories is the beginning, the middle and the end. It is often said and it has been doggedly practiced by many great storytellers that the opening has to be power packed and it is where the storyteller catches the reader attention and instills that insect of curiosity that keep bugging the reader and then when as storyteller we have implanted that bug in the reader’s mind, the reader is part of our journey and wants to piggyback on our plot.
Here it becomes so sensitive.
Anything can go wrong, slight mistakes here and there can put the reader off-board, and then it becomes too difficult to get the reader back on ride. Sometimes we may have a weak link in the plot but if we have a good hold on the language we can protect the weak link and surf the rough ride of the wave. Many times we may miss the exact sequencing of the plot to grab the reader’s attention but good language can help the reader to try further inside the story. The character is what instantly connects with the reader and a well crafted characteristics of a character imprints in the mind of the reader, the reader is able to relate and this is exactly what we all as storytellers wants to do by telling a story through the “eyes and ears” of the real characters from whom we have derived the inspiration.
There is always a touch of our imagination.
Therein lays the eye for fashion by the designer though the fabric remains the same in the hands of all writers.
The craft gets the draft form the imagery and imagination.
The inspiration is from the nature and the way we nurture those inspiration over a time and then there is that stimulation that we get or a crisis that hit us hard and we are in deep pain and we have no means to assuage that pain.
We feel stuck. We feel handcuffed.
We feel strangulated. We feel asphyxiated.
We want to break free.
We want to beat the heat.
We want to cut the chase.
We want to escape the orbit.
We need that escape velocity. We need that fuel to fire.
We need the structure to capture our side story. We need the language to stitch the threads of the broken heart of our life.
We need the balm to calm us.
We need the arm not for arm-twisting but for turning a twist at the end. We need a quote in the beginning to question the reader so that the reader keeps searching for the answer till the end. Hence, the end is as much important as the start if not more, if we lift the expectation in the beginning and we are not able to keep up the momentum and sustaining till the end becomes the challenge, taking the challenge is good way to build the story but designing the end decides the fate of the story.
Short Stories are wonderful playground for writers to put their skills to true test and try their hands in perfectly honing their skills need to excel in the art of writing. It is never easy to confine the creative thoughts to a defined boundary.
Writing is about creativity and writing is about breaking those conventions and conventional boundaries.
It is about venturing into uncharted territories. It is about escaping the reality and while doing so we capture the real side of our life and society at large, writing is mirror reflection of the outside world inside us. This hypothesis appears complex, there is a massive tussle between the reality and the perception of the world around us and within us.
Writer’s role is to simplify those complexities through the art of storytelling.
Nihar Pradhan
Storyteller

Nihar, I like the way you have described the need to write a good story. I absolutely agree with you… ‘Storytelling is not an easy task.’ It calls for the natural flow, the excellence of language, the exuberance of emotions, the succinct style and the creative twist. Who cares for all these essentials in this fast-paced world of writing! Who would like to waste time over “sharpening the saw of skills” (love this expression) and delve deeper into the psyche of characters like those acclaimed writers of bygone era did.
In the modern era of mystery and horror stories, written in the garb of novels, devoid of any real plots, characterization has been sacrificed at the altar of creating imaginary fears and playing with emotions, tossing a few characters here and there and confusing the readers! Real and true stories, which appealed to the heart, are definitely missing.
A wonderful way to highlight what the readers are yearning for! Thanks for the pointers. Stay blessed and keep inspiring! 🙂
Yes, Balroop that’s precisely why I have gone back to reading those classics rather than getting mired in confusion reading today’s novel which you have so nicely described are creating imaginary fear and playing with our emotions…somehow the aspect of character building and making characters part of our real life is grossly missing.
Storytelling is such a vital aspect of writing and it is getting distorted in the grab of fast pace narration and in the disguise of time constraints we are consuming whatever coming our way and not able to get the taste as we are concerned about eating to feel our stomach rather enjoying the process of eating. The pace is important in writing and structuring is what makes it hold strong and long in the reader’s mind.
Language is such an important aspect of storytelling, slowly it is losing the essence and with the digital language invading our space we are trapped in the language conundrum and we have now managed to loss both the track and the plot. I have always liked the flow and simplicity of language you employ in your poetry and the choice of words just fabulous and you have always been a master of the language.
Hope the Texas storm is not as bad as predicted.
Have a lovely weekend.
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Thanks for such kind words for my poems Nihar, I am feeling on top of the world! I try to choose my words carefully and that is the beauty of this genre. Wish you a lovely weekend as well. 🙂
Thanks as always and I keep learning so many apt words from your poem and virtually you have been a wonderful English teacher to me…
take care!!!
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Ha ha! Say blessed! 🙂
Thanks…
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Nihar as you know storytelling is near and dear to my heart. I so agree with that slippery slope of finding the right balance between giving enough information and not letting the reader be bored.I also think different mediums don’t always work for the same story. On our blog, a story long er than 1000 words has to be pretty spectacular to have a reader sticking with every word. It is a fast paced click away world. It is forever a blance I continue to work on. Thank you for again having me reflect on this topic.
I agree Sue, storytelling has undergone a sea change with the advent of digital platform and with so much to do and so many things at our disposal, our attention and retention of attention has become the biggest casualty and we are on the go and we need to be very careful in crafting our stories and that too in a limited space and therein lies the true craft of storytelling…it has to be spectacular to hold onto the reader…
Still, “The Story of San Michelle” remains afresh in our minds those who have read it even after a century later when it was written 1920s. Stories shall always be the most powerful form to connect and share our thoughts.
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We who write, always like to tell a story within our words.. They do not need to be fiction, but we need a starting point a middle and an ending.. 🙂
Love the authors you mentioned Nihar..
I was taught when I did public speaking to have these three qualities in subject matter.. And to round off the talk by bringing it back around to the beginning..
I love your own flow my friend.. the words you use to weave your story, that hold us captivated in your words to go onto read the next paragraph..
And I have also tried my hand at writing short stories.. They are part of who we are.. Even our ancestors would pass down stories, word of mouth.. The Native American Indians, the Aboriginals of Australia, all word of mouth.. Stories just the same.. Told so that we remember..
And like any good Book well written, we remember the story and the plot.. 🙂
A great read my friend 🙂
Sue <3
All of us have so many stories within us and there are layers and layers within such plethora of stories that keep coming when sit down to reflect and not get deflected in our daily distraction…
Stories are there in the real world and all around us and it is for us to see it in it’s right perspective and build on the clues that we get as we go along the our observations. I agree they needn’t be fictional in nature just that we need to give a different twist and turn, and sometime do the sugar coating in order to make it more palatable to the readers.
Regarding public speaking and your words are nugget of brilliant wisdom and we just have to practise and practise, and than follow it religiously. All your writings are wonderful manifestation of such beautiful and captivating stories…I thoroughly enjoy journeying through your tightly knitted plots and sub-plots, and those live character that keeps coming at us with such pleasant surprises.
I was going through the various old authors of short story writing that are termed as classics; and the name and the list was unending just to add a few more; Charles Bukowski to Ray Bradbury to Anton Chekhov to James Joyce, and each has its own unique style that is absorbing and inspiring…
Once again thank you dear Sue for finding such quality time and making this deliberation so much interesting and there is so much to learn during this brilliant exchange of thoughts.
Take care!!!
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