The Art of Storytelling

Writing stories is one of civilization’s most cherished art forms. It is also one of its oldest, exceeded perhaps only by storytelling, its venerable ancestor. Whatever time or place, whether by word, symbol or pictograph, the writer has succeeded only by embracing the audience and transporting them to another place or time or a different sense of life with the certainty of an artist and the authenticity of an imagination shaped by experience.

Readers have never demanded less. The writer’s audience has always recognized what they like, and their acceptance dictates what gets published and which authors prosper. The personal prejudices of critics and scholars are but mere footnotes to the innate sense of readers indicating the contours of the marketplace and the parameters of ultimate acceptance, or rejection, of every writer.

From this ever-evolving process of selection have emerged the rules of writing popular fiction, which working writers either learn and follow or ignore and perish.

Today, with the advent of self-publishing, more and more authors now have the chance of getting their stories read. And, for book lovers and readers around the world, this is a very good thing as books are inevitably a ticket to adventure and new worlds, a means of escape from the mundane and a way to cultivate one’s own imagination.

In celebration of National Read a Book Day, (Sunday, September, 2015), in upcoming blogs we will discuss the art of storytelling, the benefits of reading and the hallmarks of a good story.