Why We Write

James Stuart: Why Stories Matter

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Colorado Writer, James Stuart, shares with the Almagre community the importance of stories…

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The greatest storyteller I ever knew probably hasn’t written anything longer than a personal check since high school. He was a farrier from Wyoming, and even at fifteen years old, I was a couple inches taller than him. But that didn’t give me any sense of scale in his presence. He could begin telling a story at lunch, tell three more over the course of an afternoon, and wrap them all up in an intricate bow just in time for dinner. He moved effortlessly between memory, folktale, pop culture, and dirty jokes, taking with him what he liked as he went and leaving the rest on the vine. Sometimes, you found yourself a character in his stories – a small part in a grand narrative you had already lived but looked forward to hearing told anyway. More times than not, that made you a punchline. But such was his skill, you enjoyed it nonetheless.

Through my work, I have been fortunate to know a number of great writers. Some among us are just naturally gifted at turning letters and punctuation into something beautiful. I’ve swapped notes with journalists, essayists, authors, poets, and screen writers. But in spite of their skill and success, none have ever matched the raw talent of that horseshoer I met when I was young. The greatest writers among us are also the best storytellers; the reverse doesn’t exactly hold true. That is the magic of storytelling in my eyes.

Storytelling may well be our most ancient tradition, crawling into existence from the primordial soup of early communication around the same time humans began to observe the world beyond food, water, and shelter. From its earliest days, it has not been confined by any medium.  It was paint on cave walls. It was music from carved bones and strung sinew. It was mythology, parable, and fable. On cold nights, it was traded around fires, providing an additional layer of protection from a world that remained largely mysterious. It was filled with heroes, monsters, tricksters, and sirens – many of whom live on with different names today. Animals often took on human qualities to teach or to amuse. Eventually, it would be written down, printed, recorded, filmed, digitized, and monetized. But the key ingredients and basic structure have not changed over the millennia, allowing storytelling to transcend cultures, wars, famine, plague, technology, and every other obstacle in its way. It connects us with our past, while preparing new generations for the future.

Storytelling will remain relevant because it is a direct response to basic needs. The need to be understood. The need to be entertained. The need to preserve knowledge. The need to be remembered. These necessities are not only timeless, they are fundamentally human.

As such, there will always be another story to tell.

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James Suart received his Bachelors Degree in English from Colorado State University in 2011. He has dedicated himself to writing fiction that is fresh, thought provoking, and occasionally profane. His influences are extremely diverse, running the gamut from Ernest Hemingway and Ray Bradbury to Zadie Smith and Jhumpa Lahari. He is also the founder of the webpage THE FORGE, a site dedicated to very brief short stories.

Again, Please. Tell Me Your Story

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As fall turns to winter, I’d like to reconsider a particular reaction.AR_Fall Harvest

We have all been in the room before. Someone else is there…it might be one person, or two, or a crowd. A friend or family member begins a story. We’ve heard it already…many times.

But we let them go on out of politeness. (Is this person okay? Is he well? Does he not remember telling this story last Thanksgiving?)

This got me thinking about the importance of telling the same story again and again. First, it comes from a place of acknowledgement — I grow older, responsibilities increase, the kids acquire new demands; demands on my time, my attention, my bank account, my emotional and spiritual reservoir.

I used to think that my “elders” (I use this term carefully and loosely) were trapped in forgetfulness. At the dinner table, during or after, somehow, someway, the conversation inexorably drew to the moment where someone would re-commence the time when…

Often the details change. But what are details other than the sharp edges on a sugar cube? They don’t matter…around the pond of reminiscence, they polish down into the smooth stone of one-liners, zingers, bad accents, cued laughter. Or is it cued sadness? Either one, yes? Everything in between.

One day, not too many years ago, I noticed myself telling the same story…one I’d told many times. There was also this other strange little thought. I knew I was telling a story everyone had already heard. I knew it. They knew it. I knew that they knew it. And so on.

But, what followed proved to be an insight, albeit small. I did not care that I’d told this story before. I plowed through my social reserve and kept the performance alive, armed with those punches and zingers, cued their laughter, and delivered what my polite audience allowed. I told this story because it was a pleasure to tell. It’s always a pleasure to tell.

Why?

Because it is important. To me, it was a bright cherry along the branch of experience that is worth repeating. I have to repeat it. Others have to hear it. Memory is bad and faulty, and so much of what we live is lost along that long gray branch. But the bright cherries become the lodestars of identity. This is who I am. This is one among many stories that define the “johnness” of John to others…and to me.

Which leads me back to my original thought. That reaction! When a friend or family member begins again that story we’ve heard throughout the years…we stop, listen, and appreciate. We know they’ve told this story before. But they know it too! It does not matter.

We listen, because it is the teller’s pleasure to tell! We grant this woman or man the dignity of his or her story, the dignity of his or her life and experience. We permit them the bright cherry of identity. We listen…because it is a pleasure to listen.

John Lewis
Artist/Editor

 

 

 

Why We Write: 1

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The question reminds me of Nabokov, who having written Lolita, experienced the relentless question, “Why did you write that book,” or, “What is it about?” Of course, audiences and critics had their own ideas.

Nabokov tired of other people telling him what the story was about–explaining that he wrote Lolita simply to “participate in the ecstatic.” When we discuss relationships between a creative work and an individual, we describe the relationship in many ways: perhaps joy, or offense, a profoundly spiritual feeling…or simply fun! Maybe a creative work goes unregistered. Ah! The unrequited…

But for those who are creative…painters, sculptors, musicians, writers! We understand Nabokov’s words–Ecstasy, experienced during the act of creation. Over the years, I can’t recall a Creative at work who wore the face of serenity. Rather, to me, it always looks like an expression of concentration sourced through meaning. One is precisely where they ought to be during the act.

Christopher Hitchens once advised an audience about this very notion. According to him, a writer writes not because he wants to, but because he has to. For writers, this is obvious. There is something inside us, and it must come out. To hold it inside is to take a vow of celibacy. Writers who don’t write, (painters who don’t paint, musicians who won’t play, etc.), are living a celibate lifestyle.

Back to Nabokov. Anyone who has spent time involved in artistic creation knows the feeling. Ecstasy. I find over the years that writing becomes no less arduous. In fact, it seems to become harder. Words are more carefully chosen, phrases more measured, plotting instincts subjected to increased scrutiny.

But the magic happens. With the blessing of the “muse,” we roll into another region of the mind. The turbid, whirling mass behind the wall of conscious and conscientious manners, of deliberate and logical thinking, becomes accessible. It’s quite extraordinary. Powerful. And, it is the bringer of fervent artistic creation along with its accompanying devils: doubt, fear, self-abuse. We must deal with these in the aftermath. In the tempest, however, is the ecstasy Nabokov refers to where what had seemed impossible becomes more than that…it becomes inevitable. The universe of a novel or painting or album pulls together of its own volition, because the mass and inertia is too large for one person to do it deliberately. But somehow it happens–the universe briefly organizes, the impossible has become inevitable–and only because the artist has become the medium for that volition.

Afterwards…we beg off for awhile, collect ourselves, and begin again the process of inviting the muse.

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