What Makes a Good Story?

All of us have that favorite story that a grandpa told us when we were kids. They probably told us 15 different times, but we would never say anything because each time we heard it there was something special about it.

My mother's father is a great story teller. I remember each time we would get in the truck to go to my grandparents house in Lexington, my sister and I would beg, "Tell us a story, Papaw! Please!" He would smile quietly in the front seat, "What about?" and we would insist it didn't matter. He had a rotation of about 5-6 stories that we were familiar with, and we would hope for a certain one each time. There was the one about his childhood friend who fell off a cliff and only hurt his ear. There was the one about how he got his church clothes dirty and his mom made him wear his sisters dress on the porch all day as she cleaned them by hand. And there was the one where he beat up this rich kid for calling him poor and not sharing his candy.

As I got older, I realized that there was so much about his and my grandmother's story that I just didn't know. For Christmas in 2020, I asked them both to fill out a questionnaire that I put together, asking them questions about their childhood, the early years of their marriage, becoming parents, their careers, becoming grandparents, retirement, and current events. Turns out, my grandmother is a great story teller, too. But she's a writer like me, not an oracle.

So, if it's not speaking or scribing, what makes a good story?

The idea of a good story is entirely subjective. But every good story has similar parts. Sure there's huge differences in how the story is told, the length, and the tone. A good story influences the person who hears it. Whether it be through laughing, learning, or leading, something draws us to these stories. 

Oftentimes, there is an introduction to the story. You set up the characters, the setting, the time period. The large majority of the story is the rising action, which is all the events leading up to the most exciting part of the story, or the climax. Then there is a short period of how things played out after that, the falling action. And then a resolution, which is normally where you learn the point of the story and how it ultimately ended. This is called a story arc.

When I think about my life, I wonder which part I'm in. As a young person, I know there are so many things in life I have yet to experience. I like to think that I'm wise and aware, but there is so much that I don't know simply because I haven't had the opportunity to learn. And hopefully, I still have many more highs and lows to experience and share with the world. And no matter how high those highs are, and how deep the lows are, I know that they are both simply raising me to the best part of my story.

I know that there will never be a part of my life that I know everything, that as I get older I'll realize I know less than I thought I did yesterday. But I also know that as my life progresses I will learn which parts are really going to make the cut when someone writes my story one day. The pieces that hurt today, and the pieces that amaze me today, might dim in comparison to what I have yet to experience. 

What makes a good story? The way it affects the people who hear it. And I want my life to mean something to everyone who is a part of it.