Once upon a time, on the first day of workshop, a teacher with fancy publication credentials passed out index cards and asked his students to write down their definitions of "STORY." Some got creative, others got silly, still others wrote paragraph-long dissertations on the ontology of storytelling. The teacher's favorite submission made no mention of "narrative," "plot," "causality," or "genre." He held it up and asked us to take a good look—and take it to heart. Scrawled on the card were just two words (scroll down for the answer):
SOMETHING HAPPENS.
Check your story for story-ness. Does something happen?
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