What makes a story is how well it manages to connect with the reader, the visceral effect it has.
Related quotes
We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life ""outside"" the story changes the story.
quote by David Foster Wallace

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
quote by Ursula K. Le Guin

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nada Mas (only the poem)
Reader, your voice is the poem
you are the words; and
nothing more.
Reader, there is no poetry
unless you speak it.
Reader, there is no sound
you must find what it has to say.
Reader, seek the thought
rising from your soul.
Reader, look all about you, up and down
no one else has come this way.
Reader, there is no other poem
only you among the words of the word; and
nothing more.
poem by Smoky Hoss

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The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect.
Esther Dyson in Interview in Time Magazine (October 2005)

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The prime goal of an author is the same as a musician, which is to emotionally connect with the reader in some way or another.
Laughter
Life is a dull story told by an idiot
Who is the idiot? Macbeth? Shakespeare?
Or the reader himself?
Because where is the text?
Does the reader half create it and
half perceive?
But suppose life were a story
told by an intellectual
Would it make any difference?
poem by Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya

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Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
quote by Marcel Proust

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tell Me A Story
Tell me a story that isn't gory
tell me a story that isn't fake
tell me a story where you made a mistake
tell me a story where the cows come home
tell me a story I want to know
tell me a story where the princess finds herself
not a prince who is more like an elf.
Tell me a story that I can laugh out loud
tell me a story where storm makes lighting clouds.
For in the end we only have our stories to tell
what make them funny, give them hell.
poem by Suzae Chevalier

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Tell Me A Story
Tell me a story that isn't gory
tell me a story that isn't fake
tell me a story where you made a mistake
tell me a story where the cows come home
tell me a story I want to know
tell me a story where the princess finds herself
not a prince who is more like an elf.
Tell me a story that I can laugh out loud
tell me a story where storm makes lighting clouds.
For in the end we only have our stories to tell
what make them funny, give them hell.
poem by Christina Sunrise

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A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate.
quote by John Barton

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Point
Words too many, creates an inflation-like balloon; sphere grown too large
where each word gets lost in the volume of words gone awry, orphaned,
where syllabicity becomes too complicatedly and comprehension
escapes the brain and flees into the night of obscurity and sadly
interest waxes and wanes and only pieces of the meaning
remain, distended and jumbled up and in surrealities
which makes one doubt whether the poem makes
sense of not, or if it is I, the reader lacking
the wit or common sense to see what
the writer meant or if there is a code
to all of this that I, the reader just
does not get, and, perhaps a
second read will clarify all
this and the light will
flood in and then
I, reader, will
and poet
reveal
the
point.
poem by Lonnie Hicks

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With years of experience doing whatever it takes to get to the bottom of each story, I am looking forward to covering the stories in the human dimension and impart the passion and visceral reactions the audience seeks.
quote by Geraldo Rivera

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self-activity.
quote by Thomas Carlyle

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Eye to Eye
A poet with an artist’s eye
can conjure words to set the scene.
Then with the words that he’ll supply
his reader feels as though he’s seen.
The same scene which the poet saw
Draws on his own experience
of things that he has seen before
though it makes little difference.
The message that the poet sent
is perhaps not the one received
The reader senses the intent
and finds the poem well conceived.
The picture which the reader gets
is the scene his own mind sets
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg

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If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect.
quote by John Barton

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bookworm
There's a story that like a dessert I love
And I enjoy every page slowly as much as I can
There's story that makes me desperate
And even my day becomes gloomy after I read
There's story that safe to be read anytime
And I don't mind if it's going up or down
There's story that could burn me to the core
And left me with desire to create another story
There's story that easily predict
And I could finish it without much thinking
There's story that has a very good cliffhanger
And I need to rush to the publisher to make it comes fast
There's story that goes like my dream
And I want to repeat over and over until I'm getting bored
poem by Maria Sudibyo

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Reader or writer
If you are a reader or a writer.
You should be a positive thinker.
You are more like a scientist observer.
Try to be an exact experimenter.
Nothing is too crazy to put on paper.
If you are a reader or a writer.
The reader is a wonderful dreamer.
The writer is a sincere worker.
Its lovely that both can be each other.
If you are a reader or a writer.
You should never say never.
So don't leave behind a book marker.
Make sure you have a word sharpener.
Flavor That Is Savored
Being able to connect,
To the reading audience.
Makes one poet...
More appreciated than the next!
A consciousness has been affected.
An expectation achieved...
That feeds an anticipation one gets!
If one poet is obsessed,
With maidens on islands with white alabaster skin.
Or Vikings from the old country,
Pursuing Cyclops with Zeus...
Chatting with Sophocles sipping on gin.
Well...
The writer may be thrilled,
Getting goosebumps and chills from the aspect of it.
However...
The reader of such a description,
May not 'get' the meaning of what the poem depicts.
And may not care if the poet was a college graduate...
With certificates from Harvard or Yale.
If what is written does not connect,
To an emotion or a collective imagination...
One poet with college degrees,
May not be as popular
As another who has an appetite to write.
And may sleep on a ghetto street at night.
It is much like cooking!
Writing is.
Some love to do it.
While others who 'say' they can cook...
Should be ushered from the kitchen!
Quality is not determined by the schooling of it.
Nor is common sense something that can be taught.
It is like one's taste.
If the flavor is savored...
The only ones finding disapproval,
Are the ones discussing the ingredients used.
And ultimately looking like fools...
As they are surrounded by those licking off their plates!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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Early Works - Reader and Listener
A circle of faces
smiles and frowns
ears listening
to the readers words
the rhythm of the voice
as it rise and falls
in mellow tones
a snigger, a laugh
as humour surfaces
over some joke
whom the reader has missed
slowly the story ends
a silence reins
its sad ending
has stunned them all
reader and listener.
24 October 1979
poem by David Harris

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Poem
poem can never
give itself to the reader
if he is not found
poem is unmade
a reader makes a poem
with him in it there
poem by Samanyan Lakshminarayanan

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