It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.
quote by Tobias Wolff
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Stories
The stories
Night bed its mats
And also we are
Wait and see
The narrative begins with the story
The stories of long time ago
Between fact and fiction
The stories from the ends of the earth
And depth of the ocean
We draw the characters and imagine
Live roles
And sail far and far
And overwhelmed with happiness
And the longing pulls us
And eyebrows painted terms on our faces
The story behind the story
Delight our nights
The stories of my grandmother.
poem by Mohammed AlBalushi
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Thats The Way I Remember It
Ts only natural with time
Details can somehow slip your mind
Something so sweet, though incomplete
You fill the spaces in-between
It never will be that way again
Maybe it wasnt way back when
But to my heart and soul
This is the way the story has to be told
Thats the way (thats the way) I remember it
I remember it that way
From the day I was living there
I remember it that way
Some of our stories fade as we grow older
Some get sweeter every time theyre told
Thats the way (thats the way) I remember you that way
Guess now if the truth were known
Among diamonds they were stones
To say would be fair, girl, nothing compares
To when I called you all my own
So darling dont ever you think twice
Those were the best days of my life
When I held you there
And Ill tell this story this way, time and again
Thats the way (thats the way) I remember it
I remember it that way
From the day I was living there
I remember it that way
song performed by by Garth Brooks
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.
quote by Mark Twain
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Long Poems & Short Stories
Some think that a story has no place
in poetry - 'Put it in the short stories, '
he said, dismissing a poem I wrote
as a narrative, as though such verse
must be relegated to short fiction.
Must I go back to Beowulf, composed
in the first half of the eighth century,
to illustrate the validity of the form
(written in meter without using rime) ?
Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book
is a long poem of dramatic monologues
in twelve books concerning a murder
and an adulterous affair in Florence.
Less scribbling and more reading
might improve one's perspective,
don't you think?
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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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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Faded Pages
Recently I started retyping
a manuscript of short stories
I had written twenty years ago.
The pages were faded;
too much time being opened to the sun.
As I typed, I smiled
at the things I had written
and the dialogue I had created.
The stories are about a cat
and looking at the world
through his eyes and thoughts.
I had even created him a language
that I had to write a glossary
at the back of the book to explain
what some of the phrases meant.
There is a vast array of characters
and most have a funny turn.
I also remember what prompted me
to write the stories long ago.
My original intention was to write
one story and one story only,
but a friend of mine at the time
persuaded me to write another and another.
Before long, a volume was finished
with enough stories to start another.
From a one off story I have written over sixty now
about the cat and all his friends.
Now as I flick through these faded pages,
which I haven’t read in years,
I find myself being reunited
with many long lost friends.
26 January 2009
poem by David Harris
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I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.
quote by Tobias Wolff
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Narratives
Narratives we tell to show
who we believe we are deceive
the listeners who are forced to go
with that one version they receive,
because we’ve may others we
can tell to different people to
impress them with our pedigree
and perspicacious points of view.
Do we from truth take long excursions
by changing tales about ourselves,
to find as many different versions
as books in volumes on our shelves?
No, there’s some truth in each refrain,
for every life is like a ballad
with different verses that explain
its variations, each as valid
as the next one, contradictions
all harmonized with disappearance
of prejudice about the fictions
that help to give the facts coherence.
Inspired by Benedict Carey, who writes about narratives we tell of our lives (“This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It, ” NYT, May 22,2007) :
For more than a century, researchers have been trying to work out the raw ingredients that account for personality, the sweetness and neuroses that make Anna Anna, the sluggishness and sensitivity that make Andrew Andrew. They have largely ignored the first-person explanation — the life story that people themselves tell about who they are, and why. Stories are stories, after all. The attractive stranger at the airport bar hears one version, the parole officer another, and the P.T.A. board gets something entirely different. Moreover, the tone, the lessons, even the facts in a life story can all shift in the changing light of a person’s mood, its major notes turning minor, its depths appearing shallow. Yet in the past decade or so a handful of psychologists have argued that the quicksilver elements of personal narrative belong in any three-dimensional picture of personality. And a burst of new findings are now helping them make the case. Generous, civic-minded adults from diverse backgrounds tell life stories with very similar and telling features, studies find; so likewise do people who have overcome mental distress through psychotherapy. Every American may be working on a screenplay, but we are also continually updating a treatment of our own life — and the way in which we visualize each scene not only shapes how we think about ourselves, but how we behave, new studies find. By better understanding how life stories are built, this work suggests, people may be able to alter their own narrative, in small ways and perhaps large ones. “When we first started studying life stories, people thought it was just idle curiosity — stories, isn’t that cool? ” said Dan P. McAdams, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and author of the 2006 book, “The Redemptive Self.” “Well, we find that these narratives guide behavior in every moment, and frame not only how we see the past but how we see ourselves in the future.” Researchers have found that the human brain has a natural affinity for narrative construction. People tend to remember facts more accurately if they encounter them in a story rather than in a list, studies find; and they rate legal arguments as more convincing when built into narrative tales rather than on legal precedent.
5/22/07
poem by Gershon Hepner
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It was definitely a part of our life. I mean, my mom had both her brothers and her fiancee in Vietnam at the same time, so it wasn't just my dad's story, it was my mom's story too. And we definitely grew up listening to the stories.
quote by Vanessa Kerry
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fundamental of Liar Chapter LXXX: Story
Story about future is called imagination
Story about past is called memories
Story about present is called reality
Story that becomes true is called prophecy
Story that becomes unfulfilled is called regret
Story that becomes no end is called boasting
Small story is called experience
Epic story is called history
Forgotten story is called lesson
Story that becomes obsession is called ambition
Story that becomes untold is called secret
Story that becomes go its own way is called life
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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All These Things
Sometimes I don’t feel who I am.
I don’t feel like what I write
because I don’t want to be pigeonholed
for just one thing I do.
I think myself as a whole
and not just one object.
I call myself a writer,
not a poet,
not a novelist,
neither a songwriter
nor a short story writer be.
I am a writer
because all those things
emulate from within me.
10 April 2009
poem by David Harris
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The narrative constructs the identity of the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character.
quote by Paul Ricoeur
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Human Or a Soul?
What were we first, a human or a soul?
Humans age, die and then grow old.
Souls incarnate in form and never by itself grow old.
Why not make laws that help the soul grow,
not keep us in bondage in the human form.
All revolutions of mankind in controlled kingdoms,
where because the soul was stuck and needed it’s freedom.
Why not learn more about how a Highly Evolved Being would act,
Look at how they behave, think and live in a pack.
Why on our planet we need a new cultural story,
One that makes united as a people in all it’s glory.
Not this wasted time on wars and horror stories.
poem by Suzae Chevalier
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Human Or a Soul?
What were we first, a human or a soul?
Humans age, die and then grow old.
Souls incarnate in form and never by itself grow old.
Why not make laws that help the soul grow,
not keep us in bondage in the human form.
All revolutions of mankind in controlled kingdoms,
where because the soul was stuck and needed it’s freedom.
Why not learn more about how a Highly Evolved Being would act,
Look at how they behave, think and live in a pack.
Why on our planet we need a new cultural story,
One that makes united as a people in all it’s glory.
Not this wasted time on wars and horror stories.
poem by Christina Sunrise
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Headed The Other Way
They were nowhere to be seen,
But now the sight defied analysis;
Picking up the story, we wrote this narrative,
Curling my writing utensil, defying the senses.
It was not overabundant but laughable
To see men in pictured form,
The form of animals and crossbreeds,
Looking at the walls, the facilities
And howling too largely for their size.
Behind them was a bloody walkway,
And then they pounced in that way
To avoid me, as if dogs too frightened
By their masters, picturing me as a planet.
The door showed itself open,
And I headed the other direction.
poem by Naveed Akram
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The Writer
From where comes that burning spark
That lights a lantern in the dark,
And from its shadowed prison frees
The story, as the mind it sees.
The thoughts released from darkness then
To form their words before the pen;
These words that come from deep within
Upon the page their freedom win.
And where was just an empty plain
A line is writ and writ again
Of maidens fair and heroes bold,
Until the story all is told.
And there the words - before his eyes
The tale upon the pages lies.
Now in the wider world it lives;
To thoughts, the words, the writer gives.
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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I think it's a short story writer's duty, as well as writing well about emotions and characters, to write story.
quote by Eric Brown
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.
quote by Lynn Abbey
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Story
I love story.
Truly I do.
And always will.
Of the best of them
I shall not ever
Get my fill.
They are never read, told, shared or sung
In vain,
They create, live and give
An allegorical ardor to life and being
That in no other form
Can anyone find or explain.
Yet,
the fact remains,
for each persons story
'tis the same:
Wherever great fictional stories
Are shown or told,
New or old,
There is a moment of climax, fantasy,
Where the main character overcomes confrontation.
And from that moment on everything is good, o.k.,
Pure and perfect transformation.......
Real life is story too,
One big Story
Filled with every human's sub-story,
All just as real, and true.
With the full ability to be every bit as great,
Word for word,
As any fiction
Ever told and heard.
With one powerful and true exception:
In the story of our human reality
The conflict may lesson,
But never, here and now, does it ever cease.
In this life, no matter what else,
There just will not be
Perfect, never-ending beauty and peace.
It's a fantastic fable
That from a moment forward
Life can be happily ever after;
No such thing has God here promised.
Only upon Christ's return
Shall tears and pain completely give way
To joy, dancing, and laughter.
Death to evil's horrid beast,
Finally and fully finished
At the great and glorious wedding feast!
But, tis not yet so;
Tis futile to think
For anyone life is unfragile,
We are all so soon wind-swept,
Our time, place and position on earth
Is never ours to be savored and kept...
So the story goes on and on
To it's final chapter,
Where the great author alone
Writes in the wonderous finish:
'The Eternal Happily Ever After'.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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