A story is like a painting; it’s the culmination of talent put forth on a blank slate- whether paper or canvas (or digital screen these days…) with the purpose to:
1. convey an emotion or dream or desire or thought
2. to please or affect its admirer, skeptic or critic in some way (entertain, interest, teach, guide, prove right or wrong, …) and finally
3. to release something inside the artist whether it is to cleanse herself, heal herself or share her experience.
And all the while, it is a meeting ground between an author and a reader.
In Meagan Kaplon’s interview with Jean Kwok in June 2014 The Writer magazine, she questions Ms. Kwok about how she would describe herself as a writer. “I want to communicate with people. ” she continues ” It’s this meeting ground between an author and the reader. It’s a two way street. What you put out there are objects for the reader to interact with and to make their own.” Ms. Kwok explains that she is always aware of the reader walking with her through the story and she says ” It’s like when you’re having a conversation, and you wonder if you are droning on and on. Are they falling asleep?… Just as when I write I’m always thinking: Is my reader still with me? Is she being entertained while she is hopefully learning something interesting? ”
For me, its important to express what I am feeling or thinking about while entertaining and subconsciously helping my readers get through their own experiences that may be similar to my own or someone else’s, while teaching those readers something new or perhaps while delivering a lesson or moral.
For example, perhaps my reader is having problems with her faith; questioning it, doubting it, because she just lost her cherished parent or has recently been widowed, or worse: lost her child. She wants to believe in God and Jesus and Heaven, if not for her loved one, but for her own desire to see him or her again. Struggling with her own demons, she picks up my story with hope to find answers and if not answers, then at the very least similar questions and doubts to her own so that she does not have to feel so alone in the world anymore.
If I could meet with that reader and comfort her with my story, sharing my own doubts with her while I subtly install some hope in her heart and mind, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Yet, it is not physically possible for me to meet one on one with all of the potential people out there who go through traumatic situations and therefore, sharing a story could possibly serve nearly the same purpose. The story IS a meeting ground between an author and a reader and the only thing missing is perhaps a shared pot of tea and some biscuits.