story

Literature

2022

We explain what a story is, its origin, types, elements and characteristics. Also, examples and differences with a legend.

The story is a subgenre of the narrative.

What is a story?

A tale is a type of narration usually brief, based on real or fictional events, in which a group of characters develop a plot relatively simple. In the literary field, it is one of the subgenres of narrative, widely cultivated by writers of very different traditions. There are also popular tales, transmitted orally or that belong to the heritage of informal culture.

Although the human being has been fond of storytelling since its inception, it did not always do so under the paradigms of the story. Formerly they were countedlegends and oral stories, with some pedagogical purpose, that made them close to the fable.

In other cases, stories were told mythological that explained the origin of the world or some episode of some specific deity or hero. Today, instead, they are cultivated as an art form in itself.

The tale is a gender modern. Its name comes from the Latin computus, "Calculation", since it is, basically, to enumerate the events that make up the plot.

On the other hand, their plots tend to be opposed to those of the novels due to their length, since the latter tend to be more voluminous. However, that criterion is debatable, since the boundary between a long story and a novel brief can be very narrow.

Throughout the history, many authors have made the story their favorite genre, and have cultivated it, thus obtaining true artworks. Among them are: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) and Ryonosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) and many others.

Characteristics of the story

In general lines, a story is characterized by the following:

  • It is a short narrative, closed in on itself, recounting a relatively simple series of events from its beginning to its end. This means that it contains all the necessary elements to understand the story from cover to cover.
  • He tries to narrate in a more or less direct way, without so many delays, mishaps or ramblings, these being more typical of the novel.A story should be able to be read from cover to cover, in one sitting.
  • It has a single plot line, in which one or more characters converge, through a variable set of actions or twists and turns. The number of characters in a story is variable.
  • It has a unit of effect, a trait it shares with the poetry. This means that through his reading It seeks to generate an aesthetic, reflective or emotional effect, for which the story has all the necessary tools.
  • It is written in prose, and always has a narrator (or on specific occasions, more than one) through whose voice the events of the plot are narrated. Said narrator may or may not be part of the characters in the story, and may speak in the first (me) or third (he / she / them) people.

Types of stories

There are many ways to classify the story, according to different criteria. For example, if we take its length into account, we can differentiate between a short story (10 pages or less) and a long story (more than 10 pages), even though these extensions are, in the end, subjective. There is also the micro-story or mini-story, whose length does not usually go beyond a page, sometimes not even a paragraph.

Another way of classifying stories attends to their content, and to the "theme" in which the plot can be circumscribed. Thus, we can talk about:

  • Fairy tales. Generally intended for a child audience, they take place in a fantastic world easily distinguishable between good and evil, and usually contain some type of moral or final effect, which brings them closer to fable.
  • Fantastic tales. In which a fictional world is represented very far from the real world, with its own laws that allow the existence of magical creatures, supernatural powers, etc.
  • Realistic tales. That they develop in a world similar to the real one, operating with the same rules of verisimilitude or credibility.
  • Horror stories. Whose plots revolve around the supernatural or situations designed to arouse fear or anguish in the reader.
  • Stories of Science fiction. That are set in near or distant futures, utopian or dystopian, or in parallel worlds, in which the science and the technology They are different from the real ones and allow the exploration of new situations.
  • Police tales. Also called detectives, they usually have as their narrative axis a crime committed (usually a murder) and a detective or investigator in charge of solving it.
  • Satirical or comic stories. Those designed to make your readers laugh, through crazy, funny or ridiculous situations.
  • Erotic tales. Finally, those that address romantic or intimate themes, especially related to the sexuality.

Parts of the story

A story has, from Aristotelian logic, three distinguishable parts, which are:

  • Beginning. In which the fictional world unfolds and the characters are presented, already immersed in the narrative plot. Ideally, it is the stage in which we should know what things the main characters want.
  • Complication. Intermediate stage in which the plot becomes more dense, complex or intricate. This is where the elements that make it impossible for the characters to satisfy their desires tend to emerge.
  • Outcome. The closing of the story, in which the anecdote comes to an end. Here we usually find out whether or not the characters got what they wanted, and why.

Story elements

In most stories we will find the following elements:

  • A narrator. Who is the one who tells the story, whether or not it is part of it, and who refers the facts from an objective or subjective position, depending on whether it is a witness narrator, protagonist narrator or omniscient narrator (that sees everything and knows everything).
  • Some characters. What are the fictitious entities to which the plot occurs. They can be many and of a very different type, but there is always someone central to the story (protagonist) who may even be the one who tells it (narrator-protagonist). There may also be characters who oppose the protagonist and who try to prevent him from doing what he wants (antagonists) or simply accompany him during his journey (secondary characters).
  • A weather. That there are really two: the real time it takes to read the story and the fictional time, the time that passes within the story and that can span minutes, months, years or centuries.
  • A few places. That they are nothing more than the locations or locations in which the events narrated take place, and that they can be more or less described in the story.
  • A plot. Which is the sum of the twists and turns and events that occur to the characters, organized in such a way that they logically occur in time, whether in a linear way, or not.

Difference between tale and legend

Generally, a story is distinguished from a legend by its origin: stories are artistic pieces that have a specific author, while legends come from folklore or the tradition popular and, therefore, do not have a single author, but are owned by a people or a nation whole. Thus, Latin American, German or Chinese legends are often spoken of, but the tales of Cortázar, Borges or Kafka.

In addition, the stories have an aesthetic aspiration, that is, they belong to literature and as such are artistic pieces. Instead, the legends reflect the feeling and the culture of a locality.

On the other hand, legends do not have a unique way of being narrated, that is, a text definitive, as is the case with stories (that is why we can buy Borges stories in different editions and they will always be the same). The same legend can have different forms of elaboration, depending on who tells it.

Short story examples

Here are some examples of well-known literary stories:

  • "The black cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.
  • «The merchant« by Franz Kafka.
  • «El aleph« by Jorge Luis Borges.
  • «End of the game« by Julio Cortázar.
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