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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32912
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32912
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

"Everybody can invent a story" -- No. In his classic book _Story_, Robert McKee reports just the opposite: There are a great many people who can write beautiful prose. There are very few who can tell a captivating story.

My years of critique groups and writing classes bear this out. Most of the manuscripts I have read over the years displayed decent prose. Some of it was quite beautiful. Hardly any of them told a good story.

The best seller list confirms it too. There is much on that list that has prose that is pedestrian, often quite awkward and stilted. Those books sell because they tell compelling stories.

How important is style? It is certainly a grand ornament to a story if you can tell it in a splendid style. But a good story will get by just fine with ordinary prose competence. Style without story, on the other hand, can quickly get out of hand and become painfully purple. In particular, an author trying to produce emotion through style rather than through story is likely to produce something particularly painful to the ear and eye.

However, one of the drawbacks of critique groups is that it is very easy for a group to end up with several stylists and no storytellers -- not even anyone who can recognize genuine story faults. At that point the critique becomes all about style, and no one is getting any nearer publication.

Style is the sizzle, story the steak. Anyone who does not understand that is not helping your writing career.

Original score: 21