Weekly Question: The Meaning of “Story”

“Story” has always been the center of all human cultures. We need it. We seek it out. When we lack it, we invent it. What does “story” mean to you?

Story means everything to me. Story-telling has become a way of life. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about writing. Though, “story” is different than “writing”. “Writing” comes second to “story” in importance. I want the novels I write to have a strong story. I give every character a story, a journey they each have to travel. While no one journey is the same as another, they walk on their separate journeys together.

A story must be satisfying, powerful. It has to linger with me long after I’ve finished the book. I tend to give my main characters the most life-altering and powerful stories. For example, in Blue Ruin, we meet Maura as an unapproachable, borderline unlikable, isolated and hardened character. She’s killed for her benefit. She’s an outcast who has to make the choice to save her own existence or the existence of everyone else. That theme is strung throughout the series and evolves with Maura’s changing character, becoming more potent. Her character transformation fuels her story and gives it that dose of power. While Maura is a black magical being, centuries old, an immortal, and very un-human…her story shows just how human she is.

What does “story” mean to you?

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Blue Ruin is Book One in The Phoenix Series. Blue Ruin is a New Adult, Dark Fantasy, Paranormal, Supernatural, Gothic novel. It is now available for purchase in the Kindle Store. 

“A hunter and the hunted, Maura Leroux is one of the last of her kind with a dark past that has haunted her. With black magical beings having been hunted for centuries, she’s come to learn a thing or two about survival. But Adrian Wilhelm, a notorious Vampire, threatens to destroy Maura’s newfound life as a detective in the magical world of Mystics. Adrian intends to use Maura as a means of resurrecting the fallen world of black magical beings, Abysm. Maura has made it her mission to stop Adrian while covering her tracks from those that have been seeking her out for centuries.”