Storytelling.

I find myself thinking about the way of storytelling often, of the types of stories I have read most of my life. Such tales including those of heroes and gods, of princes and dragons, of detectives and criminals, of little girls and evil red queens. I long delighted in classic stories of good vs. evil, the hero vs. the villain.

Noticing a pattern of western storytelling, Joseph Campbell coined the term, "the hero's journey" in the 1940's, though the concept long predates him to the early times of storytelling itself.

As I began writing as a child, I hardly thought about story structure or what even made a good story. I simply wrote fantastic ideas which lingered in my mind; inspirations of other stories I read or even dreams I had dreamt.

Having grown into the person I am now, I think often about these concepts, trying to craft a story I am proud of. What makes a story good? I have purchased for myself books about world-building, about character development. I have continued to analyze the books I read, reading almost entirely literary works, for I care deeply about a well written and well crafted story.

I have had a sense of something being wrong with my own story. Not in the story itself, but in the telling. I think I felt like it strayed from the classic structure and I wasn't sure why that was or even how to fix it. Is it even something that needs to be fixed?

As a writer and storyteller, 2022 was a pivotal year. I began reading non-western literature, not for the first time but at a time when I was ready. I read a beautifully crafted story of Korean origin. I immediately felt I resonated with the story structure, for I noticed something huge; there was no epiphany for the character. It was missing the abyss, the death, rebirth - the revelation of the hero's journey.

I've noticed in non-western storytelling, a less defined line between the good guys and the bad guys. I've noticed a difference in the way the character grows - slowly, over the course of the entire story, more internal battle instead of battles with the classic villain - a being entirely outside of the protagonist meant to shape the character into something greater than what they were rather than the focus being on the protagonist internally experiencing their own struggles.

To further grasp the concept of non-western storytelling which I am only beginning to take notice of, I began to search for books on the topic, though they seemed hard to find. I have a friend to thank for introducing me to a book, Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling by Henry Lien. I have quite recently purchased myself a copy and I look forward to what I can learn about a new method of storytelling, while also widening my reading into non-western literature.