Death by Story

Jonathan A. was more nervous than he could remember being in years. He was sipping espresso in the lounge behind the small auditorium classroom where he was due to speak in a few minutes. The audience would be a mix of journalism, literature and creative writing students. Undergrads mostly. Jonathan was here at the invitation of Alex, a creative writing faculty member at this private midwest college.

"Thanks for taking this on, Jon. I may call you Jon? Jonathan seems so formal."

"Of course. Thanks for asking me."

"It'll be a mixed bag out there. We announced your lecture and students with a variety of backgrounds are attending. I expect what ties them together is that they're almost all would-be writers. Short stories seem to be the favorite form around here, and short non-fiction pieces. You know how it is, we try to keep up with the times, adapt to the changing literary and journalistic landscape. All of our students post their work on blogs. We require that. We preach short, tight prose. Very few novels-in-progress among this bunch, I'm afraid. It's the Zeitgeist."

"I'm a novelist, you know. It's what I know best. I haven't written short fiction in years." Jonathan put his mug down and loosened his tie. It was warmer than he was used to.

"Of course you are. Two books published and your most recent one ... what was it called? Doing well, I hear."

"Natural Man. It's a story about...."

"Right. I remember now. Marvelous work. Well, are you ready? It's time."

Alex gave Jonathan a brief introduction before the half-full auditorium. "So, I give you the author of The Natural Man, best selling author Jon A. Be sure to subject him to your usual grilling after he speaks." Then Alex disappeared from the auditorium.

He introduced himself and talked briefly about his novels. "I understand that most of you are writers. Could I see a show of hands?" As far as he could see, all hands went up. "Now, how many of you have been published? Paid or not, you've seen yourself in print." After what seemed to be some confusion and hesitation, about half the audience raised their hands.

"Excuse me, Mr. A," said a young man near the front. "Sir, 'Print' has me confused. Does that include self-publishing and posting our work on our blogs?"

"Ah. Well, no, I wouldn't consider self-publishing the same thing as having your work accepted by an actual publication."

"But sir, online newsletters and magazines ...."

"Okay, yes. If they're serious online publications, with some sort of editorial staff using critical judgment." Jonathan paused and looked out over the audience, who seemed uncomfortable, some quietly murmuring to each other. "So, given that definition, how many of you feel your work has been published?"

Only a few hands this time.

"One more question. How many of you are actively working on a novel? I mean with the real intention of getting it published some day?"

Total silence. No hands.

Jonathan was stunned. These were writers? Individuals who love expressing themselves with words? Back when he was in college, that question would have resulted in near-unanimous raised hands.

"I'm puzzled by that," he said at last. "Don't any of you have a story you want to tell the world?"

"Sir," said the same young man, "We write stories all the time."

Jonathan looked intently at the young man. "Please tell me what you think a story is."

What followed was a half-hour of back and forth on the topic of stories, what made one, how it could be best expressed, what were favored mediums and methods, even a bit of personal philosophy about why these people had chosen to major in their fields. Story telling for most of them, it turned out, meant something very different from what it meant to Jonathan. For most, a story almost never amounted to more than a vignette, an incident, a glimpse, a hint. For those few who were published, length was rarely longer than one browser page, maybe 600-800 words. Many were much shorter than that.

"Let me ask you this. Please think about it before you answer. If you were to tell the story of your life to someone you didn't know - I mean the whole story, the real story - how long would it be? How many pages, or words, or how many minutes or hours would it take you to tell the whole thing? If you think you have an estimate, please raise your hand."

Hands soon went up. Jonathan picked one at random.

"Sir, I think I could tell mine in, oh, around a thousand words or so. I could probably trim that down too, once I had the words on the screen."

Another: "A page and a half, maybe two. Three to five paragraphs. That should do it."

Another: "I did this recently when I met this guy at a bar. It took, oh, I don't know, eight or ten minutes. Pretty much covered everything, I think. He did too, in maybe five minutes."

"That's it?" replied Jonathan. "Ten minutes for your whole life? A thousand words? Folks, that's maybe three pages of type script. Are your lives really that empty of content? Not to mention meaning?"

Jonathan dismissed the group. He sought out Alex and apologized for what felt was a failed lecture.

"Don't worry about it, Jon," Alex said. "Those kids, they're just doing what we've been teaching them. To prepare for the real world and a limited job market out there. Fiction or non-fiction, it's all the same. No one wants to read long works anymore. It's all about the short hit, the summary, the sound-bite. I mean, short or long, they're all stories, right?"

Jonathan, a deep sense of despair overwhelming him, shook his head. "Those kids don't know what a real story is. Hell Alex, they don't know their own stories. Their lives are little more than sound-bites now. God help them. God help us all."