Barry Lopez spent his life telling stories. He also did some deep thinking about the concept of a story, “a powerful and clarifying human invention.”
Stories do not give instruction, they do not explain how to love a companion or how to find God. They offer, instead, patterns of sound and association, of event and image. Suspended in listeners and readers in these patterns, we might reimagine our lives. It is through story that we embrace the great breadth of memory, that we can distinguish what is true, and that we may glimpse, at least occasionally, how to live without despair in the midst of the horror that dogs and unhinges us.
When I was young, I thought a good story answered all the questions. Nothing was left to the imagination. I came to see what Lopez describes so well. A good story has enough space within it to allow a reader’s imagination to slip the leash and run.
• Source: Barry Lopez, About This Life; New York: Vintage Books, 1999, pp. 10 and 13. Lopez has a lot of good advice on writing. Thanks, Christopher, for steering me to the book.
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