A novelist, a poet, and a storyteller walk into a bar…
This is one of those high class bars where the snobby people hang out, you know, the type that has a fancy fountain in the corner and well manicured plants everywhere you look. Don’t ask me why the plants are there, they just are.
Now these three characters of ours, being true to who they are, decide to take turns describing a particular plant. It’s a game, you see, and the winner of the game doesn’t have to pay for his own drinks all night! All three are, technically, professional writers who make a pretty good living with their words; so the descriptions they come up should be a pretty good representation of how they label themselves. (novelist, poet, storyteller)
Photo credit: Tanel Teemusk CC
Now, the novelist, being the only one of the three to have a his current, well-polished manuscript accepted for publication and scheduled to be released five years from now, decides that he is the most important of the three and elects to go first.
He stares at the plant for half an hour then grabs a napkin and scribbles on it for another forty-five minutes.
“Sorry.” He says when he is finally done. “I needed to organize my thoughts, I’m no good without a framework to follow.”
And after a few more moments of studying his napkin, he launches into his description.
In truth, his words are beautiful. The artfully crafted sentences and delicate wordplay of a master wordsmith are skillfully and concisely demonstrated, thanks to his thorough preparation.
He graces his two friends with a vivid and extremely detailed description of the plant. Starting from when it was a just humble little seed, through the arduous process of growing up, to now, when it is a finally fully grown, potted plant. In just five minutes he tells the plant’s entire history and even manages to perfectly describe how the plant looks.
No detail is spared in his description, no minutia is overlooked—from the oily grain of the stalk, up to the fuzz clinging to the leaves like adolescent whiskers cling to a teenage boy’s face, and all the way down to fragile roots searching so thirstily for something to drink.
When he is finished he is very pleased with himself, and orders a drink to celebrate—no doubt at all in his mind that he would have to pay for it.
But now it’s the poets turn.
He stares at the plant without seeing it.
Not in the physical sense at least.
He looks deep inside,
searching for the emotion that the plant must release.
As he begins to speak,
describing as best he can how
this thing isn’t just plant
but a metaphor
one that illustrates the transition
from the then, to the now.
He doesn’t tell of it’s beauty,
but of the tragedy it has faced.
For something that should be free,
but is shackled, confined,
forced to look like a small tree
when it wants nothing more than to be
itself.
And for what?
To be a part of this inorganic atmosphere?
To lend its artificial beauty,
its scent, its contained grace to the background.
To fade into the noise.
To be passed over.
Obscurity.
There are tears in the poets eyes as he turns to the bartender and orders something to drown out the image of this tragic plant. No thought is given to the price of the drink, for how can such a heartfelt confessional for the “plant” not be the better description of what the thing truly is, than anything his friends can say to describe it?
And now the storyteller begins…
He starts by speaking from the plants perspective, giving it it’s own voice so that it can tell it’s own story.
He tells of the first day the plant arrived at this bar. Being pulled from the back of a cold truck and being brought in here—with a great view of the game every Sunday, and a cute brunette bartender to take care of it.
The storyteller never says a word to describe how the plant looks or feels, he simply tells of all the things the plant has seen and experienced sense that day.
He laughs as he tells about the time that the big biker had a little too much to drink and tried to dance with it. He cringes when he tells about the time the plant was used as a weapon in the bar fight that followed. He smiles mischievously as he relates the story of the plants heroic recovery and the hands of the cute bartender (the only time that he elects to hang on every intimate detail.)
When he finishes his story he turns to the bar and orders himself a drink, still laughing at last tale the plant “told;” one about three writers who walked in to a bar and were bored enough to spend hours taking turns talking about a plant.
That little plant has been through a lot, as it seems, and the storyteller’s way of describing the plant to his two friends wasn’t to describe how it looked, or use it as a metaphor, but to tell it’s story (shocker, right?)
The game is now over, who do you think won?
Or maybe a better question is, out of these three, who would you rather have a drink with?
Here’s the difference between being a writer and being a storyteller. A writer puts a lot of time and effort into the craft of writing; they put a lot of stock into mastering the tools of their trade and they consider their worth to be judged by how well they can put words together on the page or how artistically they can express themselves—and that’s fine.
But to be a storyteller means that above all else—above the words you use, and the emotions you touch—the story itself comes first. What would you say comes first in your own writing?