What is a Story? - Part 1
Think of a handful of stories.
Was that hard? Probably not. But have you ever thought about what a story actually is? It is not a book. A book can contain a story like a canvas holds a painting. Paint strokes can tell stories just as melodies and words do. But they are not stories. They only form them, when put in the right order. Woven like images created from colored threads.
But what is a story?

Key Points of this Series
- A story is an optimized form of communication that involves logic and art.
- A story needs a protagonist the audience empathizes with, an antagonist, and a core conflict that the protagonist tries to resolve – which the antagonist tries to prevent.
- A story is created with a purpose. By answering the question of “how” and thus giving context to what is happening, it helps us explain what we choose in a way that others can experience and internalize.

Many storytellers offer their own definitions of story, but for me, they all lacked something. Perhaps the story. It is not easy to define story – any more than it is easy to define love.
This is the journey on which I found my definition. Let me take you along and you decide if it is yours.
Existing Definitions
To begin our journey, let us take a look at some definitions of story. The English Wikipedia says the following1:
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.).
This is close to what the Cambridge Dictionary says2:
[A story is] a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events
and the Duden definition of “Geschichte”3, which is the German word for story:
[A story is an] oral or written description of an actual or imagined event or occurrence, brought into a logical sequence of events; narration
The German Wikipedia defines it differently4:
A story is a form of representation as a reproduction of an event in oral or written form.
The Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries add assumptions5:
[A story is] a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people
[A story is] an account, often spoken, of what happened to somebody or of how something happened
Similar to the Collins Dictionary6:
A story is a description of imaginary people and events, which is written or told in order to entertain.
A story is a description of an event or something that happened to someone, especially a spoken description of it.
And adds an interesting abstract definition:
The story of something is a description of all the important things that have happened to it since it began.
While Merriam Webster shortens it7:
[A story is] an account of incidents or events
[A story is] the intrigue or plot of a narrative or dramatic work
And dictionary.com adds something new8:
[A story is] a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.
Note that, in choosing these particular quotes, I filtered out some more specific definitions that won’t help us, like the definition of a story as a short story.
Story Synonyms
What can we learn from these definitions?
A story seems to be a description, an account, a narrative, an intrigue, or a plot, according to the dictionaries. Am I the only one who is confused now?
I like the German Wikipedia version that wraps story in a “form of representation”. Why do I like that? Because it allows for the complexity of what a story is. Is it precise? No. But it does not squeeze a story into a synonym with a different connotation.
Let’s put the story synonyms aside for the moment and start with something basic.
Events
Events seem to be central to stories. They are present in all but one of the definitions above. According to Merriam Webster, a story is based on “incidents or events”. The Cambridge Dictionary takes it a step further, defining it as a “connected series of events”. The Duden calls it a “logical sequence of events”.
But what is an event?
The Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries and the Collins Dictionary already use its definition for story as “what happened to somebody” or “something that happened to someone”. An event is something that happens, usually something important or unusual.
That at least rules out a shopping list as a potential story.
But what if we tell someone who has never experienced a story, and does not know what a story is, that it is based on a set of things happening?
A ball hit the ground. A dog barked. The moon shone.
That is a series of events. Is it a story? No. Can we imagine a story around it? Sure, and not just one. But it could also be single events of several, possibly unrelated stories. Or just a series of events that have no connection to anything else.
Connecting Events (the Plot)
What we need is coherence. Readers of nonsense literature may argue, but I believe that every story has some thread of consistency, or else it is not a story, but a disconnected set of events. In this case, the Duden definition comes closest with its “logical sequence of events”.
Connecting events can be as simple as following a journey structure like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Events can be connected by the same actor over time. Or the same theme. The possibilities are as endless as the stories themselves. But to form a story, there must be a connection between events that is governed by consistency.
This is the plot of a story. It can consist of “all the important things that have happened to [something] since it began”, as the Collins Dictionary describes it. But that is only one kind of plot.
Any story has room for imagination. But every room has walls. Some rooms are mostly walls with little space in between. Some rooms are so vast that the walls seem to disappear altogether. But they are there. If we walk through them, we break the logic of the story (which is a different topic I will talk about another time).
Action and Actors
I have talked about actors. Events are something that happens. When something happens, it is something that happens to someone, or it is something that happens because of someone. This is why stories need actors.
What are actors?

Events are based on an action (verb) of an actor (subject). Almost every English sentence contains at least these two elements9. And as with stories, the subject of a sentence need not be human. It just has to be able to act, like the moon that shines.
Account or Description vs. Story
Where are we so far?
“A story is a series of things that happen because of a series of actions performed by actors, connected in a way that is guided by the creator’s imagination and at least one aspect of consistency.”
Because a ball hit the ground, a dog barked next to it, while the moon shone above.
In this passage, we have a consistency of time and space. This gives us a sense of why something is happening. Is this a story? Not yet. I’d say it’s a report or a description.
What is the difference?
We’ll talk about that in the next post.
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“Story.” In Wikipedia. Accessed April 13, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Narrative&oldid=1144844362 ↩︎
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“Story.” Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Accessed September 7, 2023, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/story ↩︎
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“Story” auf Duden online. Accessed September 12, 2023, from https://www.duden.de/node/56678/revision/1453542, German original: “[Eine Geschichte ist eine] mündliche oder schriftliche, in einen logischen Handlungsablauf gebrachte Schilderung eines tatsächlichen oder erdachten Geschehens, Ereignisses; Erzählung” ↩︎
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“Story.” In Wikipedia. Accessed April 13, 2023, from https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Erz%C3%A4hlung&oldid=232014156, German original: “Eine Erzählung ist eine Form der Darstellung als Wiedergabe eines Geschehens in mündlicher oder schriftlicher Form” (source from 13.04.2023) ↩︎
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“Story.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English / [by] A.S. Hornby ; Editor Jonathan Crowther. Oxford, England :Oxford University Press, 1995. Accessed September 12, 2023, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/story ↩︎
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“Story.” Collins English Dictionary. Accessed September 7, 2023, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/story ↩︎
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“Story.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster. Accessed September 7, 2023, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/story ↩︎
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“Story.” dictionary.com Dictionary. Accessed September 7, 2023, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/story ↩︎
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I am a writer. We use sentences that do not follow the rules. Like: Not again. Artistic freedom is beautiful. ↩︎