This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 532nd episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoy this week's episode, Story Theory and the Search for meaning.

Story has been our constant companion throughout the journey of human existence. Why is that?

Modern audiences are inundated and entranced by advanced storytelling, but stories have been with us from as far back as we can remember.

Is it because they entertain us? Is it because they inform us? Because they distract us? The answer is yes, of course. But the

very universality of, not just story itself, but our passionate connection to story, would seem to indicate

the human experience finds great resonance in the act of storytelling. I do not think it is too

simplistic or idealistic a statement to say that storytelling is a quest for meaning.

As creators and consumers of story,

and indeed art as a whole,

we all have personal connections to this.

We often interact with stories, whether intellectually or

emotionally, as a search for understanding. We turn to stories for catharsis,

comfort, and catalytic challenge.

As Grit Langel put it in her walking on water,

which really is a treatise on the whole concept of story as a quest for meeting. She says this questioning of the meaning of

being and dying and being is behind the telling of stories around tribal fires at night, behind the drawing of animals on the walls of caves,

the singing of melodies, of love in spring, and of the death of Green in Auto.

As writers we gradually become more cognizant of this than even the average viewer or reader.

As we study the craft and technique of writing, we eventually encounter

humanities collective ideas of story theory. These theories posit that

there are certain patterns, which we generally identify by such terms as story structure and character arc, that repeat themselves over and over again to create the very definition, however loose, of what we consider a story at all.

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