In my ongoing effort to discover just what sort of writer I mean to be, this is a recurring conflict. When I think of storytellers, I imagine an organic or even primal form of sharing stories. I think of mesmerising spinners of fancy around a gypsy campfire. A magical quality comes through the vocal performance of their tales, captivating the audience, leaving them satisfied but begging for more, their success achieved through narration. But narration will not do for a novelist. We are not to tell at all if we can help it, but only to show. “It was a dark and stormy night,” sets the stage around the campfire, but in a novel it requires much more thought and crafting. “Bank after bank of dark clouds clashed in the night sky, briefly illuminating pounding sheets of rain.” (Yes, I made that up on the spot and was sloppy enough to include an adverb!)
I continue learning about the proper engineering of a story told in novel form, and the sterile necessity of the analytical phase of novel writing is an apalling contrast to campfire and fairy tales. Maybe it’s just my inherent laziness. Or maybe I prefer my vision of the storyteller, endowed with mystic ability to hold her listeners at rapt attention, as a being created thus ~ unlike myself slogging through the helpful treatises of ivory tower literary dictators and cutting-room floor experts in an attempt to create myself as master of story.

Ok, done whining now.