bearlily

Following on from my post 'what is good writing', I was wondering if you can tell me if you think there is a difference between storytelling and writing, and what do you do?

I am not a fan of Stephen King, nor do I dislike him, I just haven't read any of his books for years and probably won't either. Except for On Writing, and I found it quite inspiring.
He made the pint that our job is to tell the story. He admits to being a storyteller, but obviously as he is writing the stories, doesn't that make him a writer as well?
And who is a writer but not a storyteller, for surely it is stories we base our writing on? (unless we are writing non fiction)
What do you think?

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'And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
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Stewart

Yes, I think there is a difference between writing and storytelling. For me, storytelling is a quick fix of getting from A to B, from once upon a time to lived happily ever after and it's this that typically dominates bestseller charts. In these books people wear read gloves because the authors thinks they'd look good in red.

Writing, on the other hand, is a multi-layered affair. With writing the author considers the words they are using to tell their story. With word choice comes the agony of finding the right words. The writer will spend time deciding whether a word be used for its symbolic or associative meaning, they wonder what their words say about their characters, about their world, and even the writer himself. The writer wonders if a word is correct due to its cultural, social, political, or religious significance. With a writer, red gloves may be significant as it could foreshadow the murder a character performs later in the narrative leaving them literally with blood on their hands.

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Stefanie

For me, storytelling is about cool characters and good plots. I don't see why "a writer" as described by Connor Wolf would be better than a storyteller. A storyteller doesn't have to be less quality, I think.

suzakugaiden

A writer is someone who writes in general. This could be documents, technical manuals, guidebooks, etc. A storyteller focuses on relaying narratives, fictions, and whatnot. It's the difference between Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and a textbook runthrough of horse racing, really.

lisajane

Storytelling - telling a story.

Writing - showing a story.

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Stewart

So succinctly put.

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