Marymeddlemore

People ask me when I decided to become a playwright, and I tell them I decide to do it every day. Most days it's very hard because I'm frightened – not frightened of writing a bad play, although that happens often with me. I'm frightened of encountering the wilderness of my own spirit, which is always, no matter how many plays I write, a new and uncharted place. Every day when I sit down to write, I can't remember how it's done.

Suzan-Lori Parks

Stories cannot be contained. They can be labelled and sorted into categories, but they don't care. Readers read and make of them what they will and so it should be.

Stories have wings. They fly where they want to.

Stories are the soul of mankind. It doesn't matter whether the story is "intellectual/literary" or just fun, whether it is meant for children or adults etc., all stories contain the same story elements, namely: characters, settings, actions (or non-actions), consequences of actions or non-actions, story moments and a story line etc.

Whether you read just for pleasure or whether you study a story, the story elements invade your being, because your life too, is a story. Stories merely mimic human existence, because being human, human authors cannot think of anything outside their "human" capabilities.

Stories bring extra experiences because when you read, you now "know" thousands of "characters" and what happened to them.There is no way that you could ever "know" so many "real" people intimately. Thus reading automatically widens your perspective.

Stories can bring awareness if you "read/notice " yourself, or others  or specific familiar circumstances in a story.

Awareness brings the possibilities of change, if it is wanted or needed.

Each story is experienced and interpreted differently by every single reader and so it should be, because you are all unique.

The gifts of stories are immense!