Some of the kids might do that out of habit, but the value of the story is independent of whether or not they do that, thus protagonists, while very common and very useful in storytelling, are not required.
I didn’t mean to say that factual events cannot constitute a story in principle, although I see how you arrived at that implicature. When I said “It’s a fact”, what I had in mind was that that is the reason why you would tell it to children. Because you’re not supposed to tell people things that are not stories and also not facts.
You definitely can tell factual things to children (or people in general) in order to teach them about the world. But, you can also tell them factual things in order to let them hear something interesting or stimulating while they’re bored.
Sort-of like how someone might tell you how their car broke down when they come in late to work. And if you go to a comedy club later, he might tell you about the same thing, but for a different reason: Because it’s funny.
So when I bring up the sun-moon example at a campfire, I intend to mean it as being something that will draw the kid’s interest (basically an emotional effect), and yeah, I imagine it as being told in a way where it is more like narration and describes thing in a more dramatic way. But since it’s intended to create an emotional effect, and the factual nature of it is really much less important, I say that’s a story, since the emotion effect is what I’ve found the core purpose of storytelling to be.
Some of the kids might do that out of habit, but the value of the story is independent of whether or not they do that, thus protagonists, while very common and very useful in storytelling, are not required.
Also, it’s not a story. It’s a fact. It might be a fascinating fact. But it’s not narration.
Hi Cruetzer,
Stories can be factual. Those aren’t mutually-exclusive categories.
I didn’t mean to say that factual events cannot constitute a story in principle, although I see how you arrived at that implicature. When I said “It’s a fact”, what I had in mind was that that is the reason why you would tell it to children. Because you’re not supposed to tell people things that are not stories and also not facts.
Hi,
You definitely can tell factual things to children (or people in general) in order to teach them about the world. But, you can also tell them factual things in order to let them hear something interesting or stimulating while they’re bored.
Sort-of like how someone might tell you how their car broke down when they come in late to work. And if you go to a comedy club later, he might tell you about the same thing, but for a different reason: Because it’s funny.
So when I bring up the sun-moon example at a campfire, I intend to mean it as being something that will draw the kid’s interest (basically an emotional effect), and yeah, I imagine it as being told in a way where it is more like narration and describes thing in a more dramatic way. But since it’s intended to create an emotional effect, and the factual nature of it is really much less important, I say that’s a story, since the emotion effect is what I’ve found the core purpose of storytelling to be.
Hopefully I put that clearly.