Good storytelling invites participation
A good story sits the reader down, shares some event, and from the ideas inside that event creates something inside the reader. Or listener. Or viewer.
Good storytelling invites participation. Participation happens in many ways, here are some of them:
Thoughts, feelings, actions. Memories, remembering old feelings, new perspective on old emotions. New emotions. Dance, draw, sing along. Write your congressman. Last year I started getting my calcium somewhere else after I saw a movie that talked about what shit they put in the milk in this country.
Participation moves from the abstract to the concrete. Stories, when done right, invite.
Condensed from two posts originally posted on my personal blog, Joe Write!, summer of 2005