The Anatomy of Story

Stories are verbal games the author plays with the audience (they keep no score—the studios, networks, and publishing houses do that). The storyteller makes up characters and actions. He tells what happened, laying out a set of actions that have been completed in some way. Even if he tells the story in the present tense (as in playwriting or screenwriting), the storyteller is summing up all the events, so the listener feels that this is a single unit, the full story.

The storyteller is first and foremost someone who plays.

A speaker tells a listener what someone did to get what he wanted

and why.

Notice we have three distinct elements: the teller, the listener, and the story that is told.

the story must feel organic to the audience; it must seem like a single thing that grows and builds to a climax. If you want to become a great storyteller, you have to master this technique to such a high degree that your characters seem to be acting on their own, as they must, even though you are the one making them act that way.

At the self-revelation—especially if it's a moral self-revelation—the theme expands again

The convergent point of story structure is the battle, and right after that, the self-revelation and moral decision.

and it will hit with full force at the end

Through this conflict, a difference in values begins to emerge. So the theme starts to expand. Still, for most of a good story, the theme is largely hidden

that structure doesn't just carry content; it is content

Moral argument in a story is an argument of action you make by showing your hero and opponent taking certain means to reach a goal