Many things have been said about story writing. I'm not sure what I thought I could say that no one else has, but I might as well record a snippet of my musings on this subject here.
I will be so bold as to say that I believe that stories define humanity. Stories and dreams are the means by which we obtain new knowledge, new wisdom without ever having to experience an event directly.
And those events and stories don't even have to be true.
And there is the craft of fiction.
