Is story the chicken or the egg?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s the classic, unsolvable debate—too often used as a metaphor in poor analogies—like this one about story: In the writing process, which comes first—the story or the information?

In this case, however, the question is helpful to set up how I have been thinking about story and information.

Remember now, that I entered this Creative Nonfiction MFA program with not a clue as to what CNF really was. It just seemed to be the genre in which I most naturally wrote (journaling) and read (spiritual narrative). Thus I entered CNF. I had no idea of its journalistic roots, or of Pitt’s journalist bent. (See Wikipedia on New Journalism.)

Ergo—I wrote information. Nonfiction. Notsomuch story. Definitely not narrative.

So last year Professor Intimidating introduced us to the terms “Frame” and “Focus.” The frame is the story—the narrative—of the piece. The focus is a fancy way of saying “thesis statement,” except that we’re not in the five-paragraph essay classroom anymore, and we’re too sophisticated for “thesis.” Besides—thesis is a statement that’s repeated throughout the argument. The focus is not necessarily repeated—but every detail points to it.

During my first semester, this translated in my mind to something from Mary Poppins: Just a spoonful of story makes the information go down easier.

Working with this definition, however, requires the information to determine the story written. This results in a bad fairy tale that reads like a parable. Or, worse—a bad sermon. The kind with the catchy story at the beginning that illustrates the three bulleted alliterated points at the end. It turns the techniques of storytelling into “gimmicks.” It cheapens the story.

My literary-sermon hero, Frederick Buechner, suggests that it is not how we tell the story, but what story we tell. Whether in giving a sermon or writing CNF, it is all about the story. (Read “The Two Stories” in Secrets in the Dark.)

Thus, it is first about the story. The “gimmicks” of storytelling are not tricks, but artistic tools.

Professor Intimidating has told us this from the beginning, often sounding like a broken record, advising, “The story determines the information you give. Find the story, and then you’ll know what information you need.” I think it has finally sunk in, erasing the Mary Poppins definition.

It is story. Story came first. Story comes first. Information, however essential and integral, comes second. We are fiction writers, writing stories out of real life. Find the story. The story is either the chicken or the egg—whichever came first.