Going through the files where I keep my blog ideas I came across a note on Ed Gorman's entry about the term "storyteller", which I meant to mention but never did. It's as true now as it was a few weeks ago. It's been true forever. Ed wrote:

I've noticed comments on various blogs over the past few months that insist the term "storyteller" has now become code for inane hack--i.e., writer of popular fiction.

I don't see any reason to let either the hoitys or the toitys appropriate that term. I grew up reading very strong stories and that's what I've wanted to be since sixth or seventh grade. A storyteller who writes, at least upon occasion, strong stories.

What's wrong with entertaining people? Looking back through history you can see that it's always been a popular calling and craft requiring an abudance of skills. And this applies to everyone from Max Brand to Leo Tolstoy. Whatever their differences as writers, they both made readers turn the pages. That compulsion is in both Mystery Ranch and Anna Karenina.

So when somebody calls me a storyteller, I'm flattered, even if he means it as an insult. The hell with him.

Maybe I didn't use this sooner because I couldn't think of anything to add, except that I've always felt the same way. But today, with the latest big writing project finished, I realized something else about storytelling -- I like it in part simply because I know people like stories.

From time to time (every other day or so) I begin to wonder what I'm doing writing. Why should anyone care, particularly, what I have to say? I'm not the world's smartest person, or most insightful. We all savor our own opinions but who am I to foist mine off on others, which is pretty much what I do when writing an essay or a blog entry?

The question is easier to answer if I'm simply constructing a piece of fiction. Then it isn't about me, or the brilliance (or not) or my ideas or the depth of my insight (or lack thereof) or my soaring (or clunking) prose style. It's just about whether I can put together some words that will work for someone who's looking for a story.