storytellers

“We’re all stories in the end.” – Steven Moffat

A major part of my childhood was spent in libraries.

For my parents, who had moved to the US with two kids, libraries were a lifesaver. They could bring me and my sister there and we would be entertained for hours for free (which meant my parents could finally rest).

I picked up reading when I was three, and the library provided an endless source of new books to read. There were countless nights where I fell asleep with a Magic Treehouse book on my chest, and countless days where I would bring a Geronimo Stilton book to keep me company in the car.

I then moved on to the Harry Potter series, and also began to wander into sections where someone of my height and maturity should probably not have been (sorry Mom).

Going to the library made me realize there are so many stories in the world that we needed to construct massive multi-story buildings just to house a few of them.

It also made me think about all the stories that aren’t written — the stories you can’t find in libraries.

I remember when I was in elementary school, R.L Stine visited my school.

R.L Stine is the author of the Goosebumps books, a massively popular series that is essentially focused on scaring kids — it’s even in his Twitter bio:

He wasn’t a scary person in real life. He had the attire of an average suburban dad: button-up shirt, brown slacks, and I can’t remember what shoes he was wearing but it would be a toss-up between worn-out New Balances or brown loafers.

He was energetic enough to capture the attention of a room of 60 kids, and I remember one specific moment when the room was silent and all eyes were on him.

“When I sat at my desk, I felt something come out of my ear and dribble down my neck. I went to the bathroom and checked my ear, and nothing was there. I sat at my desk, and I could feel it dribbling down again. It dripped down my neck and shoulder, and rolled down my arm all the way to my fingertips, and to my pen tip. That was the story coming out.”

You may scoff at this, but for a room of 7-year-olds, it was mesmerizing.

That story has stuck with me for years. It’s something I’ve thought about when writing my own stories, or when reading about other people’s methods of creating stories. Stephen King described his method in his book:

“You have to follow the characters, and you have to follow where the story leads.”

The best stories are the stories that aren’t manufactured, or overly staged. It all boils down to the characters and what they want to do.

That applies to your story as well.

I’d like to believe that everyone is the main character in their own lives, and all of us are full to the brim with stories. I have friends that I’ve known for 10 years and I’ll still learn something new about them every time we hangout.

Maybe not everyone has a Harry Potter universe in their head, but everyone always has a story to tell.

A story about their family, or that one time their dog did a backflip, or when they saw two planes fly parallel to each other, or when they lost their mom’s bracelet at the beach.

A story about missing the bus, or about their first love, or their new personal best, or the new assignment.

I find that everyone is a storyteller, you just have to be willing to ask and listen.

There are stories that will never be written out, stories that will only be in the minds and hearts of their owners, stories that some might think isn’t worth telling — those are the stories that I want to know about.

I’d like to be a library — not just about my own stories, but also the stories of all of the people I’ve ever met. Stories from my friends, my grandparents, my teachers, my Grab drivers, from the barista at my local coffeeshop, from that date I went on that one time, from the person next to me in the immigration line. I want to keep those stories alive, tell them to whoever is willing to listen, let the story live in more and more people.

There’s so many stories out there in the world, and I’d like to be able to hear (and tell) as many as I can.

In the end, we’re all stories. And in the end, we’re all storytellers.

So if you’ve read this far, I hope you’ll share your story — to your friends, to the internet, wherever.

And I hope someone out there reads your story and adds you to their own library.