The Bones of Story

I really like the analogy of the skeleton that Betsy Hearne uses in “The Bones of Story.” I found her discussion of the spaces between the bones, the importance of silence in the story, to be particularly illuminating. The silence in the story refers not only to what is left out, but also refers to the active silence in which listeners engage to co-create the story. I wholeheartedly agree with Hearne’s assertion that “what’s left out is as important as what’s put in.” My undergraduate study involved reading lots of Ernest Hemingway—the master of only revealing the tip of the iceberg. Interesting stuff always happens in the pauses. A way to indicate these pauses on the page would be ellipses, page breaks, etc. F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example, conveys silence and things that cannot be said through ellipses in The Great Gatsby. I also identified with the analogy “silence is to story as space is to image.” I was the editor of my high school literary magazine and the design editor of an undergraduate literary magazine. Through these design experiences I learned about the importance of balancing image with white space.