What is a story?

A story is a sequence of events that occur in time. One could argue that any event can be considered a "story." However, this definition would include the most mundane of happenings: falling asleep, eating food, etc. Clearly these are not stories as we commonly understand them.

A story, by definition, requires a series of events that are connected in some way. These connections can be of many types: causal, logical (as in an argument), associative (similar to cause and effect), or teleological (fate).

One could also argue that a story is the sum of all stories, so to speak. From this point of view, every event can be seen as part of an ongoing story. This way of looking at things has been called "holistic" or "panoramic." However, it seems rather redundant to say that everything is part of the same thing. One might just as well say nothing is related to anything else.

The definition of stories that I find most compelling is the one which says a story is a series of events with some kind of connection. The connections can be causal, logical, associative or teleological. However these various types are not mutually exclusive: in real life, we often experience several kinds of causality simultaneously.

Since a story is usually told by someone, it might be worth asking: what makes "someone" tell a story? Why would anyone bother to narrate an event? It seems that the only reason for telling a story is because there was some sort of motive or purpose in doing so. The purpose may have been to present information about something else (a case report), or it could be related to one's own self interest (self-promotion). Another possibility is that the narrator was simply trying to entertain.

From this point of view, one could say that a story is something with some kind of purpose. The purpose may be to inform or educate others, to entertain them, or just to speak out for oneself.