So you want to write a story. You pack it tight, stuffing the scarecrow with straw. You’ve got plot, characters, a setting, dialogue, and emotional stakes. All those ‘elements of fiction’—that’s good. Essential, even! But is that all it takes? Is it A Story?

A story becomes a  A Story for me when it starts breathing and moving independently — when Frankenstein comes to life and is able to move around on their own. Plot, setting, character,  and all the rest are me gravedigging legs and arms and a torso. Me leaving the figurative graveyard with all these parts piled up in my arms is useful! Helpful! Essential, even! But it isn’t a body. It isn’t oxygen.

I think the elements of fiction can be boiled down to something like that —essential organs, muscles, limbs. The body of a story is its language. And the oxygen—that thing we need or else we die—is listening.