Telling Tails Analysis

“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.” (Jack Kerouac). Many things can make a story interesting, the context is not always the most important. The way a writer tells the story is often what hooks the reader, by creating intriguing and eventful dialogue that attracts the reader. Bundles of information can be helpful in giving the reader insight to the characters life. However that information can only keep a reader attracted for so long as the reader desires a dramatic or traumatic event to occur. Throughout the article “Telling Tails” by Tim O’brien, Tim talks about how he tells stories to his two young boys. He explains how they are only interested in his stories when he spends little time getting to the “interesting” parts. “Well, I could pile on other such detail, for many pages, but my sons would eventually demand that something happen-an unusual and dramatic event.”
Cormac does an incredible job of portraying a young boys journey with his father through the post apocalyptic world. Cormac offers up information about what happened to the boy’s mother and a slight description of where they hope their journey will take them. This is about all the information that Cormac gives you, Cormac does an incredible job of leaving chunks of information out of the story to allow the reader to use their imagination. Cormac writes only half of the story and lets the reader write the other half with their imagination. This is why I believe that it is not always up to the writer on whether or not a story is good. Each reader is different and one may hate your story because they often are unable to use their imagination. When Tim O’brien spoke about how he leaves room for imagination in his stories for his boys he was also hinting towards the fact of how as you grow older your imagination can deteriorate as you are exposed to the real world and began to think more