And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
Orson Scott CardRead
The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The audience interprets and shapes a story through their personal experiences and emotions.
This quote by Orson Scott Card highlights the interactive relationship between a storyteller and their audience. It emphasizes that while the author provides the framework of a story, it is ultimately the audience's individual experiences, emotions, and aspirations that breathe life into that narrative, making it uniquely theirs. The complexity of storytelling lies not just in the words written, but in the subjective interpretations each listener brings to those words.
Themes
StorytellingAudienceInterpretationExperienceEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
In a creative writing workshop to explain the importance of audience interpretation.
More from Orson Scott Card
All quotes →The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win.
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Never mind that the story had turned out to be lies and foolishness—there was always folks stupid enough to say, Where there's smoke there's fire, when the saying should have been, Where there's scandalous lies there's always malicious believers and spreaders-around, regardless of evidence.
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The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally.
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You take a step, then another. That's the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it's a remaking of your own mind.
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I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss.
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