A Story Needs a Storyteller

By: Braden Read

Dear Diary,

To My Dearest Love,

To Whom It May Concern,

We’ve all likely read a few stories with a few of these guys strewn about all over the place. If you see something that looks like that, it’s an easy sign that what you’re reading is epistolary, meaning that the story consists of letters between characters in the story, rather than being told by some unrelated, omniscient narrator. If the medium through which the story is being told is not letters but some other form of non-narrator medium, you’ve got an example of diegetic storytelling. Take Daisy Jones and The Six, for example, a novel in which the story is told through interviews taken of each of the characters. It’s become a big trend in recent years.

Or has it?

Well, yes, it has, but what I mean is: is it really a new trend?

Interestingly, it’s actually quite the opposite. The very first novels were epistolary. In fact, there was a stretch of time where nearly all novels were told through letters or diary entries or just by some random unrelated guy (see "Bartleby, the Scrivener"). Novels weren’t really novels; they were collections of letters, something that people of that day had a frame of reference to understand. As novels became more and more popular, the need for this sort of context disappeared. A novel didn’t need to be some other thing—it was simply a thing of its own.

This type of storytelling has made a comeback in recent years, even as many people don’t realize that it is, in fact, a comeback. Horror has been using this for quite a few years, most recently with Analog Horror, which is a subgenre of horror that uses the style and aesthetics of analog media, like VHS tapes or old video games. Even before that, many creepypastas (a very early 2000’s term for scary internet stories) were crudely diegetic, usually with some sort of reveal at the end that the narrator is writing the story on their laptop in the closet, about to be killed by a horrible monster. Before even that, the epistolary includes such famous and foundational works as Dracula and Frankenstein. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure why this method of storytelling is so widespread throughout specifically horror (look at found footage, a quickly growing genre), because it’s a wonderful medium for any type of story. This serves a slightly different purpose, but many of the recent sourcebooks for roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons use diegetic storytelling to flesh out a fantasy world, with letters and journal entries written by wizards and warriors about dungeons and, well, dragons.

In any sense, regardless of genre, this is personally one of my favorite forms of storytelling. This is a term thrown around haphazardly, but it really is immersive. It feels as if you’ve stumbled upon evidence of a real event, rather than just a piece of fiction. So go, writers, and help revive this old form of storytelling from its crusty tomb. Take inspiration from works both new and old, and put your spin on this technique as old as the novel itself! Preferably not if it’s just told by some random unrelated guy, though.