A Compelling
STORY NIGEL WINDER |
SUNZ Children and
Job:2008782 SUNZ Adventure Magazine
I
am not much of a reader. It is not that I don’t want to read, it just seems that every time I sit down to read, the general busyness of life catches up on me and I find myself rereading the same page repeatedly, not taking in what I have read, or simply falling asleep after a few minutes with the book falling out of my hands — yep, I still love the ink on paper version! Despite that confession, there have been occasional books that I have got so caught up in, that I literally have not been able to put them down. I have gone to bed early and read through the night to get to the end. This does not always look pretty the next day. What makes a book so good that I am prepared to forfeit a night’s sleep? I believe there is power in a story that has the following characteristics…
8 www.sunz.org.nz
Families Consultant
and Southern Direct or
Compelling and larger-than-life characters who are human and real — they do things and say things and think things like I do or are like people I know. The power of imagination is stirred. There is space to fill in the gaps and imagine you are there in the story. There is something powerful and ‘transportational’ about being drawn into the story and getting to live it out in your mind. (I know that is not a real word, but you are allowed to make up words in your imagination.) Space is allowed for you to draw your own conclusions and disentangle what the story might be saying to you about life, yourself, and others. Context is unpacked. You know where the story is set and what life is like in that place
