Worthwhile stories always include change. Luke becomes a Jedi. The three little pigs move in together. A story without change is just a postcard. This character, is in this place, at this time. Who cares? Next time you find yourself disappointed by a story, ask yourself how the hero changed from the beginning to the conclusion. If the answer is that they didn't, then that might explain why you feel let down (The Descendants, I'm looking at you).
Good stories also make change inevitable, by forcing their character to change. Something happens, what Robert McKee calls the inciting incident, which creates a situation in which change is inevitable. When's Luke aunt and uncle are killed, he doesn't have the option to say "I just want to go back to the way things were". We know Luke is going to change, and we want to know what's going to happen.
Change alone though is not enough to make a story. Even inescapable change is not exclusive to stories. But only humans (that I know of) attach meaning to change, and is this meaning that defines the story.
A story begins with a premise. This is the question that the story must answer. But it must give more than an answer, it must also offer an explanation. The power of the story comes from the gravity of the question and the insight of the explanation.
Consider "Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love and live happy ever after". Boring.
What about adding "because they both grow up and understand what love means?". Less boring? Well maybe, maybe not, but now it's a story. This is what happened, and this is why.
We live in story space because we all know that change is inevitable, but we all long to find meaning and understanding. Without this, change will sweep away all of our efforts, and we will leave the world neither better or worse than we found it. The power of explanation is the basis of out hope, that life might not be pointless after all.
That is why we live in story space.
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