story

–noun

1. a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.

2. a narration of the events in the life of a person or the existence of a thing or such events as a subject for narration.

3. a narrative that follows a set pattern of three main parts: introduction, climax, conclusion.

  Someone once told me that the definition of a story creates simply a story, but the difference between a good story and a masterpiece lies in the phrase "and they lived happily ever after."

  It seems a lot of people have a misconception of that phrase. For some reason completely unknown to me they think that "living happily ever after" should come at the end of the story. I don't understand this reasoning at all. Ok, maybe I should say I don't agree with this reasoning at all. Their line of thinking usually follows along these lines: Happily ever after implies that life is great from this point on, there will never be another unhappy moment, never another argument, never another tear shed or heart broken, or a hint of danger, or a sense of the new or unknown.

Most people believe that the story is over, so they stop writing.

  My line of reasoning is more along these lines: and they lived happily ever after. Whoever heard of a wonderful love-filled life that hasn’t endured heartache and tears, broken people, danger? If you think that those times spell a bad life, then please, put the magic phrase at the end of your story. Stop writing! The only problem with that is... if you stop writing, you die. You end your story. Yes, you may still be breathing, but you have stopped living.
So, back to the beginning.

  Someone once told me that the definition of a story creates simply a story, but the difference between a good story and a masterpiece is that a good story ends with "and they lived happily ever after."
A masterpiece begins with living happily ever after.

4. Life.