To prevent there from being no more stories to tell, some of us out here, exiled, in the middle of the wild oats, thought it would be better to start telling another story that, perhaps, people could continue when the old one has ended. Perhaps. The problem is that we have all allowed ourselves to become part of the killer's narrative, and that way we might end up with him. That is why, with a certain sense of urgency, I seek nature, the subject, the words of the other story, the untold story, the story of life.
What would happen if the hero were not the most important character in the story and the stories were not structured around a conflict? What would happen if the narratives were structured by multiple actors and processes?
In this essay, Ursula K. Le Guin proposes a different way of storytelling, based on bags, containers, and bundles, instead of weapons and sharp objects. Le Guin draws on the ideas of anthropologist Elizabeth Fisher, who stated that "the first cultural device was probably a container." From there, she builds a narrative matrix in the form of a bag for fiction and also for the general history of humanity. Conflict is present, but it is not the only relevant factor: Le Guin's bag is "full of endless beginnings, initiations, losses, transformations, and translations, many more tricks than conflicts, many fewer triumphs than traps and delusions."
