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[jay-ell]

The detective story is the purest form of storytelling. 

True or false?  Discuss. 

[wombat]

Yes!

Now get back to writing your story.

[jay-ell]

But...my story isn't a detective story! 

Also, I'm almost done.  How's yours coming? 

[jaydub]

False.  Fibbing to your mom is the essence of storytelling.

[Ruta Bagas]

No! The detective story isn't a form of storytelling, it's a kind of story. Whether it's the purest of those I'd have to think more about. I'm not currently sure it's a particularly useful or exciting question, so I suppose I'll have to think a bit more about it to know whether it's worth my doing so.

I guess I'll get back to you.

[wombat]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to just go ahead and think about the answer, instead of taking the time to think about the question and then possibly having to think about the answer on top of it?

Also, we seem to be breaking the first rule of Write Club.

[dejavroom]

Whether it's the purest of those I'd have to think more about.

Yes let's define the "purest" bit. Purest in which sense? And from that we follow. What about giving us your angle, J-L? What got you thinking about this?

[AlohaDawg]

I don't think so. Cosmology is probably the most pure form of storytelling. The first stories ever told, in oral traditions, were stories intended to explain the great mysteries.

Creation stories, folklore, and religion probably comprise the purest form of storytelling. The modern counterpart would be escapist fantasy. Tolkien type stories that reflect our reality, although very dimly, in a complete separate universe while maintaining recognizable and applicable themes of heroicism, good vs evil, etc. This is why the Star Wars Universe persists, why other sci-fi and fantasy universes have broad and persistent appeal.

That's what I think, anyway.

[Pedro Picasso]

When you're telling a story, you expound enough in the beginning to get your audience interested in finding out more.  Who is Obi Wan, and will he save the Princess?  Will Macbeth really become king, and how will the witches' prophecies ever come true?  You tell the audience that there's something they don't know.  Then you slowly reveal clues until you reach a satisfying conclusion that validates all that came before.

By bringing this dynamic of "guess what's next" to the forefront, a detective story drops a good deal of pretense, and allows you to see storytelling for what it is: a game.  Storytelling is a game wherein your brain tries to correctly predict the ending.  And when the ending comes -- if it is a good book -- you're sad because though you can read it again, you'll not be able to play at it.

Also, bad endings are like cheating.

I'm looking at YOU, Stephen King's It.

[jay-ell]

Detective stories and mysteries are the purest form of storytelling because the author, in the process of crafting the tale, must know the logical progression of events and then deliberately conceal parts of it to make it interesting. 

All writing is selection.  When we choose to describe a character's eyes but not his feet, we select the aspect we think the reader will find most interesting.  But when a mystery writer omits a key piece of information that would make the ending obvious, s/he creates interest even in the mundane.  It's like carving an optical illusion out of white space. 

Also, what Pedro said. 

All consumption of storytelling is about discovery; the best storytellers know and foster this.  Detective stories, then, is storytelling distilled to its most basic elements: conflict, discovery, resolution.  The lack of additional layers makes it easy to discern the beauty of the narrative skeleton. 

[jaydub]

Some of the fun in re-reading a story comes in observing how the author conceals the necessary facts.  Diversion, false leads, etc.  Its sort of a metacognitive experience though, and completely different from the initial read.  Some authors I like to do this with (Robert Parker, Sue Grafton);  others I'll read once but don't enjoy the style of the author enough to want to dissect it (O'shaugnessy, R. Patterson), and still others (J. Patterson) are so ham-handed with their machinations I can't even stand to read the book through in the first place.

[theinevitable]

this makes me want to write a detective story that says such as "I walked into the office. Notice that I don't say WHOSE office! Nudge Nudge Wink Wink!"

[littlefallsmets]

No wonder I'm no good at detective stories.

I write like tidal waves of needles, daring you to find the single piece of hay.

Much more suited to comedy, character studies and science fiction, I reckon.

[Doc]

I'm voting true but for a slightly different reason. The yearn to discover the secret is strong but I think most good detective stories also work because they usually end up being about  basic human relationships and interactions, there's just normally a lot of red herrings to disguise it. Or maybe I read too much Agatha Christie.

With regard to reading them to find the secret, this is why I hate Sherlock Holmes stories (despite liking the character and setting enough to read all of them) because they always seem to rely on a clue that is never revealed to the reader.

[Ruta Bagas]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to just go ahead and think about the answer, instead of taking the time to think about the question and then possibly having to think about the answer on top of it?

You're right!

The answer is "mulberry".

Personally I think that stories have too many different potential functions for there to be one kind that's demonstrably the "purest". Why is the fact that storytelling can be used for Pedro's "game" a more basic function than the fact that it can demonstrate a pithy truth, showcase a well-realised set of characters or just let everyone know what an incredibly shit day we've had so they'll be nice to us? Stories are just something that writing and speech and other such abstractions allow us to do, and I don't see that they have a purpose beyond what we give them when we use them.