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The difference between stories and trip reports


jagoturner

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A trip report can form the basis of a story. It can look back with hindsight and become a great story but on a day to day basis it is very different. It's reportage. You could preserve a diary of trip reports from ten years ago, post it here, and it would still be a trip report. But if you wrote about a trip of ten years ago today I suspect you would find yourself writing a story.

 

A story is a whole. It's a finished item. Whether written well or badly it will still be as relevent in a year's time as it was when first written.

 

Trip Reports are ephemeral. They represent a set of immediate impressions to something not quite over. If you want to find out about this bar or that in detail then go to trip reports. If you want to know what happened to a couple of the characters on this board last week go to trip reports. If you want to read something that would be as interesting if you had never been and were never planning to go to Thailand then trip reports might not be the place to go.

 

Having said that I've read plenty of trip reports that are so well written that they would be of interest to anyone. It's when trip reports are written brilliantly that the line might become blurry.

 

Most of the time I'd say the rule of thumb is that if you want to write or read something that could as easily be written last year or next year then this is the place. If you want something that's bang up to date and very current then trip reports would be the way to go.

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i'm really confused over this.

i post stories of my visits to Thailand which are old news.

places have closed,the Girls are long gone.

i started to post them in the trips section because it was the only section which seemed appropiate.but now this one has opened.

 

people are used to seeing my daily adventures elsewhere,but should they now be posted here?.

my posts may be boring or of no interest to anyone else,but i'm just telling of my experiences and adventures during my visits.

are they stories or FR's?.

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lovethai,

 

Yes, and this is one reason some of us wanted to split the trip reports and stories section and seperate the two. But though all trip reports are non-fiction (or are supposedly so :-) not all the stories are fiction. You'll see as we go along and add more posts. Although there may be some on occassion that may be borderline. I agree with the last poster. Content is everything.

 

Cent

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Maxal,

 

Humpf, obviously not a Zappa fan. :-) Doz waz da thingfish and a mammynun suh. Mythical creatures from Frank Zappa's zaniest and best in my opinion album titled, Thingfish. A double cd. Great songs and a wonderful parody abut the conservative right wing evangelical holy rollers on tv. Listen to it on a good stereo and a nice pair of headphones. Some of the best harmonies ever recorded! The avatar was from the inside cover I believe of the vinyl. Now I need tio see if I can hook it up again, or find one of the Central Scrutinizer.

 

Cent

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STH ....

 

Basically stories are fiction and trip reports are not.

 

Some trip reports may end up to be stories as they become mostly involved in relationships rather than the trip.

 

Let's keep it simply guys. ::

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