Unlike the narrative theorist and the academic literary critic, I do not focus on theory, indeed, I don't even try to define fundamental terms like story and narrative, or even draw a distinction between them. In such circles, the approach I have taken would signal my status as an amateur, an outsider who does not understand or respect the value of theory. But I take this approach and use the language I do for a reason. We already know what a story is and what it means to hear one and what it feels like to tell one. We turn to stories to both survive and to imagine, as well as for a host of instrumental purposes, for pleasure, and because we must.
Stories are part of our human inheritance.
Theory reconnects literature with other areas of knowledge, not to find the 'meaning' of the text, but to explore cross-currents between, for example, fiction and psychoanalysis, capitalism and realism, sexuality and writing, history and literary form, and language and other sign systems.