ABSTRACT
Narrative has always been a common thread for understanding human experience, a thread that connects events in words. In all of these stories, place, concept, people, and action play a part. A story that focuses on place attends to the context and fabric of the environment. In the simplest sense, this can be the story of travels, like a picaresque novel. The concept story is more abstract and focuses on problem solving or new thinking. The story is a quest. It asks a question, seeks an answer, and then solves the problem. In people stories, people come first and are clothed in appropriate places. Stories infuse places with the characters that commission and inhabit landscapes and buildings. The action story focuses on the fabric of the world in need of mending or improvement. Community members involved in planning new places can often tell stories about what is will be like when the place is complete.
