Once upon a time...

A story can mean many things but ultimatly it is a sequence of events:

A sequence of events

• A narrative, more specifically:
  • A piece of literature (also known as a tale):
    • Novel or specifically, an epistolary novel
    • Short story or a novella
    • Frame tale, a narrative technique
    • Fable, fairy tale or tall tale
    • Play, usually consisting chiefly of dialog between characters
    • Anecdote, a brief tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident
  • A branching narrative, such as in a gamebook or certain video games
  • Bedtime story, an entertaining or instructive, soporific, and often extemporaneous tale for a child
  • Urban legend
• Plot, the underlying structure holding a narrative together (also in the context of movies)
• An essay or news article, in journalism slang
• Organization story, in organization studies, is fragmented, collectively enacted, and co-constructed
• User story is a way of illustrating software requirements, often used in extreme programming
• A depiction of history
• In older American slang, a soap opera, usually said in the plural, (e.g., "I'll talk to you later; my stories are on.")
• A happening in real life
• Along with parable, a basic principle or pattern of the human mind