I highly reccomend you read writer Gary Lutz's work if you have not bumped into it already. Thinking about stories these days, or the absence of-see Inland Empire- I realized that what often stays with me the most, through the years even, is not the plot of the story but a performance, a very small detail, a word or mood, and even smaller, more minute things. Here is Lutz answering a question about narration:

Movement is certainly not lacking in your work. Do you find, however, that utilizing complex sentences helps or inhibits the fluid spontaneity of your composition? Or are we not supposed to consider these living, breathing “narratives” per se?

I’ve never thought of myself as a storyteller. I don’t think of myself as someone with any stories to tell. Even as a reader and a listener, I don’t care for tales, for yarns. When someone starts telling me a story, I tune in only to the melody, if there is one, or to the quirks and kinks of the vocality. I can’t seem to remember the plots of any of the novels I’ve nosed around inside. There are entire books I’ve reread for the punctuation alone. The motions in my fictions are definitely not narrative motions.

Go here to read the interview in full.