‘The Science of Storytelling’ by Will Storr
Every story = ‘something changed’.
Great opening lines create curiosity and hint at troubling change to come: “Where’s Papa going with that axe?” (EB White, Charlotte’s Web).
We crave to know what happens next, in the way we might crave drugs or sex or chocolate.
Unpredictable humans. This is the stuff of story.
David Mamet: “any scene which does not both advance the plot and stand alone dramatically, is either superfluous or incorrectly written.”
Good stories are voyages into foreign minds. Our curiosity is aroused by characters’ flaws.
Stories have an ignition point. The first event in a sequence that forces the protagonist to question their deepest beliefs. Meaning is created by just the right change happening to just the right person at just the right moment.
The fundamental question that drives all drama: who am I?
At the end of a happy story, a hero and heroine represent the coming together of four values: strength, order, feeling and understanding. (Christopher Booker)
We identify with underdogs and cheer them when they finally succeed – because they are us.
Stories allow us the joy of being evil in our minds.
Joseph Campbell: A hero receives and, at first, refuses a call to adventure. A mentor comes and encourages them. They undergo a ‘rebirth’, only to rouse dark forces that pursue them. After a near deadly battle the hero returns with learnings and ‘boons’.
Pixar’s story structure:
- a protagonist who has a goal, living in a settled world.
- along comes a challenge.
- they are forced into events that build to a climax.
- good triumphs over evil, as the story’s moral is revealed.
Booker identified 7 recurring plots: overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, rebirth, comedy, tragedy.
At the start the protagonist’s personality is out of balance. At the end the hero achieves the perfect balance of all four traits – strength and order, feeling and understanding.
Western stories have three phases – crisis, struggle, resolution – often spread over five acts:
Act 1 – this is me and it’s not working.
Act 2 – is there another way?
Act 3 – there is, I have transformed.
Act 4 – can I handle the pain of change?
Act 5 – who am I going to be?
A gripping plot repeatedly changes and gradually breaks the protagonist’s model of who they are and how the world works, before rebuilding it.
Data scientist, David Robinson, analysed 112,000 plots. He found one common story shape: things get worse and worse until, at the last minute, they get better.
When we’re transported by stories, our beliefs, attitudes and intentions are vulnerable to being altered.
A story enables us to climb into another’s skin and walk around in it, creating empathy.