The Secret of Life, Pt. 3: The Magic That Is Storytelling
Looking back onto my blog entries, I kind of feel that I beat around the bush too much concerning the art that is storytelling. And that is extraordinary considering the fact that I studied storytelling and scriptwriting for a whole term by now! So I apologise and make amendments right now.
To me, and that may sound quite extreme, storytelling is the most important aspect of being human. It is estimated that since 100.000 years ago, humans started telling stories to themselves. (1) And even though I am not quite sure how scientists want to verify that, given the fact that spoken language - or stories for that matter - were not being able to be recorded until at least 27.000 years ago (by cave paintings) or 3.500 years ago (by writing). (2)
However, even if we consider the unlikely fact that storytelling has not been around for 27.000 (or even 3.500) years, it still has been around for a quite substantial amount of time to make it a common cultural denominator for all of us.
We people make sense of our world and of the things we do not yet understand by storytelling. We shape our experiences by telling and retelling them to others and ourselves. Whatever we experience, we shape it into a story, and thus make it ours.
The same holds true for the Bible, any mythology, the Qu'ran and any other compendium that describes how the world came into being, how this world and our life is structured and what our role or destiny is. It's no wonder that Holy Scriptures, or any holy text for that matter, are highly interspersed or solemnly consist, of stories. (3)
From stories, we can draw a meaning. A sense, a morale. A template on how to act, behave, think or consider things. And even if we do not seek all of these, we can at least draw a distraction, entertainment, a lesson out of every story.
And this universality of storytelling for the human race has one key aspect that is beneficial to all of us: Ultimately, we are all storytellers ourselves. Every one of us is avid in storytelling, so much so that we are either able to tell a good story or at least able to discern a good one.
Looking into the roots of storytelling, I found quite a helpful read when researching: Christopher Vogler's The Writer’s Journey. Vogler's work, which is in turn based on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, holds the opinion that storytelling, as it has come down to us, is still essentially based in the realm of myth and thus strongly connected by archetypes, character types that are essentially fixed and unchanging.
With the connection of archetypes, Vogler also enters the realm of psychoanalysis, more concretely the realm of Carl G. Jung's work. His conclusion is, much as Campbell's and Jung's before, that the archetypes of our myths and of our dreams are essentially the same, drawing from the same unconscious source and thus being universal to mankind.
With this backdrop, it is easy to understand how Vogler believes in the universality and and truthfulness of the mythic story structure. After all, a story can only ring true if it is touching upon something that we already believe to be true, be it consciously or - even more compelling - subconsciously.
So Vogler offered the idea to dedust and use the mythic story structure for telling dramatic, entertaining and 'psychologically true' stories even today, even in Hollywood. Considering the story as a hero's journey, much like Campbell did, and beginning with the three-act-structure, he fills the journey with twelve distinctive steps that every story should entail, even though variation is, as always, acceptable.
To him, these steps are:
Act 1
1. Ordinary World (depict the hero’s world before the adventure)
2. Call to Adventure (a problem or challenge ensues that the hero cannot ignore)
3. Refusal of the Call (the reluctant hero; the hero is ignoring the call and yet another incident is needed) 4. Meeting with the Mentor (the hero meets a mentor who prepares him for the unknown)
5. Crossing the First Threshold (the turning point of the story as the hero takes on the challenge)
Act 2
6. Test, Allies, Enemies (the hero gets to know the new world, is tested and finds allies and enemies)
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave (the hero is cast in a dangerous place)
8. Ordeal (our hero hits rock bottom with his greatest fear, it's a live or die experience and the hero needs to „die“ to be reborn again)
9. Reward (the hero found reward for the ordeal that may be knowledge or a sword; something that solves the intial problem)
Act 3
10. The Road Back (the initator of the ordeal is chasing the hero)
11. Resurrection (this is the final ordeal, another life and death moment where the hero's metal is truly tested)
12. Return with the Elixier (the hero returns with knowledge, elixier, etc to better the situation at home or travels on as a changed character)
And while enumerating every characteristic of every step in the journey would be exhausting, I can definitely recommend the read. To me, it was extremely helpful in gaining a different insight into how good stories are structured and for every step presented, I had at least one film that came to my mind, that precisely employed Vogler's structure.
The 'Meeting with the Mentor'? Memoirs of a Geisha.
The 'Reward'? Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
The 'Approach to the Inmost Cave'? Inception.
The 'Ordeal'? Basically every film ever written.
In another chapter, Vogler also writes about the archetypes that the hero has to meet in order to learn from them and incorporate their aspects into himself. And the most basic of them are:
- the hero himself,
- the mentor,
- the threshold guardian,
- the herald,
- the shapeshifter,
- the shadow,
- the ally, and
- the trickster
It is important to note that not every archetype has to appear in every story, and some archetypes can even consist of other ones. This way, the mentor who initially trained the hero may turn our to be the shadow, the hero's antagonist, all along.
And each archetype does possess a personal dramatic function to propel the hero (and with him story and audience) forward. For the hero's actual task is not to find the elixier, but his personal growth and change that is at the core of his journey.
What do you think about stories and storytelling? Feel free to post a comment and discuss!
References:
(1-2) TEDx Talks (2017) The magical science of storytelling | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholm [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj-hdQMa3uA&feature=youtu.be [Accessed on 11 December 2017] (3) TED (2012) Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDwieKpawg&feature=youtu.be [Accessed on 11 December 2017]
Vogler, C. (2007) The Writer’s Journey. Mythic Structure for Writers. Third Edition Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions
Campbell, J. (2008) The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato: New World Library
Jung, C. G. (1991) The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Second Edition. New York: Princeton University Press
Marshall, R. Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) California: Columbia Pictures Corporation
Wright, E. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) Toronto: Universal Pictures
Nolan, C. Inception (2010) Bedfordshire: Warner Brothers