A Gentle Introduction to the Science of Storytelling
As you may remember, I taught you a great technique you can use to come up with what I call “the seed of a story” in this lesson here.
Using this 3-point Who/Where-When/What technique is a great way to get yourself unstuck and give you a starter point to work from.
However, I made it clear in that lesson that that “seed of a story” was only that: a seed intended to get your creative juices flowing.
A story is not just a frozen frame in time; story implies progression.
We’ll come back to the concept of “progression” and how important it really is in storytelling, but today I want to give you a gentle introduction to the art and the science of storytelling.
Stories, as I’ve mentioned a few times in this newsletter, are part of our human DNA. We have been storytellers since the dawn of time.
Storytelling is, I dare to say, the oldest form of art that exists.
Tens of thousands of years before humanity invented the written word, storytelling was already the main device humans used to pass on knowledge, keep themselves and their tribes alive, and make sense of the hostile world around them.
From prehistoric paintings and rituals to modern cinema, storytelling has always been by our side.
We are wired to love stories, to believe in stories, to redefine our world every time we hear a story.
Stories are so powerful, and we trust them at such an unconscious level, that it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they have been weaponized and used against us countless times, from marketing to outright propaganda.
Modern neuroscience research has demonstrated that a well-crafted story is indistinguishable from a “real” experience to our brains.
The human brain simply cannot tell the difference between an experience that involves our physical senses, and one created entirely by our imagination.
That’s why we’re so irresistibly attracted to stories: our brains are “simulation machines”, and their language is the language of Storytelling.
Personally, I find the role of imagination and its mighty power to define –and re-define– our reality fascinating.
While going deeper into neuroscience-related subjects might not be of your interest, I wanted to mention these bits here because it does say a lot about WHY stories are so influential… and why movies themselves can be such a transformative experience if done right.
But what’s a story, really?
To put it simply:
A story is a vital experience we’re inviting someone –a listener, a reader or a viewer, depending on the medium used– to protagonize and live in their imagination.
“Protagonize”, in case you’re not familiar with the term, is to be the main character of a story.
And that’s where the real power of stories resides: they invite the reader –or the viewer in the case of cinema– to step into the skin of the character and start living the character’s experiences as their own.
This, of course, doesn’t happen just by chance; the story itself needs to have a certain structure, and make use of specific narrative devices to make this identification between the viewer and the main character happen.
We’ll go deep into studying these powerful storytelling devices in future issues, but today, as I mentioned at the beginning of the issue, my goal is to give you a gentle introduction to what stories are and how they are “constructed”.
YES, that’s right:
The very first thing you must acknowledge is the fact that all the stories that have touched a chord in you, all those addictive novels and unforgettable movies you love, weren’t just written by the writer’s proverbial “seat of their pants”.
NO.
They were carefully planned to follow a proven story structure.
In other words: They were CONSTRUCTED.
This narrative structure, to be fair, is anything but new.
It was the late Joseph Campbell, an mythologist who spent his life studying comparative mythology and comparative religion, who in his 1949 masterful book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” introduced the concept of the Mono-Myth.
Having studied hundreds of different cosmologies, religious traditions, and myths spread over thousands of years all over the world, Campbell discovered to his great surprise that all of these stories were, in fact, the same story.
He called this recurrent story, the only story we humans seem to instinctively connect with at an unconscious level, the Mono-Myth –from “mono” = one/only– or, as it’s better known nowadays, The Hero’s Journey.
The Hero’s Journey was introduced to Hollywood in the mid 80s by the famous memo “A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES” that Christopher Vogler wrote while working at Disney.
The memo’s ideas hit a nerve and quickly spread like wildfire to other studios, especially after it became evident that George Lucas had written Star Wars following Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to the T.
Many of the most iconic movies we all know and love have been written following the story structure discovered by Campbell, or one of the many story structure variants that were spun from it, including Vogler’s own 12-stage version.
We’ll study Campbell’s original version and Vogler’s simplified version in the next few issues of Flawlessly Human!
Now that we know a bit more about what stories are from a brain evolution point of view, let’s talk about how they are constructed.
In practical terms, what is a story?
A story is a journey where something new happens to a character, and this character reacts and changes to face the challenge.
However, and this is a very important distinction, not everything that happens to a character has dramatic interest!
DRAMA = CONFLICT
In order for a story to have dramatic interest, that is, CONFLICT, it must have:
An relatable character who’s somehow unsatisfied with the status quo. The WHO.
Something the character REALLY wants –the VISIBLE GOAL– but cannot get (due to a number of OBSTACLES, that can include a NEMESIS character)
Something really bad must happen if the character fails to achieve their goal. THE STAKES.
It might sound obvious, but a story is ALWAYS someone’s story. There is no story without a WHO –the protagonist, or lead character.
This main character the story is about must be made relatable to the audience.
Otherwise the audience won’t identify with the character and the story will fail.
We’ll talk about character development and the different ways in which we can make a character relatable –YES, even villains can be made relatable– in a future issue.
The visible goal is needed for the audience to care enough to join the character in their journey, root for them, and experience the emotional roller-coaster of the movie.
Of course, the character should not be able to achieve their goal without facing seemingly insurmountable odds.
This is the main tenet of a story people will care about: Nobody cares about the story of a character who can achieve their goal without breaking a sweat!
These obstacles should become more and more challenging as the character advances, to the point that, towards the end of the story, both the character and the audience genuinely think that succeeding is very much impossible.
At the same time that the obstacles get bigger and bigger and the chances of success slimmer and slimmer, the stakes should also go up substantially.
In storytelling, “stakes” refers to “what’s at stake” or, said another way, what the character stands to lose if they are unable to accomplish the visible goal.
Obstacles and stakes are the key ingredients that make the story interesting and the character relatable to the audience.
Obstacles and stakes add dramatic interest to the story by creating EMOTIONAL TENSION in the spectator, because CONFLICT PRODUCES EMOTION.
Now that you know the 4 key ingredients you need to write a movie –or even a single scene– that keeps the audience at the edge of their seat, let me give you the simplest story structure I’ve found: The 6 Questions.
These 6 Questions are:
Who’s it about?
What do they want?
Why can’t they get it?
What do they do about that?
Why doesn’t that work?
How does it end?
I learned this simple but incredibly useful story framework from screenwriter Glenn Gers.
You can watch his full explanation here:
If we can answer these 6 simple questions, then we know we have a story.
Before trying it here though, let me introduce you to another really useful concept that will make coming up with a story idea 100 times easier: the concept of THEME.
In narrative writing, THEME basically means what’s the movie –or the book– is about.
In other words: what’s the message, what are you trying to say.
Is this a movie about justice?
About loneliness?
About the search for meaning?
About the corrupting power of money?
About technology vs humanity?
There are, of course, infinite possible themes we could explore with our stories.
Only you know what message you are trying to convey with your movie (or your book, or any other piece of art).
As I mentioned in another issue, a famous writer once said:
“You only need 2 things to write a book:
Have something to say, and
Say it.”
The Theme is the “having something to say” part.
People can, sadly, write books and movies without having anything to say.
But these are not good movies, and you’ll instantly recognize one when you see it!
You could also let your intuition guide you, “pantser” your way through the script, and try to uncover the “theme”, the “connecting thread” of your work later on…
There is nothing wrong with this approach, and it certainly is a great self-discovery exercise…
But you’ll have a hell of an easier time if you know what you want to say before you sit down to write!
So my suggestion in this regard is very simple:
ALWAYS start with the Theme!
Notice that the Theme has nothing to do with the Genre.
Genre is a stylistic choice.
You can talk about injustice and its effects in human society –a theme– by means of a story that takes place in the Bronx in the 1960s, or in the Roman Empire, or in a Galactic Civilization 37,000 years in the future.
Genre choice doesn’t affect the theme, only the settings and the way the story will be told.
Ok, we’re ready now to try our simple 6-Question Story framework.
For the theme, let’s pick “tech advancements are taking away humanity’s soul”.
By the way: even though most of the time it makes sense that the theme you choose is something you personally believe in –that’s why you want to make other people reflect about it after watching your movie– this is not always necessarily the case.
A movie or a novel could also be a way for the author to explore, to simulate where certain ideas could take us if left unchecked.
In any case, theme should never be taken as the exposition of a universal truth, but rather, as a conversation the author is starting with the reader or the spectator.
Also, while most movies work hard to prove their theme, you could just as well decide to put a twist on the story that disproves it at the end.
You’re in total control here!
Let’s try it:
Who’s it about?
This is about the main character the story is about.
Selecting the right character is REALLY important.
The first question we should ask ourselves here is: who would be the perfect character for this story?
Of course, we don’t have a fully formed story yet, so answering this question at this stage of development is quite tricky.
But we do have something: we have a theme.
So the question becomes: Who would be the best character to carry out this theme?
But before you tell me that that would obviously be someone who HATES technology and it’s more in touch with the human side of things, maybe an artist…
Let me let you in on a secret that will prove invaluable down the road:
Whenever possible, use CONTRAST.
This is valid not only for characters, but also for writing scenes, and everything really.
CONTRAST creates CONFLICT.
And CONFLICT makes everything more interesting!
So let’s go again…
What would be the best kind of character to carry out this theme?
The answer is: a character who’s in as much conflict –AKA, contrast– as possible with the theme!
So… what about a character who lives and breathes technology, a character whose entire life orbits around technology?
Someone who freaking LOVES tech, a real-life TECH OPTIMIST!
This kind of contrast between theme and main character comes with many beneficial side effects that we’ll be able to leverage later in the story:
It guarantees an ongoing inner conflict.
It creates a clear division between the old world and the new world (we’ll talk more about these crucial elements of story in our next issue).
It almost requires character transformation (another hugely important aspect of impactful stories)
It’ll make what we’re trying to say much more credible for the audience (since it does not come from an obvious supporter of such ideas)
So let’s say that our character, let’s call him Thomas, is a programmer and a tech maximalist.
He’s been a genius programmer since age 9, and after decades in the industry he immediately saw the potential of neural networks when Google introduced the Transformer architecture in their seminal paper “Attention Is All You Need” back in 2017.
He has since created his own startup: an AI Lab working tirelessly to solve the problem of AGI.
For him, AGI is the solution to all human problems.
The end of wars, the end of inequality, the end of illness.
The end of death, even.
Yes, he not only believes in immortality: this is the very thing that makes him get up in the morning; the work of his life, as he calls it.
AGI is just the shortest, surest road to get there.
Ok, we have our guy.
Now let’s answer the second question:
What does he want?
Now, when we talk about a character’s want, we’re referring to what we called before the “visible goal”.
The visible goal cannot be an abstract thing; it must be a tangible, visible thing.
It needs to be tangible and visible because the spectator must know when it has been achieved (or not).
So things like “AGI” or “Immortality”, even if they are big motivations for this character, are certainly not a visible goal the audience can get on board with.
We can go in a million different directions with this, so let me simply pick one:
He wants to release this new AI model that he believes is almost at AGI level next Monday.
All is prepared for the public release and the world is waiting!
Now, we not only have a visible goal… we have a ticking clock as well!
Good!
But…Why can’t he get it?
For some reason, 24% of the lab’s GPU clusters have come offline over the last few days!
Researchers have been working around the clock for the last 72 hours but they have been unable to find the bug.
To make matters worse, new GPU clusters seem to be going offline randomly since last night!
Ok, that’s good. But we need some stakes to make the spectator care.
Why should we care if he cannot make it by Monday?
Why is that important?
What is at stake?
This new model, AGI-0, has passed all the rigorous security tests required by the Pentagon and a host of other 3-letter national security agencies over the last 9 months.
The model has proven to be completely safe, and because of that it has been given complete access to the government systems in charge of defense, including complete control of the US nuclear arsenal and air space.
On Monday, at exactly 9AM EST, the transfer of the neural network’s weights between EndlessLifeSciences’s server and the national defense servers located on an unspecified bunker location will take place.
AGI-0 will then take over the control of all critical defense systems to guarantee the country’s safety against state hackers and, especially, China’s State AIs.
Ok, now we’re starting to care, aren’t we?
What does he do about that?
Thomas has decided to take matters into his own hands and has joined the team members looking for the bug earlier this morning.
He managed to track down the patterns of the GPU failures over the last few days and found, to his surprise, that they weren’t random as they had initially believed.
After further investigation he discovers that the unreleased model has somehow been using these clusters to do who knows what… while making them appear in the lab’s system as if they were defective and offline!
To make matters worse, Tom also finds that they have been locked out of certain critical areas of the lab’s management software.
Tom tries to hack into the lab’s systems using a backdoor he himself implanted when he wrote the system software a couple years back.
He needs to use that kill switch to unload the model from memory and see what the heck is going on before things get out of control!
Why doesn’t that work?
To his surprise, the backdoor is not there anymore!
It seems like the model has hardened the system!
He checks for two other backdoors he left, just in case. Gone!
Even the emergency codes for manual access are not working anymore!
He manages to get access to the live code and quickly realizes that the system code has been completely rewritten!
He wrote this system code himself so he’s really familiar with it…
But the live code looks a lot more complex, almost indecipherable, and completely unrecognizable to him!
How does it end?
This one is a really open question.
It implies that the main character has tried a few things already that didn’t work.
And when the character –and the viewer– feel that all is lost, that there is no way to win… he somehow collects himself and tries one last thing.
Depending on space, the character can try a few different things.
In a full feature movie –usually 90 to 120 minutes of run time– the lead character will usually try and fail several times before hitting the story’s lowest point, the so-called all is lost point.
In a short movie, as run time is really limited, the character might try only one or two things before finally succeeding (or finally failing).
In any case, the try-fail cycle must happen at least once, and hopefully more than once, for the story to hold the interest of the audience.
Nobody cares about someone who just succeeds at their first try!
This last thing the character tries usually works, and the movie ends showing the character having achieved their goal, triumphant in their new life.
Although this is not necessarily always the case...
Sometimes, the character’s final attempt also fails; they cannot accomplish their goal nor fulfill their destiny.
They fail to change, to transform.
Instead, they fall back into their old ways.
These kinds of screenplays where the main character fails to measure up to the circumstances, where they fail to grow and transform, to become who they were destined to be, are called, not surprisingly, “tragedies”.
Contrarily, screenplays where the main character successfully goes through a transformation that allows them to fully realize their potential and achieve their goals are called “dramas”.
Drama and Tragedy are, by the way, the meanings of those two masks you’ve seen in the symbol of theatrical arts.
So, how will we end this one?
If we have the time, that is, if this is for a feature and not a short, we should make sure that Tom tries different things to regain control of his lab… and fails every time.
With every failed attempt, the spectator identifies more and more with the character, simply because rooting for the weak, for the one who’s losing and is in imminent danger, is human nature.
With every failed attempt, both the character and the public discover that the situation is more critical than we’d thought; each time the character fails to accomplish the goal leaves us in a more precarious situation, making the possibility of success feel more and more unlikely.
The secret to a good drama is that the spectator has to believe, even if for a second, that there’s no way for the hero to win!
This Road of Trials, as Joseph Campbell calls it, this cycle of try-fail attempts, is also where the character must embrace the need to change, to transform into someone who will be capable of facing his Nemesis and succeed.
Notice that the Nemesis can be another character, the Antagonist, or simply the hostility of the world the Hero must rise above.
It’s also here, in the maximum point of conflict, the lowest point in the entire story, where the theme, the message the story is all about, is powerfully delivered to the audience.
This is where the spectator will experience the change –a change of perspective, a new realization or a new valuable insight– as the character, finally, embraces the change that’s needed for him to succeed against the impossible odds.
So, what’s the change this character in particular needs to go through?
He needs to understand that technology is not the solution to all human problems. Maybe even learn to appreciate the imperfection of human nature.
Whatever message you want to convey to the viewer, that’s your decision.
The story is only the medium to deliver that message in an emotionally impactful way, a way that can change perspectives, that can make the viewer or the reader reconsider their position on the matter.
This might sound a little pretentious at first, but, at the end of the day, this has always been the goal of stories: to change minds.
It has been said that “every story is an answer to the question of how should I live my life", and I think that this is true at some level for every movie, every book ever written, and every work of art.
It’s not that the author is trying to indoctrinate us with their own way of seeing things…
It’s more that our brains are constantly looking for patterns in every story we hear, see or read, doing their best to extract any information that could be useful to keep us alive.
Keeping us alive was, let’s not forget, the original purpose for which stories were developed tens of thousands of years ago and, for our brains, the sole goal of stories.
Our brains are wired to look for answers in stories.
Stories are, after all, the way we have learned everything we know about the world around us!
When we tell a story of a character who changes –or even one who fails to change– we’re inviting the spectator to join in, and go through that change alongside the character.
The main character is, in that regard, just a symbol: the stand-in for the spectator’s current way of seeing things.
When the spectator identifies themselves with the character on screen, and decides to accept the Call to Adventure and join the character on their shared Quest, both are bound to transform together.
Storytelling is Alchemy: the only goal of stories is TRANSFORMATION.
Ok, let’s go back now to our guy, Tom, and let’s see how his world starts to change…
Or better yet:
I’ll leave this, arguably the most crucial part of the story, for you to write.
Write your own answer to the question “How does it end?” and email it to me, or post it on X and tag me.
But before signing off, let me give you a couple of final hints:
Always remember that a story is nothing but a journey of transformation. The character must leave behind their old self and embrace a new self.
The events the story throws at the character have one and only one objective: to make them commit to the change he or she needs to make in order to rise to the occasion.
Pushing them beyond the Point of No Return!
Keeping that in mind…
What do you think is the inner change or transformation this character needs to go through?
How should his way of thinking, attitude, or perspective on life change to prevail in this challenge?
What is the lie he believes to be true that is preventing him from succeeding?
How will the character’s life change when they finally surrender their old ways and embrace this new perspective, attitude or way of thinking (the theme)?
Now you have all you need to do a fantastic job!
And don’t forget to send me your answer to the last question… I’d love to see how you end this story!
Next week we’ll take everything we’ve learned about story today to a whole new level with Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey!
See you then!
Leonardo
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THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Leonardo