The Purpose of Stories
Samantha Levy
Dedication This book is dedicated to anyone who has found stories useful, and it’s especially dedicated to people who create stories I enjoy.
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Acknowledgements This, like all my writing, would be much worse if my mom didn’t proof it. I also want to thank my dad for reading my writing, which is a rare event. Thank you to Gordon Jack, Nika Siguonova, Audrey Mueller, and Tacey Weatherby for telling me their dark and vital secrets that make this book worth reading.
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Table of Contents
Preface 9
Introduction
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A Br
ief H
istory
Advertising
of St
oryte
lling
and Storyte
12
lling
15
Empathy and Stories
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8
Preface
I
have always been very interested in stories and how stories are created. In elementary school I learned about the hero’s journey and about other universal elements all stories share. As I went through middle school and high school I discovered that many people create stories, and many do this involuntarily. I figured that since creating narrative is an innate human skill, it could have an evolutionary and more applicable purpose. I was concerned about meeting deadlines and creating enough content for a book. Design required 15 or more pictures, while we only needed to make one picture in previous projects. Likewise, the written portion needed to be 8-10 pages long, whereas most of our other writing assignments were only a few pages. In Animation our projects needed to be 1-2 minutes, but the longest animation I had previously made was only 35 seconds. Ultimately, these new length requirements did not end up being big roadblocks in my path to completion.
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Introduction
W
hy do we tell stories? Research shows that “the presence of good storytellers is associated with increased cooperation. In return, skilled storytellers are preferred social partners and have greater reproductive success, providing a pathway by which group-beneficial behaviours, such as storytelling, can evolve via individual-level selection. We conclude that one of the adaptive functions of storytelling among hunter gatherers may be to organize cooperation.” (Smith). In short, storytellers increase cooperation and in return the traits that make a good storyteller are passed down through the generations. Another historic goal of storytelling involves recording history and making it worth remembering. All of this information considered, the purpose of stories, in one sentence, would be to increase an audience member’s understanding of what the story explains. Although this is the most inclusive and universal hypothesis, stories originally have a much more specific purpose. To understand the original purpose of storytelling one must understand the history of storytelling. The historical purpose of stories is to make information easier to remember and pass on histories and myths. Today, companies use stories and storytelling techniques to make their ads more memorable. Yet the commercial purpose of stories can’t be considered a universal purpose. Empathy, on the other hand, is something everyone needs. It also is something that is lacking in many parts of today’s society. On the internet, especially, people have a harder time feeling empathy without a face to empathize with. Stories have been shown to promote empathy and the internet is a place where we need it most. In order to understand modern day storytelling one needs to remind themselves of what stories were like before now.
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A Brief History of Storytelling
T
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he history of storytelling provides context for the original purpose of stories. Stories are essentially universal and have existed as long as civilizations have existed: “It has been shown that humans in all societies, even dating back to cavemen, have an inclination toward visual representations” (Mendoza). But spoken word storytelling predated even cave drawings, although there are few concrete records to prove their existence. Even today, many foreign cultures who previously didn’t have a need for written records are in the process of transcribing stories that have survived through hundreds of generations through the oral tradition. Storytelling through the spoken word has existed for a very long time in fact, “Storytelling through oral tradition dates back to different points in history, depending on the culture. These traditions used song, chant, and epic poetry to tell stories that had been handed down from generation to generation and eventually written and published” (Mendoza). Folklore from Africa is slowly being transcribed, translated, and published to this day. The written word is in fact a very recent invention compared to the invention of stories themselves: “There is evidence of written symbols that date back to about 9,000 years ago. The first written stories were manually transcribed, whether on paper, stone, or clay” (MeWndoza). Transcribing stories is a highly inefficient way to write stories. I know this from first hand experience of recording an interview, a form of story, and then spending hours accurately transcribing it despite the story itself being less than an hour. Some of the first recorded stories are epics that are hundreds of pages long, which could have taken almost a lifetime to transcribe by hand. But before the written word was fully flushed out many cultures had visual representations of their stories that weren’t a full written language. Many African tribes decorated their textiles with images from or representing their folklore. Aboriginal Australians also had patterned, mostly dotted, images depicting their stories and French cave paintings depict ritualistic hunts and other scenes mostly involving animals. More modern inventions make the laborious process of hand transcription slightly less time consuming. The main way they achieved this was by making the process of copying the text fast. “Johannes Gutenberg is considered the inventor of the printing press in the 15th century; however, 600 years before Gutenberg, Chinese monks created a block printing mechanism that set ink to paper using wooden blocks” (Mendoza). These inventions revolutionized bookmaking and essentially brought books and published literature to the masses. Old fashioned words and phrases from the days of the printing
press still dictate how we refer to writing and printing today. For example, the terms uppercase and lowercase come from the fact that the larger letters were kept in a case above the smaller letters. The word billboard comes from the fact that printing presses couldn’t print very big so printers would take bill sized pieces of paper and layer them in a grid to fill a larger board. Yet, even in the age of the printing press, bibles and easily spreadable pamphlets were the most common literature to print. Why might that be? The goal of both pamphlets and bibles is to be
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g n i s i t r e v d
A
g n i l l e t y r o
St
H
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and
ow can we take the historical purpose of stories, memorability, and give it a place in a world where all information is at the tips of everyone’s fingers? In the world of advertisements and marketing, the goal is to make products memorable and wantable. In some ways, coming up with a compelling story is half the battle. According to The Atlantic, “A narrative works off of both data and emotions, which is significantly more effective in engaging a listener than data alone. In fact, Jennifer Aaker, a professor of marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, says that people remember information when it is weaved into narratives ‘up to 22 times more than facts alone.’” (Delistraty) Since companies want their product at the forefront of every possible consumer’s mind, working in a compelling narrative gives them an upper hand in the competition for brain space. But many people gravitate towards plain facts and figure when trying to be compelling. They try to win over people with bland statistics or cold facts, but the human brain isn’t always receptive to that kind of persuasion. According to the famous writer and director Dr. Robert McKee, “The other way to persuade people—and ultimately a much more powerful way—is by uniting an idea with an emotion. The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story” (qtd. In Fryer). McKee suggests using a narrative instead or in addition to straight facts. Facts can often lead into
narratives just by tracing the facts back to their sources or by elaborating on what a fact means in a real world context. These stories help persuade people on a deeper, emotional level. A real world example of storytelling in marketing involves explanations of problems that entrepreneurs are trying to solve. Tracy Weatherby is the founder of Active Ingredient, a marketing firm that helps entrepreneurs produce products to help solve global problems. In this very specific kind of marketing, storytelling is almost exclusively used to increase empathy. This kind of Pro Bono marketing “use[s] stories in a very different way where we really are trying to explain to potential donors and investors what people’s lives are like in sometimes more underserved parts of the world that they may not know about” (Weatherby). They use stories to increase understanding of others situations, increasing empathy. Truly understanding the problems others have is a necessary first step that is often overlooked by people who are trying to improve the world. A common charitable act that schools or high tech companies often execute is donating computers to places that lack them. This often results in people using the computers as building material or utilizing them in some other way than what was originally intended. The organizations spearheading these projects forgot to consider why these people don’t have computers in the first place. People without computers often have other things they need to do that don’t involve computers. They had a more pressing need for building materials than computers or didn’t have the facilities to utilize computers as intended. Weatherby understands that some people need to be reminded of accommodations they have grown accustomed to. What she finds WW“...interesting is when you’re used to electricity you really forget everything electricity does” (Weatherby). She goes on to talk about how when she was a child she experienced a power outage; since she couldn’t work, she asked her parents if she could watch TV. These kinds of misunderstandings can lead to thousands of lost dollars and wasted hours. Storytelling can help prevent these small lapses in judgment, increasing the effectiveness of charitable work. Increasing empathy between the entrepreneur and the less fortunate can be one of the most effective ways to improve the world.
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“people remember information when it is weaved into narratives ‘up to 22 times more than facts alone.’” - Delistraty
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Empathy and Stories
M
any people enjoy stories just for the plot or just for the characters. These people cry when their favorite character dies showing how they feel for someone they have never met. This might be considered a skill in this day and age where so many interactions occur online, with little empathy. The Pew Research Center reports that ”overall, 19% of all teens report that they have been bullied [online] in the last 12 months in at least one of the four scenarios about which we asked. Half of bullied teens say they were bullied in multiple ways” (Lenhart). Humans seem to have a hard time empathizing with people they can’t see or don’t know in person. With internet communication becoming a bigger part of everyday interactions, from emails to instant messages, the need for empathy for people that one hasn’t met yet grows. This is where stories can help. According to Psychology researcher Dan Johnson, who recently published a study in Basic and Applied Social Psychology, “reading fiction significantly increased empathy towards others, especially people the readers initially perceived as ‘outsiders’ (e.g. foreigners, people of a different race, skin color, or religion)” (qtd. in Delistraty). Storytelling as a way to increase cooperation and empathy is a good universal goal for storytellers as a whole. This can help improve our internet discourse which is why stories matter today. Stories are a told that could eventually help the whole world understand one another without ever meeting someone from far away. Books are cheaper than travel and yet serve to connect the world like planes. The real power and purpose books hold is the ability to make online discourse smoother and friendlier. When asked what the purpose of stories might be, amature story creator and connoisseur, Veronika Simonova said that “it’s just that thing that sometimes helps build communities or just connects people in general and if you look at some of the more famous stories like Harry Potter or Terry Pratchett’s Discworld (series) they have a fan base which is also connected so basically stories connect people” (Siguzova). In other words, big, widely-loved stories create a significant fan base of people who all want to talk to each other and like what one another likes. In internet terminology, stories create “Fandoms” which are essentially internet communities that consist of and connect people all over the world. Stories are a key that fits into the lock that is the internet, unlocking friendships that couldn’t exist if either one didn’t exist. Because of big, widely loved, stories and the internet, people from different countries can have discussions about shared interests in real time. This is the connective power of stories.
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The classic example of traditional empathy, is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Thinking about how someone else feel in a specific situation or why they act the way they do is more complex than the simple phrase implies. It also takes more time than is allowed in moments of rage when empathy is needed most. Story creation is the perfect setting to sit down and really think about why someone else would act the way they do. When the president of The Creative Writing Club at Mountain View High School, Audrey Mueller, was asked if she uses her stories to discover more about the world, she responded, “ I use stories to sort of explore what it might be like to be other people and to sort of like get inside other people’s heads” (Mueller). Mueller uses the process of creating characters and putting them in situations with realistic reactions to increase empathy between herself, the reader, and the character. This process of critically thinking about how characters behave is another aspect of stories that increases empathy.
“ I use stories to sort of explore what it might be like to be other people and to sort of like get inside other people’s heads” -Mueller
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Conclusion
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eople have different ways of phrasing the purpose of stories. According to Ditkoff, storytelling “communicates values, not just skills, decreases teaching time, builds community, ignites five more regions of the brain than mere fact giving, helps people make sense of their world, shapes perceptions via the subconscious mind, reframes frustration, paradox, and suffering, changes behavior, and provides a dependable way for people to remember, retrieve, and retell a meaningful message.” Although, it is true that there are simpler ways to phrase the purpose of stories. When asked what is the purpose of stories, teacher, librarian, and published author Gordon Jack responded, “I always go back to the purpose of stories being to both entertain and instruct” (Jack). Again, true but the perfect summary of the purpose of stories is one concise sentence. The purpose of stories is to explain a concept through more effective means.
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“I always go back to the purpose of stories being to both entertain and instruct� - Jack
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Works Cited Delistraty, Cody C. “The Psychological Comforts of Storytelling.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2 Nov. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-psychological-comforts-of-storytelling/381964/. Accessed 2 Mar. 2018. Ditkoff, Mitch. “Why Tell Stories?” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/mitch-ditkoff/why-tell-stories_b_8703710.html. Accessed 2 Mar. 2018. The Evolution of Storytelling Tech by Melissa Mendoza | May. 1, 2015. “The Evolution of Storytelling.” Mendoza Magazine, 1 May 2015, reportor.rit.edu/tech/evolution-storytelling. Accessed 2 Mar. 2018. Fryer, Bronwyn. “Storytelling That Moves People.” Harvard Business Review, Harvard BusinessWtha Levy. “Interview with Audrey.” 8 Mar. 2018. Sigunova, Veronika, and Samantha Levy. “Interview with Nika.” 10 May 2017 Smith, Daniel, et al. “Cooperation and the Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Storytelling.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 5 Dec. 2017,. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02036-8.Accessed 2 Mar. 2018 Weatherby, Tracy, and Samantha Levy. “Tracy Weatherby.” 17 Apr. 2018.
Samantha Levy is a junior at Mountain View High School who will graduate in 2019. She aspires to go to a highly ranked art university to study some combination of graphic design and illustration. Samantha creates character designs, portraits, and other forms of illustrations for fun and enjoys experimenting with different kinds of media. In her free time Samantha enjoys playing with her cat, watching YouTube, and creating art. She is looking forward to taking part in MICA’s (Maryland Institute College of Art) summer program for graphic design.
The Purpose of Stories
Samantha Levy