Stories and Change

Why do we tell stories? Is it to entertain, or is it because of an innate need to share something? Is it because we understand an event really well, or because we want to understand it? Whether we are conscious of it or not, we tell stories constantly.
What makes for an interesting story? Arguably any story can be made interesting; it is in the art of the storyteller. Christopher Booker describes seven stories, believing that every story told fits into one of these categories:

1. Tragedy - the hero with a fatal flaw has a tragic ending

2. Comedy - a happy and/or romantic ending

3. Overcoming the monster - the good guy (or, as in the case of Lara Croft, girl) wins the day

4. Voyage and return - the protagonist sets out on a journey and faces many demons, leading to personal development, then returns to tell the tale

5. Quest - the hero sets out to find an object or person of importance

6. Rags to riches (or riches to rags to riches)

7. Rebirth - the hero loses something important, and along with this the reason for living, finds a new reason to live and is thus 'reborn'

I think Booker must have missed out on the romantic gene, as I would definitely differentiate between comedy (think Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Life of Brian) and romance (you know, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl).

So, let's just say there are eight kinds of story- which one would yours be?

You will probably answer: a bit of this and a bit of that. This is because real life stories are complex and multifaceted. A novelist who is well known (and hopefully well paid) has usually chosen just one or two of these kinds of stories, and created one or two themes and settings around it to add interest, such as a rite of passage (birth, marriage, death, bar mitzvah), perhaps something quirky like a dysfunctional family, or an observation on difference eg. city-country, rich-poor, old-young etc.

So, if storytelling is such a normal part of our lives, what is so special about applied stories?

Unlike other stories, the ones that happen ‘to’ us (told in the 1st person) or to others (3rd person), in applied stories we orchestrate the action, we are the architects of its structure, we are the designers who display the components. We have a personal investment in them; they are integral to our being. And more than that applied stories have transformation, or change, as a focus. Maybe applied stories have something in common with Booker’s 7th category – what do you think?