The Science of Storytelling

by Will Storr

When I asked Cole to define eudaemonia he said it was ‘kind of striving after a noble goal’. ‘So it’s heroic behaviour in a literary sense?’ ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Exactly.’

When we push ourselves towards a tough yet meaningful goal, we thrive. Our reward systems spike not when we achieve what we’re after but when we’re in pursuit of it. It’s the pursuit that makes a life and the pursuit that makes a plot. Without a goal to follow and at least some sense we’re getting closer to it, there is only disappointment, depression and despair. A living death.

an episode that brings the character into a new psychological realm. Once they’re in this hostile and alien place, their flawed theory of control is tested and retested, often to breaking point and beyond.

Each plot, he argues, consists of five acts: the call to action, a dream stage in which everything goes well, a frustration stage at which fortunes turn, a descent into nightmarish conflict, and finally a resolution.

In his fascinating book on story structure Into the Woods, John Yorke argues for a hidden symmetry in story, in which protagonists and antagonists function as opposites with their rising and falling fortunes mirroring one another.

It’s ubiquitous in mass-marketing storytelling because it’s the simplest way of showing a character’s flawed theory of control being broken, changed and rebuilt. In its ‘happy ending’ form it goes like this:

For one final, decisive time, they’re posed the dramatic question. It’s the moment they have to decide, once and for all, whether or not to become someone new.

The flawed models they’re required to shatter run so deep that it takes an act of almost supernatural strength and courage to finally change them for good.

That gold is your the reward for accepting the fight of your life. But you only get it if you answer

story’s dramatic question correctly: ‘I’m going to be someone better.’

Story is a form of play that allows us

feel we’ve lost control without actually placing us in danger.

Psychologists call this state ‘transportation’.

Transportation changes people, and then it changes the world.

All

of us are in search of writers who somehow capture the distinct music made by the agonies in our heads.

Compared to a control group (who watched Friends) they ended up with ‘more positive attitudes towards Arabs’ on various tests – changes that persisted when re-tested a month later.

Story, then, is both tribal

propaganda and the cure for triba...

Facing these flaws and fixing them will be the fight of our lives. To accept story’s challenge and win is to be a hero.

I’d encourage you to consider how each protagonist connects with each other’s flaw. They might have different versions of the same problem, which rub up against each other, making it better or worse, depending on the needs of the plot. In romantic comedies or buddy movies, the two protagonists often inhabit two opposing flaws. When they finally come together, they’re healed.

The job of your plot is to test, break and retest a flawed character.

We’re looking for a specific kind of flaw – one that our character has formed a core part of their identity around and that has the potential to do them damage.

At the start of your scene, your character will believe one thing. Then something happens and it makes them realise …

As we’ve discovered, because of our tribal evolution, experiences of being ostracised and humiliated are tremendously hurtful for humans. Perhaps the origin of their damage lies in a moment when such feelings were powerfully felt?

Whatever happened to your character, it should be a precise moment in which they clearly understand that if they don’t believe or behave like this, then that might happen. It’s important for reasons that’ll become clear that the theory of control that forms out of this moment has these two components. First, that it tells our protagonist who they must be in order to get what they want from the world. Second, that it tells them how to avoid something bad. In other words, this moment, and the belief that springs out of it, will help us define their future goals and their secret subconscious fears.

Lawrence dreads being made to feel invisible by important people helps us mentally model his character with vivid accuracy.

The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Mike Figgis or the epic Plotto by William Wallace Cook).

When you consider storytelling in all its wonderful variety, it seems to me the only true fundamentals are that a story event on the top layer of the drama triggers change on the subconscious layer beneath.

The standard five-act structure is simply the most efficient way of showing a character’s sacred flaw being tested, broken and rebuilt. In its first half, the protagonist’s old theory of control is tested and found wanting. At the midpoint, it’s transformed. In the second half, their new theory of control is heavily tested. In the final act, they’re given the choice: do they want to embrace this new theory of control or revert to their old one? Who are they going to be?

In their reaction they’ll answer the dramatic question of ‘Who am I?’ in a rather

different way each time. This is how both levels of the story – plot and character – work symbiotically to generate the propulsive energy of an irresistible story, with its peaks and troughs of constriction and release (section 4.0) coming relentlessly.

I recommend the excellent Into the Woods by John Yorke and The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker),

It’s triggered when the right event happens to the right character – when we sense an unexpected change has taken place that strikes at that character’s flawed belief. Because of this, the event triggers them. It makes them react in a surprising and specific way. This unusual reaction makes us sense something’s afoot and arouses our curiosity. It’s the first trickle in a flood that ultimately has the power to overturn who that person is.

They’ll then be triggered by an ignition point that’ll make them act in a way that’s characteristic but will backfire or prove somehow ineffectual. This is the plot beginning to prove their theory of control is wrong.

This massive ratcheting of drama at the precise point at which the audience risks getting fidgety is, I’ve come to believe, the piece of engineering genius that’s made the five-act structure

matchlessly popular for more than two thousand years.

This is their ‘dark night of the soul’, during which we might witness ruminative moments that reveal hints and clues about origin damage. They might go through a reversal, exhibiting signs that the plot’s test has been too savage and that they can’t, after all, pay the price of change.

For one blissful instant they have complete, godlike control over everything. They have embraced their new self and triumphed.

Whichever type of ending you choose, if it’s going to be satisfying, it must deliver a clear answer to the dramatic question – we need to see, at the end of all the chaos and drama, who your protagonist really is.