I once attended a webinar on the power of storytelling in the business world. One of the featured guests, international story coach Ameen Haque, offered the following definition: “Story is truth, well told”. There are two elements at play here: the truth, and the telling. Truth without telling could simply be called facts; a story, however, has to ring true, and it has to be told in a way that’s meaningful.
Perhaps one interpretation of “truth, well told” is that story is how we make sense of truth. In a previous post, I was inspired by the idea that our brains care more about possibility than truth; this is probably one reason why our brains love a good story. Cutting deeper, what is it that forms the bridge between plain and simple truth, and a story that we buy into? After all, a “good story” can be a complicit fantasy – we know we are being taken for a ride and we go along willingly, often for entertainment value – or it can be deception. We like stories, but we also care about the facts, because we want to trust the storyteller. What makes something “ring true”?
The aim of this post is not to get overly philosophical about the nature of reality, or to try to prove that truth is entirely relative; however, let’s work with the assumption that truth is at least partially constructed. Our stories, ultimately, are not a representation of reality, but the version of reality we agree to take away with us. My insight, then, is that “truth” in the context of storytelling, or what makes stories meaningful, has as much to do with the telling as with the content of the message.
What aspects of telling am I talking about? What makes a story well-told?
1. A good story tells us about who we are.
(And this is a big part of what makes it ring true.)
When someone tells us a story about who they are, we listen – even if that person appears to have nothing in common with us. We do this automatically, in order to find points of connection with that person (and, somewhat more cynically, to “place” and categorise them within our mental model of the world). In order to resonate more broadly, a good story will confirm something meaningful about who we are as humans, and will cross the boundaries of time and hopefully also culture. Telling us about ourselves is what makes a story relevant; relevance is about resonance.
Of course, a story is nothing without characters, and this is one way in which we relate to it. We either identify personally with characters, or we recognise a familiar archetype and try to fill in the blanks about the character’s role and fate in the narrative.
From telling us who we are, to telling us how we became who we are and why we do things the way we do, our group (hi)stories become our heritage, our shared “mythology”. From a neutral perspective, then, stories help us understand our identity. From a not-so-neutral perspective, stories tell us who we should be, and who others are and should be, and may even imply that we must never question these things. Crucially, we also tell ourselves stories that link behaviour to identity, not just about other people but about ourselves – a topic to be unpacked later.
2. A good story goes somewhere.
At its simplest, a good story – any story – has a direction and a destination. It sets the scene, introduces the players, develops the action; and it has a clear resolution or conclusion, or a punchline, a big reveal, a final utopia or happily ever after, etc.
There are many models drawn from the worlds of drama and literature that describe the ideal story structure. The most basic is the three-part structure: beginning, middle and end; or, in classical terminology that has been adopted by modern movie giants Pixar Animation Studios, Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3. There is a slightly more granular five-part structure, attributed to the German dramatist Gustav Freytag in the 19th Century, which describes exposition or scene-setting, rising action, climax, falling action, and finally resolution or “dénouement”. There is also the technique of shaping a story by contrasting “what is” and “what could be”, and then showing how to get there – a nice riff on truth (current challenges) versus possibility (ideal future). See this TED Talk by Nancy Duarte, which explains how this strategy can be applied to persuasive presentations.
There are, of course, key and usually clear transitions between the stages of a story. Importantly, too, what gives the story “somewhere to go” and provides the overall shape or arc, is the introduction and building of tension or conflict, leading up to a climax and then down to a final resolution. Trying to predict the direction of a story is what keeps us in the game, because humans are natural pattern builders and problem solvers who want to discover and deduce. As Andrew Stanton of Pixar Studios said in this talk, titled The Clues to a Great Story, “drama is anticipation mixed with uncertainty”.
3. Story is how we get people to come with us.
As everyone knows, we don’t just follow a good story; it grabs hold of us. Curiosity, relevance and relatable characters get our attention; a well-crafted structure gives it somewhere to go; but another, most critical element of a story’s resonance is, of course, emotion.
“Make me care” is one of the story “commandments” identified by Stanton in the aforementioned TED Talk. Emotion is a key element of what makes a story compelling and therefore memorable, because emotions always involve not just the head but the whole body – we speak about stories giving us goose bumps or chills, about being literally on the edge of our seats, or we are even moved to tears.
In short, a good story:
- Tells us about ourselves – so we identify or sympathise with the characters.
- Goes somewhere – so we want to discover the outcome or solve the problem.
- Takes us with it – by being well-structured, but also by eliciting a physiological response.
The result of which is that we get invested. We are invested in stories, which is why story is what we take along with us. Stories may be all we can carry when we leave aside all our tangible belongings, and all that is left is the meaning of life.
Part 3 will go deeper into on our investment as listeners or readers, and why it is so important to remember who your story is really about.
All & None of the Above 