Activated Storytelling

10/9/08

First Post - Definitions

This blog came about because I started talking to myself. Actually, I have blogged many pages in my mind - trouble is I can't retrieve them. So I have to record them somewhere...

STORY -- the narrative of a journey from somewhere to somewhere, usually through somewhere, delivered to an audience.

• the journey is not literal travel from place to place, but an emotional one from one state to another
• the narrative is the plot, the description of what happens along the way
  
• a story needs an audience to receive it
• the audience travels its own journey from a starting emotional state to an ending one by agreeing to receive the story, and sometimes that journey is more important than the one being told

The paradigm of a story is:

1. statement of initial condition
2. journey
3. statement of concluding condition
   

The audience has to know how things are in whatever world is being presented, in order to understand the concluding condition, or what things become.

Most stories require a series of interim conditions to logically get from start to finish. The degree of difference between the two determines the number of interim conditions. You can't go from hate to love without a whole range of intervening steps.

ACTIVATED STORY -- a story that has an event which activates a character to pursue a goal, and the success or failure at accomplishing that goal marks the climax of the tale.

The paradigm for an activated story is:

1. initial condition
2. activating event
3. activated character
4. actions which lead to the concluding condition
5. concluding condition

The initial condition is the "once upon a time there was..."
The activating event changes the initial condition. "And then one day..."
This new condition is intolerable for someone, and they have to change it.
The activated character is out to change the new condition back to the old, or at least to something that they can live with.
Their actions are the plot of the story: they demonstrate they have the potential to succeed, they are humiliated and just short of total defeat, they rise pathetically, they accomplish a small goal, etc. etc. until in one final confrontation that will determine all they triumph (or fail) and the concluding condition comes about.

Not all stories are activated.
This is a subject for another post, but it's important to realize that many fine novels, plays and movies do not follow the activated paradigm. Short stories, for instance, usually set up the initial condition and stop at the activating event, leaving the audience to think about the resulting condition that may be implied more than stated. Company, Sondeheim's early piece, does this too. Bobby is unchanged until the final song, and then, depending on the strength of the performer, only promises change. But it is a change the audience in its journey of the evening has been made to want. Don't underestimate the power of the audience's surrogate journey. Some of the best drama can only be explained by involving the audience as a character in the story.

Often, it is the villain who is the activated character.
Especially in comicbook land, the good guy goes about his business of reacting to crime. He does his job. The villain, on the otherhand, has a plan, a goal, and only the superhero stands in his way. But why look only to Marvel? How do you explain Iago in terms of protagonist and antagonist? Othello is the main character of the story, but he is reactive. Iago is the activated character whose every move is to bring him closer to resolving the intolerable condition of Othello being promoted over him.

The paradigm is not linear.
Events in life unfold one after the other. It doesn't matter in storytelling where you start. It only matters that you hold the audience's interest. That, also, is a matter for another post.

JIM