Story and Narrative

Story telling is terrifying, particularly when it is your own story. When your childhood is sprinkled with parental abandonment, abuse, alcoholism, failed suicide attempts, drugs, sexual addiction, and a myriad of other drama, the last thing you want to do is invite the world into your poorly written soap opera.

People label you, treat you differently, and question your integrity. You lose friends, upset family members, and disappoint those you love. And as you share your story, you wonder if it’s even worth it. Does anyone care? Could they ever understand? Does it even matter?

So it’s no surprise I was afraid of sharing my story. But can I tell you a secret?

Telling your story isn’t nearly as terrifying as not telling it.

In a conversation the other day we were talking about how to guide today’s youth for success in the “real world”. It encompassed topics from the importance of learning different languages, including Spanish and Mandarin, to the role a college education plays. While we had a range of opinions, there was one thing we all agreed upon — how important it is for our youth to excel at being able to tell a story. From job interviews, to saving the world, to storytelling in business, how well our youth are able to translate their experience and education into stories really matters.

In evolutionary science, storytelling is suspect. This is due, in large part, to the proliferation of “just so” stories which explain all traits and behaviors as optimal adaptations. When nothing can happen by chance or constraint and selection hones everything toward utility, the inevitable result is a kind of storytelling in which the current function of something is explained by its imagined usefulness in the evolutionary past. Not all evolutionary stories, however, are just so.

Although only half of the post is about a movie. The other half is about a book I'm reading right now. And these two stories--one a book, one a movie--both break a lot of storytelling conventions/rules. For me, breaking the rules worked in the movie but not in the book. And in this case I'll bet the book is actually more popular than the movie, although I don't have any stats to back that up.

First off, since there’s a lot of confusion about the term “transmedia” itself, let me be clear what I mean when I use it: To me, transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. It is not to be confused with traditional cross-platform media franchises, sequels or adaptations, as it’s all about telling one story where all the story parts are linked together and in sync with each other, even though they may be in different places.

Andrew focused on a number of points that have a particular resonance with me. He noted, for example, that NASA has lost the ability to start small and iteratively build up technological capabilities - "If you can't iterate, you can't innovate". Instead, ever since Apollo NASA has repeatedly put forward plans for a huge project like the Shuttle, gotten far less funding than it requested, yet continued on regardless.

It’s too obvious not to bring it up: the global interest in the Jeremy Lin narrative underscores again how fast and dramatically the game can change…and how a player like Lin–or you—can create the change and benefit from it when it happens.

First, it’s important to point out (again) that people—not events, products, strategies or tactics—are gamechangers. Only people have the power to change the game in each and every moment. Everything else is either fantasy or history.

But then I thought of a book I happened to be sampling at the moment, Thinking, Fast and Slow by Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics. Kahneman brings together a lot of recent research in economics and psychology to analyze the way humans make decisions. We all have evolved what Kahneman likes to call System 1, the intuitive part of ourselves that we use without even being aware that we’re thinking. System 1 tells us within a millisecond of walking in the door that our spouse is ticked at us, or that 2+2 = 4. It’s the system that puts the illusion in optical illusions, and the one that tells us to start moving when we spot a tiger bounding over its cage wall in a zoo. When Allen Ginsberg said, “First thought, best thought,” he was really saying , “Trust your System 1.”

Frank Carson passed away today. One of the finest comedians of his time, the Irishman was widely known for his catchphrase, “It’s the way I tell ‘em!” I couldn’t agree more, and it’s a principle that business people need to embrace when they’re presenting themselves. It’s not just the facts of what we say that matters. It’s the ‘story’ and the way we say it that creates impact.

Instead, I’d like to step back and make some observations on the place of fiction in our culture today, a.d. 2012. It is very different from the place it occupied in the 19th century, or even the place it occupied up through the middle of the last century.

A good analogy is priceless–it helps us understand the new by connecting it to the familiar. A bad analogy is like an empty tin can at the bottom of a well, it isn’t good to drink from.

Good data visualizations are like storytelling. Where does this analogy lie?

For practitioners of the craft, connecting our work to stories feels satisfying — it is a call to raise our standards and an opportunity to enhance the influence of our field. Stories evoke images of rapt audiences, dramatic arcs, and unexpected plot twists.

Unfortunately this analogy is a stretch.