Why Tell Stories? Just Listen.

I discussed the art of storytelling via a series of ghost tales with one of my classes today.

Everyone likes a good story. I said.

But...

What makes a "good" story?

What puts bums in seats at theatres and cinemas? What puts clicks on pages? What puts games on screens? What puts that good old-fashioned paper copy in hand?

What passes words from mouth to ear to mouth again?

Detailed descriptions.

It doesn't have to be much. Just the gory bits. The juicy tidbits. The scandalous. The contreversial.

Everyone likes a good moaning session around the water-cooler, about so and so, after all.

Next comes suspense. Tension. Cliff-hangers.

Don't pass everything out like the houses no one goes to on Halloween because they are too far out.
Hold pieces back. Don't tell the whole story. Leave people hanging, wondering and forming their own thoughts.

But don't give people too much time to think. Prompt reactions.

Intrigue sells.

But so does hate.

I've been rather tangled up in teaching as of late. Coming home after work consists of me gorging on food and sweets, shoving my nose up a book or a favourite drama series I am catching up on. Weekends consist of early morning train trips to somewhere and midnight trips back, exhausted, but happy to have gone wandering in some place other than Bury St Edmunds. It's half-term today however and I found myself sauntering over to Twitter, through various news sites I follow (io9.com and themarysue.com) in addition to what happened to pop up on the front page of msn.uk.


Basically it boils down to this: humans live and die by emotion.

Graveyards are a testiment to emotion, as a place for the living far more than the dead.

 Whether it is the pit of misogyny wrapped up in "journalistic ethics" around gaming and female involvement which has been flaming about since summer; #gamergate or it is a shooting on Parliament Hill of a ceremonial soldier in Ottawa, down to kid's poking eachother with pens, humans act on their emotions. Not logic. (Generally).

However, being that these moments are very spontaneous and sudden and humans also relish the preservation of things (though this is me speaking generally again as there are certainly cultures that aren't obsessive about preservation), stories get created, formed, told.

Told and told until they end up like a game of chinese whispers or telephone. They end up nothing like the orginal event, story, sentence or word.


Maybe I am apathetic. Maybe I am just laid back. Maybe I am too open to listening to all sides. That is why I don't engage in feminist discussions with a teacher at my school who is a major activist, or why I steer off of certain discussions on Twitter or Facebook. It's why this blog isn't all over media sites. I don't do conflict. Except in my own fiction.

What is the point in wasting time with arguing, with acting in the flame of the moment, when mroe productive things could be accomplished; solving those disagreements, those inequities and inequalities.

Instead of eating up the words told to us by others we need to start forming out own sentences.

We need to start seeing the world for what it is to us, not what it is to someone on the other side of a desk and laptop.

That is why I am travelling.

So, here's an observation of the people I have gotten to know in Bury St Edmunds. They don't travel. They haven't travelled. 85% of them have never been out of England.

I mean England. As in, they have never even crossed to Wales, or tripped up to Scotland. Heading to Scotland is like me driving from Vernon to Vancouver. Then again, I have never been passed Alberta. I still have many places to visit and many observations to make before I can fully make judgements or develop opinions.

Then again, that learning will never end. Nor will it for you, if you don't let, end, that is. Don't let the media replace good old fashioned observation.

Listen.
Moony.

Training Your Humanity Skills

“The World is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles

The world is an eternal showcase of art for humanity to appreciate. If they are willing to observe.

 

 Something is always happening. It's the blanket fort of the universe under which life unfolds. 

Usually those somethings are rather small and insignificant. Like a child stubbing her toe in a doorway, or bumping shoulders with the sardined individuals during rush hour on buses.  

Except that neither of those are small and insignificant. 

Put yourself in those situations and suddenly stubbing your toe or being squashed around many sweaty, tired bodies and their packs and phones and perfumes, is the biggest thing to happen to you in that moment. Simply because it. Happened. To. You.

Sometimes though, things happen which are very large, nebulous and shockwave cities, nations and numerous governements.

A plane disappears over an ocean, a ship sinks and a thousand people die. A shooting occurs in a midnight city street while an earthquake rocks the ground elsewhere.

Media has a large part to play in putting us into those situations. Many of which, 95% of the world might have never known, had we been back a few hundred years, or at the least, most of the world might not have known as quickly as we do now.

Media might be wonderful for how it has connected many people who would not have been connected and how it has allowed us humans of Earth to help each other on a much larger scale than ever before. 

However, media also is largely to blame for the heart of our problems. 

It inspires fear, distrust, judgement and confusion.

All the things which cloud our perspectives from the obvious. 

The obvious, of course being that we are all human. At the centre of things.

Being human means we can relate. If we use a bit of imagination.

But instead of "putting yourself into someone else's shoes" figure out what the heart of the matter is. 

Namely, if an earthquake inspired panic in people. Imagine a time when you felt panicked. 

Yes, your panic is being felt in a completely different context and level than that of people experiencing an earthquake but the basic concept of panic is still there. 

It's not a safe feeling. Obvious right? Wrong. When you drag media into the mix of big situations then you are sparking all sorts of extravagent titles and phrases designed to flash you to death via sensory overload than by allowing you to connect to the cold hard, human emotions. That's why people start getting shocked by such events. The media over does the drama to such an unrealistic degree, that is so far removed from the actual situation that people start to shut down. 

Again, that's not to say the media is bad and needs to be removed or ignored. It's a valuable tool. The problem is just that most people take thing straight up, without observing beyond what they see. 

Like that person you just passed on the street who has a laptop bag smelling of fresh leather. It is slung over one shoulder and a manila folder is clutched tight under one arm. A wrinkle is on the back of one sleeve of their iron-pressed, navy shirt and they are striding to the beat of the peppy music blaring out of their ear buds. Their free hand fiddles with a gum wrapper, which drops to the ground as they pass you.

You might be irritated by the peppy music and think them rude as they brush past you. You might think them to be messy and lazy. But you don't observe beyond that and see the obvious underneath.

Perhaps that individual is new at their job (fresh leather) and slept in, but are concerned about their appearance, hence the rush-job iron. The peppy music is their method of calming themselves and getting pumped for something they are uncomfortable for. The gum, well to freshen their breath and further calm those nerves which sparked the absent littering.

Now, whether or not you are correct with your observations of this individual is irrelevant as the key is always to find the core human emotion. In this case it could be nervousness (but remember there is no right or wrong answer, you just need to find an emotion that pops out for you that you can relate to).

What makes you nervous? Think on that for a moment. You'll find yourself not getting irritated by the loud music of that individual as they passed by, or that perhaps they brushed into you as they moved passed. 

Once a day. Find the humanity in a situation. Imagine your humanity. Make it up if you have to.

After all, nothing good is ever going to get done for that child who stubbed their toe or the families who lost loved ones to that sunken ship if you cannot start by observing another human. You'll find life to be a lot more obvious.

And a lot more fun. (Particularly when it involves finding favourite quotes and finding odd angles by which to examine them which were probably not intended in the first place).

Always watching with a curious perspective.

Moony.