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Alternatives to story telling

By Mike Scantlebury

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Published: 23Jan2008
Word count: 1030
Viewed: 286 time(s)

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There aren't any! There, I've spoiled it for you, told you the ending before I even set the scene and outlined the case. Sorry, that's not very good practice, but it proves my point. We all love a good story, one with a start, some middle and a proper ending. We can't help it, we were born that way. We were hardwired from birth to accept facts, information, history and learning in that structured way. People who understand that particular aspect of human nature - like Dan Brown - can make a good living from feeding our hunger.

Some people aren't so sure. I was talking to a student friend of mine from China and I asked him what Chinese young people and students were reading these days. I expected to hear 'Harry Potter' or Dan Brown, or maybe even magazines like Maxim or FHM. He looked completely blank. Hesitatingly, he said that all of his friends spend most of their time on their laptop computers and mobile phones. They listen to music, send and receive texts, emails and downloads, gossip and chat. What about books? Ah, books, he said, light dawning, those are the things we need for our studies.

Of course it's not quite as bad as that. Harry Potter is indeed a well-known figure in China, as you will know for yourself if you've ever logged on to any Chinese websites. Ads for the young wizard occur on most Chinese news media sites. As do ads for movies, games and music. But these young students from China, they don't read stories, right? Yes? Well then, what is 'gossip' exactly? It's tales of personal experiences, mostly embarrassing, things you want to keep quiet. What is 'soap opera'? Even people who claim never to read a story book, most of them will be familiar with the goings on in Emmerdale, Ramsey Street or Coronation Street, Walford and the Queen Vic pub. And 'goings on' are stories. They are things that happen to people - first this happened, then that, and then, oh no, this is awful, that happened. Yes, it's a story. It just doesn't get put into words and published in a book, like we've been used to for the last three hundred years. It gets acted out, and then we get to know the actors and worry about them and their stories, their lives, their loves, their scandals. What's a scandal? Another story, usually one with an unhappy ending.

My assertion here is that the mediums we are currently experiencing are changing rapidly. We didn't have such a thing as an internet when I was a lad, and I'm old enough to have seen tape cassettes arrive and now, recently, disappear, as a way of listening to music. But songs are still here, and some of the songs I grew up with, such as The Beatles, I've seen on vinyl, recorded on cassette tape, on CD, and, most recently, available as a download on my computer. That hasn't changed the song, or the experience of listening to such great music. The presentation has changed, and my ability to carry it around and share it with my friends, but the music is still there. The Beatles? Ever hear a song called 'Eleanor Rigby' by them? Yeah, sorry, but it's a story. Well, you probably knew that too.

The point is that if the format changes, then the creator of the work might change too. For hundreds of years we've had stories in book form and their originator was called 'an author' and revered as a solitary creator, someone with wisdom, life experience and writing skills. These days we've got Dan Brown. No, I'm not running him down, honest, but I need to point out that he created a book and that book was turned into a film. It didn't go out of his hands, however. If you've seen the movie, you'll know that Dan is listed as some sort of 'Executive Producer'. That's the way things are going. Dan invents the story and it comes out in book form and then makes the jump into the cinema - oh sorry, I forgot that films are available in your own home now as well, as DVDs, or downloads. (It used to be video tape, but that's come and gone as well, hasn't it?) Heck, you can even put them on your phone. Yes, the format is changing. The thing that hasn't changed is that someone, some person, some creator, has to come up with the thing in the first place - and it doesn't matter if that's a group, or a team, or a writing partnership, even a husband and wife duo. That act of creation, the formation of 'the story', is fundamental to everything that arrives in your bookstore, on your television, in your local cinema, or on your home computer. Whether that's a 'writer', a TV executive, a producer, an agent, or whatever, someone has to do what people have been doing since we all sat around camp fires outside our caves and listened to someone with the inventiveness to weave us a story and enthrall us all.

Two things. One, these people are important. The recent writers' strike in America should convince us of that. We can't manage without story tellers of one form or another. They are intrinsic to any creative process, whatever the form. And second, the technical side doesn't matter, not to the audience. Tell me, honestly, does the fact that your house is now full of DVDs and not video tapes make any damn difference to whether you enjoy the musical or the Kung Fu action thriller, really? I mean, if Shakespeare was alive today, he might be writing dramas for TV and using a computer word processor. Would that demean his talent and make his creations any less enthralling? No, the format and the outcome is irrelevant to what we started with - the hunger. We all have a need to hear stories, whether it's gossip, soap, drama, song or novel, and we will always honour those with the sheer skill or determination to bring them to us. Yep, that's right. Even Dan Brown, bless him.

Mike Scantlebury is an Internet Author, a born story teller. He has constructed novels, short stories, radio plays and songs, and has a number of web sites around the globe, all served from Manchester, England, his current abode. Look for links to his works and videos at his Home Site, try - http://www.mikescantlebury.com

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