“The point of a story can penetrate far deeper than the point of any bullet.” - Laurence Nault
Getting to the point
There are seven basic plots in storytelling as we have seen over the last few weeks. These plots form the backbone of myths, fairy tales, novels and movies, and also of advertising, brand stories and how we can all communicate in business, including market researchers telling the story of their data. Here are seven reasons why stories will help you communicate ideas more effectively, helping you to build your story and helping your audience to remember the point of it all. Read more »
Born again
The plot of rebirth is one of the oldest of all, seen in many of the fairy tales that are part of our childhood and mirroring the very act of growing up and being reborn as an adult after years in childhood. Read more »
mask of Dionysus
The unfolding Greek tragedy
As events unfold in Europe this week, there is a sense of inevitably that they will end in further pain and suffering in Greece (and many other countries). I suspect they may only resolve themselves fully when there has been a full catharsis (literally a ‘dramatic cleansing’) for the main characters and countries involved. Read more »
“People ask me, ‘Steve, how do you get so funny?’ I say to them, ‘Before I go onstage I put a fish in each shoe. That way I feel funny.’” - Steve Martin
The funny thing about comedy
Aristotle believed that comedy arose like tragedy from improvisations around specific festivals. Tragedy arose as a prelude to the dithyramb (an ancient Greek hymn in honour of Dionysus), while comedy was originally a prelude to phallic songs and processions which were part of ancient Greek fertility rites. Aristotle would be considered a snob today, and he viewed comedy as a lower form of poetry, dealing with people of lower virtue, who were unimportant, undignified and, to coin a word, ‘laughable’. By contrast, tragedy dealt with stories about serious, important and virtuous people. Unfortunately the second book of his Poetics which was specifically about tragedy has not survived (some medieval texts are believed to be translations of the original). Read more »
Into another world
My favourite film of last year was Inception (you can read about marketing inception here and the psychology of inception here). For those who haven’t seen it yet (and please do if you haven’t), the plot involves the main character played by Leonardo di Caprio entering someone’s dream world with a team of helpers in order to plant an idea in the dreamer’s mind. As with similar ‘Voyage and return’ plots, Leonardo’s character starts the movie with a shadow (his wife’s suicide) hanging over him, restricting his mental world and opening him to the potential of a voyage into the unknown (with the promise of a return to his home). He finally returns home after a strange and dangerous voyage of discovery, a changed man. Read more »
The evolution of colour
We share eyes which can form images with around 95% of animal species, and colour is an important signal in nature for the safety of food, the detection of predators and the identification of sexual readiness (and Mark Changizi argues also for interpreting the emotions and intentions of others). Colour is caused by the reflection of some types of light and the absorption of others, and all our eyes can tell our brains are which wavelengths (or frequencies) of light are present and which are not. From this information our brain creates the colours which we see all around us, but have these colours always been experienced in the same way and had the same meanings? Read more »
The quest for the original plot
Writers such as Joseph Campbell and Robert McKee have identified the Quest (or variants of it) as the single original plot. The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey (and the Aeneid) all follow the outline of the Quest plot and are two of the oldest and greatest stories we know. Although only one of the seven plots outlined by Christopher Booker, it is an important one which appears frequently, sometimes combined with other plot structures, and often as a framing device for multiple individual stories which follow other structures. Read more »
“Culture is the collective programming of the mind.” - Geert Hofstede
A world of symbols
What makes us all so interesting to researchers and marketers is our enquiring mind, and nothing shows this more vividly than the web of beliefs and ideas that we have created to make meaning from the complexity of the world around us. A very important part of this framework is the vocabulary of signs and symbols that help remind us of our link to the world and each other. Read more »
“I’m working on a dream
Though sometimes it feels so far away
I’m working on a dream
And how it will be mine someday” - Bruce Springsteen
Working on a dream
The American Dream is deeply embedded in the dreams of many, and for a few lucky people has been played out for real. It is the heart of the national ethos of the United States including the promise of the possibility of wealth and success for all, based on their equality at birth and their inalienable right to the ‘pursuit of happiness’ as written into the country’s constitution. This theme comes up in classic American literature of Mark Twain, Hunter S. Thompson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Arthur Miller and many more. It’s even written into the title of Barack Obama’s biography, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Read more »
Gold fingers
The theme of gold is embedded throughout the story of Goldfinger in the naming of characters (Auric Goldfinger), the central plot to irradiate Fort Knox, a golf game with a gold bar at stake and even in the manner of death of Jilly Masterson who is covered in gold paint to suffocate her skin. [Even if Mythbusters say this is not possible, it doesn't spoil the story!] It was also the first Bond film to receive an Oscar (for best sound effects editing).
Even before gold hit its current record price (reflecting its relatively stability of value versus the instability of most man-made currency), gold has been a potent symbol for thousands of years, due to its rarity and also its colour which is similar to that of the sun. It has been valuable and highly sought-after for coins, jewelry and other arts as long as humans have written and has been a standard basis for monetary systems and policies throughout history too. Alchemists (including Isaac Newton) spent time and money trying to find the secret of converting base metals (eg lead) into gold.
Although gold is really only a coloured shiny metallic material, with a dictionary definition of ‘yellow, non-rusting, malleable, ductile metal element’, it means much more than this.
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