Story Circles

Understanding the importance of story telling with examples. A brief on the structure and common dimensions of storytelling.

When Homo sapiens had just started to colonize and collectively live in a group what connecting them together was the stories that they told each other and common believes that is shared. these believes later on emerged as religions. The Most important characteristics of Homo sapiens that distinguishes them from other animals in the world is that they can build models of information which they can then share with others. humans can share knowledge like languages through which innumerable information can be perceived something which cannot be yet seen in other animals. (inspired by the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari‎) Every animal in the world is born without any prior wisdom, they gain experience in their life if and when they die, these experiences die with them what made humans different from other animals is that these experiences were passed on to the younger generation through songs and stories and the younger generation was building new and better experiences over the older ones this led to the evolution of man to the most developed species in the world.

Needless to say storytelling has been a major factor for the growth of mankind. Many stories have been told from generation to generation and with every new generation the story changes we can say that a story leads to another story and and in the similar pattern several layers of stories develop on on a narrative it's a loop it never ends. Hence, the title Story circle.(Inspired by the the class by Richard Naville called ‘Story Circles’ ).

In the year 1981 the Human Interference Task Force panel that was pulled together by the Yucca Mountain project that collected masterminds from all over the world to solve a common question that rises every now and then that -

‘how to communicate this information to people 10,000 years in the future?’

surely by then the language would have changed the most long period of time for a language to have survived is 400 years no language will be able to survive that long and the best outcome to have come from that discussion was that

‘the most durable thing that humanity has ever made is culture: religion, folklore, belief systems. They may morph over time, but an essential message can get pulled through over millennia.’

- 99% invisible: episode 114 - ten thousand year.

Dimensions of Storytelling

So what is a story. How can we create a powerful story. Yet we can find several similarities between the stories. we will discuss some of them below

The narrator: narrator guides the audience through the story. A story can have one or more narrators they held it audience through the story narrative can be different went old from different perspective sometimes to narration is imaginary the audience is introduced to several scenes and let open to be connected in their own way in an open and did manners.

Dimensions of storytelling

Tellership

The element that tells the story. The medium in which the story is told.

Tellability

How fascinating the story is. How is it entertaining or how is the attention of the audience is maintained throughout the story.

Embeddedness

Wider context of the story where and how is it told. Attention to the details.

Linearity

The path which has been taken. The story line need not be set chronologically all the time.

Moral stance

What information is the story conveys morally.

What I have realized in my recent explorations about storytelling is that storytelling is not just an element of entertainment it is transfer of information through generations. This information then becomes the identity of the group. Storytelling is keeps alive the great heroes and their sacrifice, it gives us hope for a future and inspirations to build upon.