Tyler Graham

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Nov 04, 202240 min read

The Science of Storytelling (book)

Information Dump

Chapter 1: Creating a World

1.1
1.2
  • Good storytelling is leaving things out for the sake of curiosity.
  • People have a thirst for knowledge.
  • storytelling is about withholding information
  • The brain wants to fill gaps in knowledge and complete a set of information. We have a natural inclination to resolve information gaps.
    • ”There is a natural inclination to resolve information, even for questions of no importance.” (Prof George Loewenstein)
  • There’s a positive relationship between curiosity and knowledge. The more context we have, the more anxious we become to solve something.
  • Four ways of inducing curiosity, according to “The Psychology of Curiosity,” by Prof George Loewenstein. There are four ways to create curiosity.
    1. Pose a question or present a puzzle.
    2. Introduce a sequence of events with an anticipated but unknown resolution.
    3. Subvert expectations, triggering a search for an explanation.
    4. Introduce information that someone else knows, but the audience does not.
  • Even questions of “no importance” can become a center of curiosity if presented correctly.
  • JJ Abrams sees storytelling as the opening of “mystery boxes.” Slowly revealing more information to the audience holds on to curiosity longer.
1.3
  • Fictional and non-fictional characters both exist in a reality that is actively created by the human brain.
  • What are the ethics of portraying fiction as if it were reality, considering the fact that both are figments of the mind?question❓
  • “The world we experience as ‘out there’ is actually a reconstruction of reality that is built inside our heads.”
  • We have no access to actual reality. Everything we experience is basically a hallucination based on what out brains think our surroundings should look and sound and feel like, based on the information it gathers from our senses. This is why we don’t notice our objective status and objectivity isn’t real. Basically, our reality is a hallucination.
  • Everything we experience is filtered through are minds, which includes our subconscious biases and lessons from past experiences that come along with that.
  • We’re blind around 10% of our life. pg. 22
  • Actual reality, whatever that means, is wildly different than what we experience each day. All of the sensations we experience are inside the brain.
  • Color is a lie. pg. 25
  • Dreams feel real because they’re made of the same hallucinated neural models we live in while we’re awake. And the same is true of a great story.
  • We start modeling words in our imaginations as soon as we start reading them. This means that the order of the words change the hallucination people create, therefore changing the meaning. This means words should be written chronologically most of the time. The impact of a message is altered by it’s order. we model words in our minds
  • This is mostly for written story, but specific details help the audience better engage with the story. In order to make a scene in the mind of the audience, at least 3 specific qualities of an object should be described. (ex: “dark blue carpet,” “orange striped pencil”)
  • Show, don’t tell. If you want to explain something was terrible, describe it in a way that terrified the audience. If it was delightful, don’t say that, but describe it in a way that the audience feels it. show don’t tell
  • Certain words can make our brains recreate the senses in our minds. (“Brown sock,” “cabbagey.”)
1.4
  • The brain makes models whether something is real or not. This is why science fiction still works. Our brains can visualize something from a story even if it doesn’t exist.
1.5
  • Humans have gone through an intense “self-domestication” process. This means, rather than trying to control our external environment for safety, we’ve turned to trying to control other people within a society.
  • People have a weird obsession with seeing faces in everything.
  • People have the ability to imagine what other people are thinking, feeling, plotting, even if they’re not there. We’re able to use empathy to experience the world from someone else’s perspective. This can pique curiosity.
    • The thing is, we dramatically overestimate our accuracy. It turns our we spend all this energy trying to imagine what’s happening in other people’s head’s just to be wrong.
  • We humanize inanimate objects, especially as kids, because of our mind-detecting tendencies.
  • If we want to add realism and complexity to characters’ we can simply ask ourselves, “What does A think B is thinking about A,” and vise versa. We are always considering what other people think about us, so why wouldn’t our characters?
1.6
1.7
  • We think of “seeing” as just detecting the visual world. But its more than that. We tie associations to objects. Within our mental model of the world are smaller mental models of specific concepts and objects. We pack these models with personal associations from our personal histories. We don’t just see the world, we see our past. We don’t just see the objects, we see a reflection of ourselves in everything we look at.
    • Each of these associations leave us with a feeling that fades just as quickly as they arise. They precede conscious thought, but in the end all these feelings reduce to the impulse to either advance or withdraw from whatever we’re seeing.
  • A character in fiction and a character in real life inhabit a unique world in which everything they see and touch come with its own unique personal meaning derived from their past.
  • These associations mean two things: 1. We can use some of them to shape how our stories will make most people feel. 2. We cannot control how most people will feel about certain parts of our stories because they are bringing their own pasts to the table. This can act as a sort of filter, leaving us with those who resonate with our style the most.
  • Metaphor is one of the most powerful uses of language in the human mind. It is fundamental to understanding abstract concepts like love, joy, society, economy, etc. Without metaphor, we simply can’t grasp the abstract. Metaphors are the foundation of understanding abstract ideas.
  • Metaphors can work to open information gaps and force the reader to imagine a scene. (“She washed old plastic bags and hung them on the line to dry, a string of thrifty tame jellyfish floating in the sun.” We can only understand this sentence by imagining what it would look like.)
  • Metaphors can also do this for conceptual points. (“The very mystery of him excited her curiosity like a door that had neither lock not key.” This has us visualize a scene not to understand the scene itself, but a conceptual idea underlying it.)
  • When describing something, we should use words that involve the feeling senses.
  • You don’t get the same emotional depth without metaphor. How can we translate this type of metaphor to the screen?question❓
  • The more familiar an expression is, the less it activates the motor system. As metaphors are used more and more, they become less vivid and vibrant. This is why some feel like cliche while others spark exciting images in our minds. Metaphors are most powerful when they are new and novel.
1.8
  • Simple explanations of our complex world make the brain feel good.
  • Our brains are constantly and automatically simplifying our experience of the world, both in real time a retrospectively, to form a neatly packaged, cause and effect based, self-centered narrative.
  • The mind automatically assumes a temporal sequence and a causal connection between experiences, even if there. are none.
  • Cause and effect powers curiosity.
  • Every scene in a story is a cause that triggers our childlike curiosity about its potential effects. For a story to be compelling, it should be full of cause and effect.
  • Cause and effect allow for a feeling of progress, of forward motion. It makes us feel like one thing leads to another, which keeps our curiosity going.
  • ”Any scene which does not both advance the plot and standalone is either superfluous of incorrectly written. Start, every time, with this inviolable rule: the scene must be dramatic. It must start because the hero has a problem, and it must culminate with the hero finding him or herself either thwarted or educated that another way exists.” (David Mamet)
  • The brain speaks the language of cause and effect, so speak it’s language in story. If you don’t, your story will feel confusing.
  • Scenes should have a “because” in between. If they have an “and then,” the story will get boring.
  • The clarity of cause and effect changes how much work the audience has to do to understand what’s happening. This is where it’s important to understand your platform and audience. Imagine a slider that controls the obviousness of cause and effect within a story. In more mass-market stories, it should be quite obvious. As you make your way towards “high literature,” it becomes less obvious.
  • Leave some things open to interpretation. Leave gaps in the story. Leaving room lets the audience fill the gaps with their own preconceptions, values, memories, connections, emotions, etc. Leave room for your audience to become an active part of your story.
  • No storytelling can perfectly transplant their mind into the audience. It’s not a window into the storytellers mind, but a meshing of two distinct worlds: the storyteller and the audience. In this way, a story becomes something new when it is experienced by each audience member. It takes on a life of its own. When you release a story into the world, it’s no longer yours.
1.9
  • Story begins with a moment of unexpected change or an information gap. Or both. As this happens to the protagonist, it also happens to the audience.
  • Stories force our attention to *follow the consequences of change as they ripple out from the start of the story in a cause and effect pattern just ambiguous enough to keep us engaged. *
  • We’re most interested in the cause and effect of other people. We’re endlessly curious about others. We wonder “What are they thinking? What are they plotting/ Who do they love? Who do they hate? What are their secrets? What matters to them? Why does it matter? Are they an ally? Are they a threat? Why did they do that irrational, unpredictable, dangerous, incredible thing?”
  • Good stories are explorations of the human conditions. They’re not really about the events that occur on the surface, but the drama of the characters that have to battle them. Stories are really about characters, not events.
  • Characters are never perfect. It’s not a character’s achievements that arouses our curiosity, it’s their flaws.

Chapter 2: The Flawed Self

2.0
  • Our realities are all warped by faulty information.
    • This distorted reality is the only one we know, so we can’t understand where it’s faulty. We feel as if it’s right, but it’s not.
  • The distortions in our thinking make us flawed. Everyone is flawed in unique and interesting ways. These flaws help define our character.
  • Related: objectivity isn’t real, we don’t notice our objective status
  • The mistakes a character makes helps the audience empathize with them.
  • Our flaws are a foundational part of us and form our perception of the world.
  • The “Refusal of the Call” part of a story is sometimes a result of a character seeing their flaws as virtues. Other times, they can’t see the flaws at all.
  • Identifying and accepting our flaws, and then changing who we are as a result, requires breaking down the structure of our reality and then rebuilding an improved version. Profound change is painful because it alters our perception of reality. It is also our greatest calling.
  • Our beliefs, and those of our characters, are a result of “cause and effect” narratives that we create from observing our experiences. We are our beliefs.
  • Our brains try to convince us that we are right all the time. We will perceive our world in a way that backs up our beliefs. Everyone is the hero of their own story.
  • We accept the reality of the world we’re presented with by our brain. We don’t question it. It’s helpful for survival, but its a hallucination.
  • Our life experiences leave us with a web of beliefs that become an instruction manual on how to live. It becomes our “theory of control” (control of the world around us). When this web or theory is challenged, a story begins.
  • A character with specific flaws that help describe their worldview are compelling and memorable.
  • Maybe to start a story of self, we can pose the question: What belief do I hold that should be called into question?
  • When a character acts outside of their web of beliefs, they become suspicious.
  • A character has beliefs that determine both their best and worst qualities, just as everyone does. Often, ones greatest strength and greatest weakness are two sides of the same coin.
  • The cause and effect of other people is endlessly fascinating to us because we’re both hyper-social and stuck within our own perspectives. Story gives us an escape into what we find most interesting.
2.1
  • Some things to ask yourself about your characters:
    • How do they view the world?
    • What lenses do they use?
    • How is it useful?
    • How is it destructive?
  • Personality test tools can be used to build characters. The following are definitions of high amounts of different character traits. The opposite is true of low amounts. These traits are all dials. Known as the “big five”.
    • Extraversion: Gregarious, assertive, seekers of attention and sensation.
    • Neuroticism: Anxious, self-conscious, prone to depression, anger, low self esteem.
    • Openness: Curious, artistic, emotional, comfortable with novelty.
    • Conscientious: Prefer order and discipline, value hard work, duty and hierarchy.
    • Agreeable: Modest, sympathetic, trusting.
  • When people are in an ambiguous situation, they have different tactics based on personality.
    • Some use aggression, some charm, some flirtation, others withdraw or argue, negotiate for consensus, become dishonest, etc.
  • Characters unique responses to unexpected change generate interesting plot. Goals, plans, and actions all flow from character, not the other way around.
  • Our traits force us into feedback loops based on how we respond to things. Life will teach us the same lesson over and over until we get it.
2.2
  • Patterns of small behaviors indicate how a character will act in a situation that is important to the story.
  • Our environments project who we are. We make claims of identity through our objects and environments.
    • Behavioral residue is when we leave things behind unknowingly.
    • The environments we curate, consciously or otherwise, project a lot about who we are.
2.3
  • A story should start with a character that is already developed. Then, as the story progresses, we watch them change. It is thrilling to encounter a character whose mind is wildly different than our own.
  • If we always fully understand everything in the story from a God-like perspective, it gets boring.
    • Everything we encounter in a story should be a component of the characters inner realm, not objective reality.
2.4
  • Culture is deeply and directly built into our internal models of the world.
    • It distorts and narrows the lens through which we experience life. This is why traveling and experience more culture widens our lens.
  • Individualism was birthed in Ancient Greece. It was largely due to geography. I wonder if we’re seeing a pushback against individualism now as a result of the internet making geography, for the first time in history, less important to us.question❓
  • Different cultures view life, and story, differently. Western cultures view things through an individualistic lens, while eastern cultures tend to see things through a group lens.
    • Eastern stories have no real conclusion. The readers is generally left to decide for themselves. They don’t have the same hero’s journey.
  • Japanese story structure: Kishotenketsu
    1. ”ki” - We’re introduced to the characters.
    2. ”sho” - Actions follow.
    3. ”ten” - A surprising or apparently unconnected twist occurs.
    4. ”ketsu” - We’re invited to search for the harmony between it all.
  • Westerners enjoy accounts of individual struggle and victory, while Easterners take pleasure from the narrative pursuit of harmony.
  • The deepest purpose of a story is that it is a lesson in control.
  • Every story is a lesson in control. They differ structurally between cultures because the way we control our environments depends largely on our environments.
2.5
  • Meaning is always constructed retrospectively. We can only understand cause and effect narratives after they happen. meaning is generally derived retrospectively
  • There’s a cycle: Do something > Create meaning
  • Sometime during adulthood our minds shift from creating a flawed model of the world to protecting it. That’s why we struggle to grow.
    • Once the internal model is established, our relationship with our environment reverses. Rather than being shaped by our surroundings, we aim to shape them to fit our internal model. Change becomes painful and difficult.
  • Once we’ve cross checked something with our internal model of the world, we stop considering it. We’ve already got our subconscious yes or no.
  • Individuals can’t really come up with an objective reality because everyone’s internal model is uniquely flawed.
  • Good dialogue is just two monologues clashing together. That’s how conversations work. Scripted conversations feel scripted because they seem to know what the other person is thinking, but they don’t.
    • Everyone is always thinking about themselves.
  • The beliefs we fight to defend are the ones we’ve formed our identities around. It’s not just that they’re attacking our beliefs, they’re attacking the very structure of our reality. These beliefs and attacks drive the best stories.
  • Obstacles and breakthroughs that force us to change often come through secondary characters, because we are incapable of seeing a reality that differs from our own.
    • A character changes as a result of interacting with people that have different neural models.
  • Good stories have an ignition point, or an inciting incident.
    • These are the moments when curiosity and tension is sparked. It’s the first event in a cause and effect sequence that ultimately forces the protagonist to question their deepest beliefs.
    • Often, after the ignition point, a character will overreact or do something odd because the event goes to the heart of their flawed reality.
  • We form certain beliefs because, at one point, they seemed true and helpful. But if we stop there, the world moves on without us. Stories tell the process of catching up and changing beliefs.
2.6
  • ”We’re all fictional characters. We’re the partial, biased, stubborn creations of our own minds.” We are the characters created by our minds, just as any other fiction is. Is there even a distinction? If all characters are created by the mind, what’s the difference between fact and fiction?
  • The most powerful flawed beliefs our minds feed us are the ones that bolster our sense of moral superiority.
  • Our minds rescript our experiences based on the biases and narratives we’ve come to tell ourselves.
    • This happens so immediately and deeply that we don’t even remember our selfish behavior.
  • Our identity is largely based on our unreliable memory.
  • We hold ourselves in high regard while assuming the worst of others. They do the same.
  • Everything we experience comes from and exists within the same place: consciousness. Our biases, then, are part of our experience of the “real world.” There is no reality we can reach that is free from our past experiences, learned lessons, and flawed narratives.
  • Moral superiority is the default mode of a healthy person. We all think we’re the hero.
  • Violence and cruelty has 4 main causes: greed and ambition, sadism, high self-esteem, and moral idealism.
    • High self-esteem and moral idealism drive most evil. People are absolutely convinced of their moral superiority. Every villain is the hero of their own story.
    • A good antagonist is the product of self-justifying experiences and memories. This is followed by a cause and effect narrative that convinces them their are morally correct.
2.7
  • Within stories, we often oversimplify the complicated world into simple opposing forces. Our brains can’t understand the true complexity, so this simplification helps us understand, even if it’s not necessarily true.
2.8
  • Verbalizing the sort of things that seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things tend to make good stories. These insignificant events and feelings that result from them are often more universal that we expect. We don’t live in the grand scheme of things. We live in the real world, the one we make up inside our heads, just like everyone else.
  • It’s easy to think that the events on the surface of a story are the point. We experience plot through the eyes of the characters so we, like the characters themselves, become distracted by the drama of it. But plot means nothing without a specific character for it to happen to.
  • Plot is only interesting because we are invested in a character and how they will navigate that plot. “We want to know how this specific person, with this specific history and these strengths and these flaws will get out of it.”
  • No matter how amazing or spectacular a plot might be, a story is always about character.

Chapter 3: The Dramatic Question

3.0
  • All stories ask the dramatic question: who is this person?
    • This question emerges at the ignition point. The protagonist behaves in an unexpected way. We pay closer attention, wondering who they really are.
  • ”Who is this person?” is the greatest secret to storytelling.
    • From the perspective of the character, “Who am I?”
  • Most of us don’t actually know who we are. Neither do our characters. We have to be okay with some ambiguity.
    • This is one of the big questions in life.
  • The inner voice cannot be trusted.
    • “’We’ are our neural models. Our narrator is just observing what’s happening in the controlled hallucination in our skulls - including our own behaviour - and explaining it.”
    • We tell ourselves fictional stories of the world around us while believing it as true.
  • Every story has a narrator. Sometimes, it’s just inside our heads instead of speaking aloud.
  • Trying to explain the cause of our own thoughts and behaviors is mostly pointless because of the inner narrator. There’s really no way to know why we actually do things. Only what we (mostly falsely) believe.
    • The truth lies in the thalamus and hypothalamus and amygdala, and we have no conscious access to that.
  • We’re led to believe, by our minds, that we know who we are. But we don’t.
    • This is what makes life hard most of the time. We disappoint ourselves with behavior that’s self destructive and mysterious. We say unexpected things.
  • The dramatic question can unfold unexpectedly because even the protagonists don’t know the answer.
  • The pressure of drama helps reveal who a character really is.
  • It can be thrilling when the audience knows something about a situation or character that the character themself is blind to.
3.1
  • We are inhabited by many versions of ourselves. They all have different goals. The version at the drivers seat changes so frequently that we have a hard time keeping our priorities straight.
    • Emotions display our multiplicity most vibrantly. Basically, it’s the movie “Inside Out.”
  • Stories help us make sense of transformations we go through in life. (Fairytales do this most obviously)
  • A good character’s personality shifts around a central core, mediated by culture and life experience. It swings and shifts based on emotions and situations. It’s always recognizable, but not always the same.
  • Effective storytelling involves two parts: structure and meaning.
    • Structure displays the unexpected cause and effect plot.
    • Meaning is derived from posing the dramatic question over and over again: who is this character?
3.2
  • Stories take place in two realms. One is a landscape of the action in the world. The other is the landscape of the mind in which the protagonists feelings and secrets play out.
    • On the top layer, the plot plays out. We experience visible causes and effects.
    • The layer below houses symbolism and division. Characters are multiple and contradictory and surprising, even to themselves.
  • Well told stories have a constant interplay between the plot and character worlds.
  • Characters are constantly creating and testing hypotheses about the world and revising them based on experience. As these revisions take place, the answer to the dramatic question shifts.
    • The answer to “who am I?” is a moving target, because the plot never stops.
  • Every change in plot should be driven by character, not randomness.
  • ”Throughout the plot, as the character confronts the fact that they’re failing to control the world, they’re gradually forced to readdress their deepest beliefs about how it works.”
    • If we understood the world in full, we’d be able to control it (within reason, obviously).
  • Characters drive plot. Plot shapes the character’s model of the world. It’s a constant back and forth. This is the cause and effect sequence.
  • Good stories highlight the characteristics that makes someone the best and worst versions of themselves. They’re the Paradoxical Character Traits.
  • ”Stories such as this are like life itself, a constant conversation between conscious and subconscious, text and subtext, with causes and effects ricocheting between both levels.”
  • Stories tell us a truth about the human condition.
    • ”We believe we’re in control of ourselves but we’re continually being altered by the world and people around us.”
    • The difference between story and life is the stories actually get a final and satisfying answer to the dramatic question. Life doesn’t give us that.
3.3
  • Stories are, at their core, about flawed characters being offered the opportunity to heal.
3.4
  • Sometimes, characters want something consciously but subconsciously need something else. This creates tension that the audience can sense.
3.5
  • Stories compress time.
    • Dialogue is the secret for this. It has to sound realistic while also being full of information.
  • ”Dialogue should be changeful, it should want something, it should drip with personality and point of view, and it should operate on the two story levels - both conscious and subconscious.”
3.6
  • If a character can trigger a moral judgement in the audience, then they’re hooked.
  • ”Gossip exists to teach us about other people, to tell us who they really are.”
    • The core curiosity of human social interaction is the dramatic question: “Who is this person?"
  • "When a character behaves selflessly, and puts the needs of the group before their own, we experience a deep primal craving to see them recognized by the group as a hero and hailed. When a character behaves selfishly, putting their own needs before that of the group, we feel a monstrous urge to see their punishment.” ”… our primal urge to act compels us to keep turning the page or watching the screen until our tribal appetites have been satisfied.”
  • Worldwide consensus of rules (All variations of “don’t put yourself before the tribe”):
    • Return favors
    • Be courageous
    • Help your group
    • Respect authority
    • Love your family
    • Never steal and be fair
  • When a character acts against this, the audience has an urge to watch them suffer the pain of the tribe.
  • All story is gossip.
    • No matter what kind of story it is, we just want to know the answer of the dramatic question. “Who are they really?“
3.7
  • People generally have 2 hard wired ambitions:
    • To get along with people, so they like us and consider us non-selfish.
    • To get ahead of people, so we’re on top.
  • People want to connect and dominate. These ambitions are frequently incompatible.
    • The conflicting desires to connect and compete are at the heart of the human condition.
  • Status is a near constant obsession because it is of existential importance.
    • Our hierarchies are fluid, not static.
  • ”A common feature of our hero making cognition seems to be that we all tend to feel like this. - relatively low in status and yet actually, perhaps secretly, possessing the skills and character of someone deserving of a great deal more.”
    • This is probably why we like underdog stories so much. We identify closely with them.
  • We’re naturally empathetic towards people with lower status and jealous/competitive with people with more.
3.8
  • Our internal models aren’t easily changed. “It takes overwhelming evidence to convince us that ‘reality’ is wrong.”
3.9
  • ”Stories are tribal propaganda. They control their group, manipulating its members into behaving in ways that benefit it. And it works.”
    • Stories promote a certain behavior. What behavior is this story promoting? might be useful to ask.
  • Tribal stories leave us with a half truth at best. They blind us to our reality even more than our internal stories.
  • Tribal stories prevent us from understanding complexity. They oversimplify.
3.10
  • We don’t just like characters who are kind.
  • Characters who are “bad,” like anti-heroes, work because they’ve already been punished. This deflates our moral outrage before we even feel it. It makes the character likable.
  • If the character you want the audience to root for is “bad,” just make what they’re up against even worse.
  • Anti-heroes, and non perfect characters, allow us the relief of self honesty.
3.11
  • Story is about concealing information just as much as providing it. This is how a story surprises the audience and keeps them engages until the end.
  • Let the audience come to their own conclusions about the motives of characters.
  • If we leave gaps in our stories that are just big enough, the audience can insert themselves.
    • This leaves them asking “Would I ever do that? What would make me?”
  • Before a character can be written, they need to be vividly modeled. They can’t be a blank canvas.
  • It’s helpful to to identity a character’s origin damage (an event perhaps).
    • This is something early in the character’s life that largely defines their beliefs and worldview, and will likely be challenged later in the story.
    • Defining a character requires imagining scenarios they’ve experienced and the false conclusions that could come with it.
  • The question every plot asks us is “are you brave enough to change?”

Chapter 4: Plots, Endings and Meanings

4.0
  • Our oldest and most fundamental drive as humans is that we want things and we strive to get them.
  • ”Goal direction is the foundational mechanism on top of which all our other urges are built.”
  • Our compulsion to make things happen in our environment is so powerful that it’s described by psychologists as ‘almost as basic a need as food and water.‘
    • Passiveness is death.
  • We pay attention to a story when we feel like it moves us towards something.
  • People have an average of 15 personal projects at any given time, from “trivial pursuits” to “magnificent obsessions.” “We are our personal projects.” Prof. Brian Little
    • You are what you’re currently obsessed with.
    • These personal project follow the same three act narrative of crisis-struggle-resolution as the archetypal hero. We create stories in our lives.
  • ”Happiness is being engaged in the process.” Prof Helen Morales.
    • It’s about presence and flow. Being engaged in what you’re doing.
  • Pursuit of a goal is how we make a a good story and a good life.
  • A story needs direction. Something to move towards. “Without action, the answer to the dramatic question never really changes.”
4.1
  • ”The job of the plot is to plot against the protagonist.”
  • Plot has to test the character’s model of the world and force them to change.
  • A “story event” forces a character into a new psychological realm. Their flawed model of the world is tested and often breaks.
  • The story event can take place at different points throughout the story.
    • Sitcoms: Beginning, so we can watch the characters wrestle with it.
    • Drama: End, so there”s a cliffhanger.
    • Long form TV: Overarching story event for the whole thing, with sub-events for each episode.
  • Joseph Campbell:
    • Call to action
    • Refusal
    • Mentor encourages them
    • Rebirth
    • Dark forces pursue
    • Battle
    • Hero returns with learnings
  • Pixar:
    • Protagonist has a goal, lives in a settled world.
    • Challenge comes, forcing them into a cause and effect sequence.
    • Climax that demonstrates good triumphs evil.
    • Revelation of story’s moral.
  • Christopher Booker:
    • 7 plots
      • Overcoming the monster
      • Rags to riches
      • The quest
      • Voyage and Return
      • Rebirth
      • Comedy
      • Tragedy
    • Five Acts
      • Call to action
      • Dream stage (everything goes well)
      • Frustration stage (fortunes turn)
      • Descent into nightmarish conflict
      • Resolution
  • Syd Field:
    • Setup
    • Confrontation
    • Climax and resolution
  • There are lots of plot based formulas for story. But a story is not about the plot. Plot is only there to test and change the characters.
  • 5 Act structure for a character:
    1. This is me, and it’s not working.
      • The protagonist’s theory of control is established. Unexpected change strikes. The ignition point draws them into a new psychological world.
    2. Is there another way?
      • The old theory of control is tested by the plot and it begins breaking down. There are rising emotions of excitements, tension or thrill as a new way forward is sensed, learned, and actively experimented with.
    3. There is. I have transformed.
      • Grim tension grips as the plot fights back. The protagonist counter-attacks using their new strategy. In doing so, they transform in a way that feels profound and irreversible. But then the plot strikes again with unprecedented power.
    4. But can I handle the pain of change?
      • Chaos spirals. The protagonist’s lowest, darkest point. As the plot’s attack becomes relentless, our hero begins to question the wisdom of their decision to change. But the plot won’t leave them alone. We realize they’ll soon have to decide, who are they going to be?
    5. Who am I going to be?
      • Tension builds at the approach of the final battle. A peak moment of ecstasy accompanies the protagonist finally achieving complete control over the plot. The chaos is vanquished and the dramatic question is answered definitively: they’re going to be someone new, someone better.
  • We crave stories of human connection and human closeness.
  • Plot should be powered by the dramatic question: Who is the character, and who will they become?
  • The only fundamental of plot is that a story event on the surface triggers subconscious character change. Everything else is a suggestion.
  • Change keeps us engaged.
    • Cause and effect change in the plot
    • Character change below the surface. Surprisingly and meaningfully altered by plot
    • Change in goal direction
  • Story is change.
    • Everything can change is a story, but there should be a good reason for it.
4.3
  • The story ends when change finally stops.
  • ”To lose our sense of control is to suffer the loss of the sense of ourselves as an active heroic character, and this leads to anxiety and depression and worse. Desperate to avoid this, the brain spins its compelling guileful and simplistic story of heroic us.”
  • In tragedies, the protagonist answers the dramatic question by deciding not to become someone better. Instead, they further embrace their flawed model of the world. (If a character decides not the change, it can still be a story. Just not a very heroic one.)
  • For an ending to be satisfying, the dramatic question must be answer decisively in a way that feels true to who the characters are.
  • ”Life is change that yearns for stability” Prof Roy Baumeister
4.4
  • Story transports us. It pulls out of our skulls and into the characters.
  • Stories are about change. If story transports people into characters, and characters in stories are forced to change, the stories change people. And then they change the world.
4.7
  • ”The lesson of story is that we have no idea how wrong we are.”
4.8
  • ”To enter the flawed mind of another is to be reassured that it’s not only us. It’s not only us who are broken; it’s not only us who are conflicted; it’s not only us who are confused; it’s not only us who have dark thoughts and bitter regrets and feel possessed, at times, by hated selves. It’s not only us who are scared. The magic of story is its ability to connect mind with mind in a manner that’s unrivaled even by love. Story’s gift is the hope that we might not be quite so alone, in that dark bone vault, after all.”

Appendix: The Sacred Flaw Approach

  • ”…plot and character are indivisible. Life emerges from self and is a product of it.”
Embrace the Rewind
  • A story should focus on character. And when we focus on character, we’re really focused on a character flaw.
  • Many storytellers fall in love with their characters and struggle to assign them flaws. Lots of times its because they’re projecting themselves into the character.
  • ”A storytelling needs a spine. They have to make hard and clear decisions about their characters, even if those decisions are let ambiguous on the page.”
  • Many storytellers resist focusing on character because the source of the inspiration for the project is not a character at all. It’s usually either a milieu, a what-if, or an argument. (In YT land, this is the spectacle or challenge.)
The Milieu
  • A milieu is not a story. It’s the setting for a story.
  • Often, storytellers will create a compelling milieu and think they just have to fill it with action. This leads to cliche stories.
  • To create a compelling story out of a good milieu, you have to zoom in on a specific character within it.
The What If
  • Also leads to cliches.
  • A “what if” needs to dig down into the unique protagonists character.
  • If you just describe a character’s surroundings, you’re bound to be swept up in cliche. You have to find their flaws.
The Argument
  • This is when storytellers want to highlight some societal problem.
  • You have to do the character work to make this viable.
Where To Start
  • If you have a “What If,” try to think of it as a story event, or trigger one.
    • What kind of person might be maximally changed by this event?
    • What kind of flawed idea might define this character and how might this specific story event deeply challenge this idea?
  • In an argument or milieu, think: “What type of character might be psychologically overturned by X event?”
  • Character and story events can add up to make a statement, but if either one does it individually, the story sucks.
    • It’s really just show don’t tell at a really complex scales.
  • If you have multiple protagonists, consider how their flaws connect with each other.
    • Rom com characters usually have opposing flaws. When they come together, they’re both healed.
The Sacred Flaw
  • ”Follow the sacredness. Find out what people believe to be sacred, and when you look around there you will find rampant irrationality.” Prof Jonathan Haidt
  • Find where your character is completely irrational and you’ll find a sacred flaw.
    • ”In order to locate what they’re irrational about, we should find out what they make sacred. The things we make sacred are, to a great extend, the things that come to define us."
  • "When other people think of us - when they’re asked what we’re like - this quality will probably be the first thing that pops into their minds. This is our ‘sacred flaw’. It’s the broken part of us that we’ve made sacred.”
  • Create plots that are meant to test your character and your sacred beliefs.
The Unsacred Flaw
  • ”All story is change, and the most important change of all that takes place is to the people who inhabit them. The further you pull back the bow, at this stage, the further your narrative arrow will be able to fly.”
    • The more you dig into the flaw, the more change can happen over the course of the story.
  • Character work questions:
    • Who is this person who believes this flawed idea?
    • How and why did they come upon this belief?
    • What did they believe before?
    • Why did they change?
    • What does this belief mean for their outward goals? And their secret fears?
    • What does it protect them from?
    • What kind of story event could come along to dramatically test this belief?
Finding The Flaw
  • The most memorable characters are fascinating because they’re making a fundamental mistake about the human world and their place within it.
    • We see their mistake, but they can’t.
    • They behave in strange ways. We’re curious about it.
  • A sacred flaw is a quality that drive the best and worst in us simultaneously. It’s a paradoxical personality trait.
    • The flaw should be really precise.
  • Prompts to find a sacred flaw:
    • The thing people most admire about me is…
    • I’m only safe when I…
    • The most important thing of all in life is…
    • The secret of happiness is…
    • The best thing about me is…
    • The most terrible thing about other people is…
    • The big thing I understand about the world that nobody else seems to get is…
    • The best advice anyone ever gave me was…
  • What do the answers to this suggest about the person?
  • Precision is critical. Lack of precision in the sacred flaw leads to vague characters and cliche stories.
Origin Damage
  • This is where you figure out when and how the damage occurred that create the sacred flaw.
  • Often, stories don’t have to fully explain this moment, but rather hint at it. Flashbacks, sudden insight, etc.
    • Leaving only clues rather than spelling it out for the audience can make the story more profound and fascinating.
  • Write out the scene in full that form your character’s sacred flaw. Include characters, setting, dialogue, everything. Since it’s retrospective, we can create a full cause and effect story with a beginning, middle, and end.
  • The flaws that characterize us often originate in the first two decades of life.
  • Often, a sacred flaw is born from experiences of being ostracized and humiliated early in life. These are incredible harmful feelings, and often lead us to think that “if we don’t behave like this, than that might happen.”
Personality
  • Use the big five, and other personality tests.
The Hero Maker
  • We have to take the sacred flaw, and then allow the character to internalize it so that they don’t see it as a flaw at all.
  • The character should experience an event that confirms and proves to them that their belief is true.
  • This should make us…
    • Feel morally virtuous
    • Feel like the underdog
    • Believe we’re deserving of more status
    • Believe we’re selfless and that our enemies are selfish
Point of View
  • How do they experience their surroundings?
  • What details to they hyper fixate on?
  • What are they intimidated or threatened by?
  • What are their goals?
  • How do they talk to themselves?
  • How do they make themselves feel better?
  • These questions help get a sense of biases and unconscious reactions the character might feel.
Creating a Characteristic World
  • How has their flaw led to material or career gains?
  • How do they get an internal sense of heightened status from this flaw? How does it make them feel superior?
  • What small moments of joy does it bring them?
  • How has their sacred flaw brought them closeness with friends, colleagues, or lovers?
  • What life goals has it generated? What achievement, in the external world, do they believe will make them happy and complete?
  • What (if only in their minds) will they risk losing, materially, socially, or otherwise if they act against their flaw?
  • How does their flaw make them safe? On the subconscious level, what do they ultimately dread will happen if they act against their flaw?
The Story Event
  • Some leaping off points to spark ideas:
    • An opportunity
    • A plot or conspiracy (either against them or that they join)
    • A journey or quest
    • An investigation
    • A misunderstanding by a powerful figure
    • A revelation made about either them or someone else
    • A promotion or demotion
    • An enemy, monster, or unwelcome figure from the past
    • An accusation
    • An onerous task
    • A discovery
    • A rescue (of a person, a sense of status, a career, a relationship)
    • A reckoning (judgement, atonement for a past sin, discovering of impending death of themselves or someone else)
    • A dare or challenge
    • An injustice
    • An escape
    • An attack by enemies (internal or external)
    • A temptation
    • A betrayal
The Plot

  • ”…the five act structure is the most efficient way of showing a character’s sacred flaw being tested, broken, and rebuilt. In its first half, the protagonist’s old theory of control is tested and found wanting. At the midpoint, it’s transformed. In the second half, their new theory of control is heavily tested. In the final act, they’re given a choice: do they want to embrace this new theory of control or revert to their old one? Who are they going to be?”

  • Act 1: This is me, and it’s not working

    • The character behaves in a way that gives us a sense of their goals, outer life, and secret wounds.
    • Unexpected change strikes. This is the ignition point, or inciting incident. This sets off a cause and effect sequence.
    • The character responds to this change characteristically, and fails to regain control of their situation.
    • Information gaps form: What will happen next?

  • Act 2: Is there another way?

    • The character realized they need a new strategy.
    • Tension builds as the character experiments with new ways of being, perhaps learning lessons from mentors.
    • Tension can release through small victories.

  • Act 3: There is. I have transformed.

    • The plot fights back.
    • The character must decide whether or not to continue on this path of change.
    • The character eventually commits to their new theory of control.
    • The plot strikes back again with more power than ever.

  • Act 4: But can I handle the pain of change?

    • This is the characters lowest, darkest point.
    • The character actively retreats or reverts to their old theory of control.
    • The character might reveal hints of their origin damage through reflection.
    • The dramatic question is prompted once again.

  • Act 5: Who am I going to be?

    • The character finally achieves complete control over the plot and the dramatic question.
    • ”Who am I going to be?” is answered conclusively.
    • Chaos is vanquished.

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