The shortest story I ever told
What is a Quantum scale story?
As some might have noticed I am somewhat intrigued by the Dramatica Theory of story. Clearly it has plenty to say about the larger works of film and literature but what happens when stories get small? Really small. Web research threw up the notion of a story engram from a Dr. Renée Fuller. It's the combination of a noun and verb. But this seemed to fall a bit short of a story. It's hard to get the feeling of a story with such a simple statement. I wondered about the shortest story that could be told.
Dramatica defines a 'grand argument' story as an author's argument for the solution to a problem. A story has four throughlines to represent the four possible perspectives of I, You, We and They. The problem space is fourfold, one for each perspective. They are an internal or external situation or activity. Examples of the external are simple; a family meeting and and playing a game of chess. Internal situations manifest as fixed attitude and internal activities as manipulation. This makes for a big story.
But I was interested in how small a story could be and still be Dramatica compliant. So I asked Chris Huntley who is one of the two inventors of Dramatica. It seems that you need a quad. A noun, a verb, an adverb and an adjective and it works very simply.
The noun-verb engram 'dog barks' is no more than a statement. Without context it is not engaging. So it's not a story or anything like one. Adding an adjective to make it into 'dog barks defiantly' raises the level of interest a bit. It's still not really compelling; but if an adverb is added then it becomes the core of a story: 'Dying dog barks defiantly'. Now there is something to pursue.
I find this exercise interesting and even quite helpful. By whittling down to the smallest number of words, a story's essence begins to be revealed. A dramatic premise and/or a hypothesis are tools frequently used as beacons when writing; they can help to keep the story on track as it becomes bigger and more involved. I have come to rather like this new insight.
There is another interesting use for this fundamental model of story. Dramatica says that a grand argument story is like a mind's argument for the solution to a problem. I find it noteworthy that a business is also an argument for the solution to a problem. I have probably mentioned this link between business and story before.
For our own business we thought it would be interesting to frame its fundamental story and we came up with 'Engaging stories told economically". I think that's a pretty good reality within which to work and even if only aspiration, it still works for me.
As some might have noticed I am somewhat intrigued by the Dramatica Theory of story. Clearly it has plenty to say about the larger works of film and literature but what happens when stories get small? Really small. Web research threw up the notion of a story engram from a Dr. Renée Fuller. It's the combination of a noun and verb. But this seemed to fall a bit short of a story. It's hard to get the feeling of a story with such a simple statement. I wondered about the shortest story that could be told.
Dramatica defines a 'grand argument' story as an author's argument for the solution to a problem. A story has four throughlines to represent the four possible perspectives of I, You, We and They. The problem space is fourfold, one for each perspective. They are an internal or external situation or activity. Examples of the external are simple; a family meeting and and playing a game of chess. Internal situations manifest as fixed attitude and internal activities as manipulation. This makes for a big story.
But I was interested in how small a story could be and still be Dramatica compliant. So I asked Chris Huntley who is one of the two inventors of Dramatica. It seems that you need a quad. A noun, a verb, an adverb and an adjective and it works very simply.
The noun-verb engram 'dog barks' is no more than a statement. Without context it is not engaging. So it's not a story or anything like one. Adding an adjective to make it into 'dog barks defiantly' raises the level of interest a bit. It's still not really compelling; but if an adverb is added then it becomes the core of a story: 'Dying dog barks defiantly'. Now there is something to pursue.
I find this exercise interesting and even quite helpful. By whittling down to the smallest number of words, a story's essence begins to be revealed. A dramatic premise and/or a hypothesis are tools frequently used as beacons when writing; they can help to keep the story on track as it becomes bigger and more involved. I have come to rather like this new insight.
There is another interesting use for this fundamental model of story. Dramatica says that a grand argument story is like a mind's argument for the solution to a problem. I find it noteworthy that a business is also an argument for the solution to a problem. I have probably mentioned this link between business and story before.
For our own business we thought it would be interesting to frame its fundamental story and we came up with 'Engaging stories told economically". I think that's a pretty good reality within which to work and even if only aspiration, it still works for me.
Comments