‽istis reclaims stories (weekending August 15th 2020)
‽istis (whose name links to ancient, Greek, mythological
stories[i]) as:
·
some people perhaps
turn to fiction to escape or cope or entertain
·
other people
possibly ‘binge-watch’ those ‘some time’ box sets
·
others maybe write
that daydreamed-of novel
·
fiction is
perhaps presented as fact
·
comedy, farce
and utter tragedy possibly seem to play out personally, socially, nationally,
internationally
·
poetry is maybe
‘put on the side table’ in some UK schools[ii] but seems to survive and
thrive coolly, nevertheless
…reclaims ideas about just
how many types of stories there might be.
‽ Four, according to some:
·
twisted
stories, broken stories, healing stories, whole stories[iii]…
·
or others for
telling stories in business: connection, influence, clarify, success[iv] and other variations…
‽ Six, apparently
according to Kurt Vonnegut’s rejected 1965 thesis[v] and more recent ‘sentiment
analysis’ research:
·
‘rags to
riches’; ‘riches to rags’; ‘Icarus’; ‘Oedipus’; Cinderella; ‘person in a hole’…
·
or: ‘rise,
rise’; ‘fall, fall’; ‘rise, fall’; ‘fall, rise, fall’; ‘rise, fall, rise’ and ‘fall,
rise’…
‽ Seven, according
to others:
·
‘overcoming
the monster’; ‘rags to riches’; ‘the quest’; ‘voyage and return’; ‘comedy’; ‘tragedy’;
‘re-birth’… drawn from plotline analysis[vi] and assisting an ‘investigation
into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how
they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology’ - and then applied, for example, to ‘corporate
and personal storytelling’[vii] by others
·
or, pursuing a
marketing theme, another seven (reified by capitals?): The Values Story; The
Why Story; The Origin Story; A Vision Story; A Teaching Story; An Impact Story;
An Objections Story[viii].
‽ And what
about examples, to be found online, of multiple ‘types of types’: short
stories, anecdotes, literary, memoir, speculative fiction, folktales…
So ‽stis wonders whether the story in all of
this is perhaps an apparent need to ‘type’ (in the several meanings of that
word including organising into typologies), to categorize, to make sense?
Yet ‽stis is still not sure whether, in our
story-making, we are possibly ‘slicing and dicing’ an empirically accessible objective
world or are maybe (re-/co-)creating it as we look and imagine and narrate…?
So ‽stis this week is on the look-, listen-
and ‘Tweet’-out for voices and versions (for surely there are many ways to tell
those 4, 6, 7 or more types of stories?) and will ponder further the idea that just
perhaps, possibly, maybe the pandemic has not only given us many stories but,
also, a new story…
© Pistis
NB: further reflections linked to this week’s theme
and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily
indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders
[i]
Pistis: see, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/7vd10h/original_meaning_of_greek_word_pistis/
faith, trustworthiness, persuasiveness, assurance… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis#:~:text=In%20Greek%20mythology%2C%20Pistis%20%2F%CB%88,good%20faith%2C%20trust%20and%20reliability.&text=The%20word%20is%20mentioned%20together,honesty%20and%20harmony%20among%20people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis#:~:text=In%20Greek%20mythology%2C%20Pistis%20%2F%CB%88,good%20faith%2C%20trust%20and%20reliability.&text=The%20word%20is%20mentioned%20together,honesty%20and%20harmony%20among%20people.
Good faith, trust, reliability… and also
for the role of Pistis in rhetoric…
[ii]
Thank you Kadish Morris: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/09/poetry-saved-me-dont-deny-it-to-next-generation-pleads-award-winner
[iii] http://interpretiveliteature.blogspot.com/2013/03/4-types-of-story.html
[iv] https://allgoodtales.com/4-types-stories-tell-business/
[v] https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/jul/13/three-six-or-36-how-many-basic-plots-are-there-in-all-stories-ever-written
& https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180525-every-story-in-the-world-has-one-of-these-six-basic-plots
[vi]
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-seven-basic-plots-9780826480378/
Thank you Christopher Booker (nominative determinism at work?)
[viii]
https://www.musestorytelling.com/blog/the-7-types-of-stories#:~:text=The%207%20Types%20of%20Stories%20You%20Need%20To,6%20An%20Impact%20Story.%207%20An%20Objections%20Story.
https://www.musestorytelling.com/blog/the-7-types-of-stories#:~:text=The%207%20Types%20of%20Stories%20You%20Need%20To,6%20An%20Impact%20Story.%207%20An%20Objections%20Story.
