storytelling

It appears that it was Lili who nominated Storytelling for the Bob Award, which was very kind of her. So that her effort does not go unnoticed, some links: the current status of the voting for best literary/book weblog (Storytelling not doing so well; Sheila is doing great). So I went over to say hey to Sheila and wow, what a great post right up from and center. It took me to a website I didn't know: The Edge. Which is not good, because it's one of those sites that will drain every minute out of my day. Here's the question that Sheila linked to:

"WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"

Great minds can sometimes guess the truth before they have either the evidence or arguments for it (Diderot called it having the "esprit de divination"). What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

And boy, is this interesting stuff.

The bottom line? I voted for Sheila. You do as you like.

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Last night I was trying to think of stories that start with the meta conflict rather than with a character. Huge disasters that capture the imagination show up again and again as the setting for novels and movies: how many movies deal with the second world war? how many novels?

The loss of the Titanic is a very vivid disaster that (in comparison to a war) lasted a very short time, and it really evoked a huge response from people -- it continues to do that. So it makes a natural setting for stories of all kinds, and thus is a good example of starting a story with the meta-conflict. Ship sinks. No big mystery, no suspense. You know the ship is going to sink, how, when, and what the cost will be, how many deaths, etc etc. So how do you make a story out of that?

You build the characters and the conflicts between characters around the apex of the story, the actual sinking of the ship. Most usually people make up fictional passengers. Star crossed lovers; a wife thinking of leaving her husband. An Irish family fleeing poverty for the promise of gold in the streets. The ship going down has to fit into resolving (for good or bad) whatever conflicts you set up for these people. In the end, what goes on between them in the real story. If that's missing, then all you've got is a very graphic depiction of people dying an awful death. That's not storytelling: that's voyeurism. That's a nighmare.

My personal take on the Titanic is that it has been overdone. If you want to build your story around a disaster, there are certainly enough of them out there to work with; why beat the poor Titanic into submission yet again? Unless you can come up with some set of characters in a conflict so absorbing, so perfect, that it has to be told. Of course, somebody has probably tried already. Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic, Madame Bovary on the Titanic, Don Juan on the Titanic.

I'll get back to George later today, or tomorrow.

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