Table of Contents
Storytelling Theory
Storytelling Theory is a pretentious term I came up with specifically to differentiate it from âWriting Theoryâ which I feel isâŠnot great.A)
Storytelling Theory is concerned specifically with the underlying mechanics of storytelling. Basically, what makes stories tick and, by extension, how to determine whether theyâre good or bad.
Why is it important to know the mechanics of storytelling? Well, knowing what makes stories good or bad (or individual parts of a story) is of the utmost importance for writers. That is, assuming you want your stories to be good.
The audience may find this important as well, as it can help explain why they react in specific ways to specific storiesâŠand helps them communicate with other members of the audience about them. And, of course, good stories are more likely to be more entertaining.
So what does it all boil down to? Causality.
Basics
All stories fundamentally boil down to two things: causality and facts. Causality specifically refers to cause and effect.
Though the specific terms donât really matter, I think that cause/effect are the best way of visualizing it. Other terms include setup and payoff, though those are more useful in an abstract sense. I may end up using the pairs of terms inter-changeably, but thatâs only to make the wording a bit less awkward. Just remember that they both represent the same thing.
Setup/Payoff are the most basic building block of any story. They are so basic and fundamental, that stories are not stories until they contain at least one instance of causality.
The other basic building block â facts â can also be referred to as the Story Context. Though facts are also an expression of cause/effect despite not appearing so. But since itâs hard to conceptualize of a fact as being a setup for future payoff, I think itâs fine to explicitly differentiate them.
Cause or setup is basically just preparation for whatever the effect or payoff is. An example of setup would be a character saying âYâknow, Iâm a little scared of heightsâŠâ
and the payoff for that setup would be that character having to cross a rope bridge across a chasm. Or, alternatively, a character saying âThe powerâs been acting all weird all week long.â
being setup for a future blackout.
As stated before, this is the most basic building block of a story, to the point that practically everything within a story (in a mechanical sense) ultimately boils down to it.
A story is composed of hundreds or sometimes thousands of small examples of cause/effect which in turn feed into more instances of cause/effect. In fact, the beginning of a story is explicitly setup for the payoff at the end of a story. Beginning and End are just another expression of Cause and Effect.
Longer and more complex stories tend to have more setups/payoffs than short and simple ones, which also means itâs easier to âperfectâ a simpler storyâŠand why perfecting a complex story is such an impressive task. That doesnât mean that one is inherently better than the other, it just means that one is inherently harder than the other.
But how does this apply to determining the quality of stories? Simple: if causality breaks or doesnât make sense, thatâs bad. Plot Holes and Plot Contrivances are both examples of causality being bent or broken.
In a more abstract sense, though, stories are a form of logic, though the logic is hyper-focused on causality. More may be written on that subject in the future.
Example Micro-Stories
These examples are incredibly simple and mostly focused on demonstrating setup/payoff on a small scale to help with intuitive understanding.
I sat in a creaky chair, then fell over.
I got tired from running, so I sat in a chair to rest.
It started to rain so she took out an umbrella.
She slapped me because I saw her bra thru her wet shirt.
The wind from the window blew the papers off the table.
It burnt up after the Sun shone on it.
Mechanics & Techniques
The basics above are mostly concerned with the mechanics of storytelling: the underlying foundation that every story has and requires to function. Theyâre set in stone and trying to subvert them will never lead to a good result.
On the other hand we have techniques.
Techniques are specific approaches within storytelling that utilize the mechanics in a particular way to produce a particular result. Theyâre built on top of the mechanics (cause-effect) and so are directly dependent on those mechanics functioning.
While the mechanics are fairly simple, techniques cover waaaaaay more, which makes it impossible to summarize them as a whole. But a common technique used would be the 3-act structure, which simply arranges cause-effect in a specific way to produce a result.
Other Topics
The rest of this article is basically just a link to other articles that will explain the whole story thing to you in greater detail. Those other topics may help to train intuition.
Terminology
Analysis
These are, I guess, mini-essays on very specific story-related things. Generally a form of analysis of a conceptâŠor, yâknow what, just read them directly. Summarizing them is difficult at the moment.
I generally recommend reading these if youâre more interested in the details or youâre focused on story criticism.
- intentionally bad stories â To be written soon.
As is clearly visible: there are not a lot of them. This is because most are actually not very well written, so youâll have to wait a bit to see them.