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A bit unrelated to the article - An (initial) portion of my academic experience was researching Interactive Storytelling systems[1]. I was particularly interes

by gota 5y ago

A bit unrelated to the article - An (initial) portion of my academic experience was researching Interactive Storytelling systems[1]. I was particularly interested in the methods for ensuring certain qualities of the plots, and modeled some constraint solving problems - but I did had the absolutely outstanding opportunity to interact with researchers in this area, and to read the seminal works on plot structure, Aarne-Thompson's index, Propp and other very, very, very cool stuff With no false modesty I can say that I had a 'knack' for writing from a young age, but after studying narratives in-depth, what they share, how they 'move', fabula and syuhzet, I became a much better writer - even a technical writer. Turns out explaining a formal method shares a lot in common with telling a story. One of this days I'll try to pinpoint that overlap and write about it. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_storytelling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_storytelling P.S.: this is a good resource: http://tecfalabs.unige.ch/mediawiki-narrative/index.php/Narrative_Theories http://tecfalabs.unige.ch/mediawiki-narrative/index.php/Narr...

bsedlm 5y ago
I like to think (based on my shallow understanding of technical aspects of stories) that the basic formula of the hero's journey (a hero goes somewhere else and brings back some kind of change) is a general scheme to codify how to change things Ramping up the abstraction (generality) to 11: the hero is in a home (A) the hero goes on an adventure (->) the hero returns home but things have changed (B) i.e. A -> B It is probably useful to turn down the generality a little bit for this to be more usefull; but I'm most certainly NOT a storyteller.
- gota 5y ago
  Well, the general reasoning you applied is in fact the basis of several 'plot-based' approaches; a sequence of 'events' that change the narrative world in a certain way is chosen based on (any number of) criteria I worked particularly on a system that involved an automated planning paradigm - so there were 'goals' that the story wanted to be met (and could be determined/influenced by an author-user) and a catalogue of abstract definitions of events as planning operators. It worked somewhat like you said, except (for practical purposes) mostly backwards (as in backwards-planning) I unfortunately lost contact with the research area a bit, and am not familiar with how it progressed - but it certainly is interesting in a distinct way; it really lets you explore a particular creative side that many things in computer science neglect
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  Can you say how the Hero's Journey template applies to the Illiad? How about the Odyssey? The Epic of Gilgamesh? The Kalevala? The Mahābhārata (or just the Bhagavad Gita)? Or the Ramayana? Beowulf? My guess is you can't. The "Hero's Journey" is too narrow and too simplistic to be applied to the major epic works of human cultures across the ages. It is a limited abstraction that only serves to describe perhaps a subset of literary works from a particular historical and geographical era and area, but by far not the universal story structure that it is claimed to be.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    I agree the hero's journey is too simplistic, but the hero's journey as a concept was popularized by Joseph Campbell who applied it to all those epics. It is pretty easy to google and find people applying the hero's journey to those epics - for example the Ramayana https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=joseph+campbell+the+hero%27s+journey+ramayana https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=joseph+ca... lots of people making arguments as to how it applies.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
      I understand that and thanks for the Ramayana links, but I think one has to stretch the template so far to fit such epics that it kind of loses its meaning. It gets to the point where everything is "a hero goes on a journey" which can really describe everything and anything ("John went to the corner shop to buy a beer"). At that point it's not about stories with common characteristics, it's just an over-generalisation broad enough to cover anything. For example the Illiad is about Achilles being a major asshole, throwing a hissy fit and then getting his arrogant self killed. What's hero's-journey about that? Yet people will find ways to (try and) do it anyway: https://thetrojanwar.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/trojan-war-tradition-and-the-monomythheros-journey/ https://thetrojanwar.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/trojan-war-tra... (Bonus Odyssey application in the link).
  - bsedlm 5y ago
    Dan Harmon (who is a pretty good storyteller) made a really good (and IMO fun to read) overview of how this plays out in "practice": https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Supe...

by gota 5y ago

bsedlm 5y ago

I like to think (based on my shallow understanding of technical aspects of stories) that the basic formula of the hero's journey (a hero goes somewhere else and brings back some kind of change) is a general scheme to codify how to change things Ramping up the abstraction (generality) to 11: the hero is in a home (A) the hero goes on an adventure (->) the hero returns home but things have changed (B) i.e. A -> B It is probably useful to turn down the generality a little bit for this to be more usefull; but I'm most certainly NOT a storyteller.

gota 5y ago
Well, the general reasoning you applied is in fact the basis of several 'plot-based' approaches; a sequence of 'events' that change the narrative world in a certain way is chosen based on (any number of) criteria I worked particularly on a system that involved an automated planning paradigm - so there were 'goals' that the story wanted to be met (and could be determined/influenced by an author-user) and a catalogue of abstract definitions of events as planning operators. It worked somewhat like you said, except (for practical purposes) mostly backwards (as in backwards-planning) I unfortunately lost contact with the research area a bit, and am not familiar with how it progressed - but it certainly is interesting in a distinct way; it really lets you explore a particular creative side that many things in computer science neglect
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
Can you say how the Hero's Journey template applies to the Illiad? How about the Odyssey? The Epic of Gilgamesh? The Kalevala? The Mahābhārata (or just the Bhagavad Gita)? Or the Ramayana? Beowulf? My guess is you can't. The "Hero's Journey" is too narrow and too simplistic to be applied to the major epic works of human cultures across the ages. It is a limited abstraction that only serves to describe perhaps a subset of literary works from a particular historical and geographical era and area, but by far not the universal story structure that it is claimed to be.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  I agree the hero's journey is too simplistic, but the hero's journey as a concept was popularized by Joseph Campbell who applied it to all those epics. It is pretty easy to google and find people applying the hero's journey to those epics - for example the Ramayana https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=joseph+campbell+the+hero%27s+journey+ramayana https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=joseph+ca... lots of people making arguments as to how it applies.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    I understand that and thanks for the Ramayana links, but I think one has to stretch the template so far to fit such epics that it kind of loses its meaning. It gets to the point where everything is "a hero goes on a journey" which can really describe everything and anything ("John went to the corner shop to buy a beer"). At that point it's not about stories with common characteristics, it's just an over-generalisation broad enough to cover anything. For example the Illiad is about Achilles being a major asshole, throwing a hissy fit and then getting his arrogant self killed. What's hero's-journey about that? Yet people will find ways to (try and) do it anyway: https://thetrojanwar.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/trojan-war-tradition-and-the-monomythheros-journey/ https://thetrojanwar.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/trojan-war-tra... (Bonus Odyssey application in the link).
- bsedlm 5y ago
  Dan Harmon (who is a pretty good storyteller) made a really good (and IMO fun to read) overview of how this plays out in "practice": https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Supe...