Yes another bloody planner going on about storytelling. But hopefully, with a newer angle.
So before you bugger off, it's because I read this book , The Science of Stortytelling
It goes way beyond the usual stuff about 7 basic plots etc, good as it is, and looks at the science behind how and why stories resonate with us. Lot's of good stuff about human and tribal psychology -and why real conflict is between the view of the word we construct for ourselves, irrespective of facts, and someone else's. Worth thinking about next time you have a debate over a brief.
Anyway.
To cut to the chase, while plots are good, it's the characterisation that really makes things fly. The people.
Recognisable tensions and flaws in their lives, usually the gap between their current view of the world and the reality they haven't quite grasped.
Han Solo as the cocky devil may care pirate who actually had a caring moral core he couldn't come to terms with.
Citizen Kane who saw himself as the great man of the people, but was really asserting his power over the little people in a different way.
Father Ted (yes really!!) who saw himself as a better than all his Irish Priest mates and thought he was really made for greater thinks. When really he was as hopeless as one of them.
Delboy who thought he was a yuppie waiting to happen when really he was a failing market trader.
Or, if you've read Remains of the Day, the butler who was trained to show no emotion and follow correct etiquette at all times, it's how he built his whole life, therefore struggled to cope with a new master who was less formal and a world of emotion and feeling.
Even the usual hero's journey is a conflict between a protagonist used to being normal and liking it, and the long and sometimes painful discovery they were meant for other things, like it or not. From Bilbo Baggins to Luke Skywalker it;s there. It's why Thor has become so interesting, because it's this conflict in reverse, in recent Marvel films. He might have the powers and expectations of being a great leader and hero. But inside he's really a normal confused man who wants a normal existence.
(this is why, by the way, DC films don't work, with the possible exception of Aquaman. The plots are fine, the effects etc are stunning, but the characters are just two dimensional. The characters are just dull. We don't relate to them as we should, there is little real conflict. I think this is why Bond films have done so well recently, the Daniel Craig character wants to be cold blooded killer, but feelings and even love keep on revealing a better human inside fighting to get out).
This dead interesting for me thinking about the day job. Instead of focusing on the brand story stuff, which you of course need, maybe we should focus more on the role of the protagonists in them, the real people we're trying to influence.
Not the dull pen portraits, getting into their flaws, the gaps between how the they want to see themselves and how they actually are, or could be.
In other words, as we should know by now, great brands get into tensions in real culture. I'm suggesting we forget real insight about people at our peril. I don't mean the usual category dynamics stuff, but how what we're selling fits into unresolved flaws and contradictions between how they want to be and how things really are.
Like middle aged men who are not as successful as they th0ught they would be, and work out their frustrations by doing triathlons.
Like many parents who want everything to be easy and perfect in the family, but can't admit (the search data proves this) they sometimes regret losing the life they had before.
Like older people who are living longer and get annoyed when culture focuses on the young folks, But hate brands singling them out as being old.
There you go again with your intelligent thinking. You know it's not going to catch on.
Posted by: John Dodds | June 28, 2019 at 10:07 AM
Faint praise.
Typical
Posted by: Northern | June 28, 2019 at 10:28 AM
Characteristic.
Posted by: John Dodds | June 28, 2019 at 10:49 AM