“Thinking About Story and Applying Story Maps”
by Jason Ohler
Overview: the story-making process
→ The idea
“So far, this is basically flat and forgettable.” (p. 90)
The idea is the basic inspiration. While the idea always seems appealing and rational at first, it is seldom ready to be effectively told. For example, I could decide to tell the story of a longliner who gets a lot of fish on his first skate, just to have his groundline snap, and he spends eight hours looking for the other end buoy in ever-worsening weather.
Great idea! Let’s make it into a story board!
But can it really work?
→ → The story core
“[T]he story core […] must pass muster before students begin committing their work to the digital domain. Once the media production is rolling, it’s difficult to significantly change directions.” (p. 76)
The story core includes a challenge that creates the tension and forward momentum, a character transformation that facilitates the challenge, and a resolution of the challenge, that leads to story closure. It addresses Campbell’s quest story.
What would the story core be in my longliner example?
· The central challenge is to find the gear, haul it in, and return home.
· The character transformation is missing at this point. Perhaps, as the GPS fails, the skipper will tap into long-forgotten skills that one of his crewmen learned from a crazy old Norwegian handliner. Then again, perhaps he will learn to abandon the gear, after an injury and some damage to the vessel.
· Now there are several possible resolutions. The resolution could be a successful trip, or a bittersweet return (in the fashion of The Old Man and the Sea), or even a disaster.
For the purposes of illustrating the process, I will decide that after eight hours of searching, the wheelhouse has a busted window and the GPS system got wet. The boat is now on radar and returning home in steep following seas, but it comes across the end buoy. They start hauling gear but the deckhand catches a wave when the boat goes broadside. He breaks his ribs. The skipper runs out to help but gets washed off. The deckhand cuts the line, brings the boat in by himself, and passes out when he reaches a rescue vessel.
→ → → The story map
“[A] story map evolves naturally from a story core.” (p. 79)
That flow of story emotions often graphs out as a gradual approach to a first peak in tension, then a saddle-like ridge (“the middle”), leading to a second (hopefully higher) peak in tension, that finally slopes back down because of the hero’s transformation.
In the longlining story, the story map evolves roughly as follows:
· The call to adventure occurs when the deckhand (probably the narrator) jois the crew.
· The problem and escalating tension arise from the skipper’s unwillingness to heed the elements.
· The tension reaches a first paroxysm when the line snaps.
· The deckhand panics as things grow worse and worse.
· He finds the buoy, and his transformation start to occur (now he is starting to be a rough crewmember as well).
· The second paroxysm in tension occurs with the two accidents.
· The deckhand is now transformed. He cuts the line, calls for help, and takes the helm.
→ → → → The story board
“Storyboards show the flow of story motion, while story maps show the flow of story emotion.” (p. 78)
The story board, finally, provides the setting, character maps, and other mechanical aspects that give the story its specificity. After all, since most stories are retellings of the same half dozen elemental stories, if it weren’t for the details no one would ever need to write.
→ → → → → Reflection
The longlining story that I made up almost as an aftertought as an illustration for the purposes of this assignment ended up becoming rather interesting, if still a little cliché. That in itself is probably the best assessment of the method. Of course, I am an easy convert, as I came to this with some background knowledge in myth telling in general and Joseph Campbell’s ideas in particular.
