Poetics by Aristotle
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This was another insane project I did to get to the bottom of one of the foundational books on storytelling, Poetics, ‘the earliest surviving work on dramatic theory ‘ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetics_(Aristotle)
Now, let me be straight up as I always am - I read the Penguin Classics version. This comes with an extensive notes section that tells you what’s actually going on. I mean I read Aristotles actual words too, well, his translated actual words, but I wouldn’t have had a clue without the assist. I think I’m done thinking I can actually understand source material. I still have Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species collecting dust on my shelf.. I don’t know what I even thought I would do with that.
Anyways, let me cut to chase here on this one. Aristotle explains to us that stories are all about PLOT. Period. If you’ve read my eBook, ‘Interviewing w.Swag’ then you’ve heard this from me already.
The difference between a story and a history is that a story is a tale about a connected series of events that result in a change. A history is just a chronological account of everything that’s happened within a given period of time, regardless of meaning…BORING.
They’re boring because each event has no baring on the outcome.
In a story each plot point has to be the obvious and natural consequence of the previous one. And each point has to be relevant to the end. The test is, if removed would it render the story unintelligible?
My biggest tactical takeaway, which I’ve also heard in teachings by David Mamet is that if you’ve got a scene that you can cut without having any impact to the reader’s understanding of the events then you should cut it.
Think about that next time you tell someone a story.
There’s a lot more intelligent points in here but let’s keep it at 1 post, 1 point -> PLOT.
I admit it, I’m a little crazy with these drawings but I told you, I was gonna just open up the top of my head and show you what was going on inside. I can’t help what’s there.
You can at least look away. I gotta live with this thing ;)
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Drop me a line: charlie@charleskunken.com
Other Posts In The Anatomy Of A Heist Series
Storytelling Resources
The LIST
The 41 films conducted during the research project (full explanation here)
The Skytalkers podcast recently aired an episode in which they ran Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) through the heist tracker - the one we made together during paternity leave ;) charleskunken.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-heist-the-16-conventions-part-1-of-3).
Star Wars plus heists? Yea…we just had to take this inspiration from our friends at Skytalkers and contribute our own ‘Milk in The Matrix version of ‘is Solo a heist film?’