In every story told, there lies meaning-making and believe-making. We catch imagery in words and worlds because we alter or construct our reality, shaping how we perceive and interact with everything around us.
Storytelling began with simple forms. In his study of narrative development, Arthur Ransome identified two primary types in the dawn of storytelling: the ‘Warning Example’ and the ‘Embroidered Exploit.’
But in the beginning storytelling was not an affair of pen and ink. It began with the Warning Examples naturally told by a mother to her children, and with the Embroidered Exploits told by a boaster to his wife or friends. The early woman would persuade her child from the fire with a tale of how just such another as he had touched the yellow dancer, and had had his hair burned and his eyelashes singed so that he could not look in the face of the sun. Enjoying the narrative, she would give it realistic and credible touches, and so make something more of it than the dull lie of utility. The early man, fresh from an encounter with some beast of the woods, would not be so little of an artist as to tell the actual facts; how he heard a noise, the creaking of boughs and crackling in the undergrowth, and ran. No; he would describe the monster, sketch his panic moments, the short, fierce struggle, his stratagem, and his escape.
Arthur Ransome – A history of story-telling: Studies in the development of narrative
Stories have always been the fundamental method of transmitting knowledge across generations. Throughout history, mothers have understood the power of stories to caution children against dangers. ‘Once upon a time, there was once a child,’ a mother might say, ‘who went to the forests. And then….’
These warning tales were fundamental tools for teaching and preserving societal norms and values, imparting lessons to anyone in the community who might defy tribal laws. Stories became tools for making sense of complex realities: You are safe here. Do not play with fire. Do not open the door if you’re alone. Do not leave the path, for wolves are in the woods.
Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.
Jean-Luc Godard from Godard on Godard (1968)
The ‘Embroidered Exploit’ likely started as a genuine account of a hunter’s brush with a wild animal. Each retelling might have brought a degree of exaggeration, transforming the original event into something far more spectacular. Over time, these exaggerations accumulated, elevating the tale to extraordinary heights far beyond human capabilities. What might have begun as a simple story of survival in the wild morphed into legendary accounts of encounters with supernatural beings.
This tendency to embellish in storytelling is deeply rooted in how we handle memories. Our recollections are not perfect mirrors of past events; they are more like mosaics, pieced together from fragments of facts, interpretations, and even imagined details. We often reshape these memories for dramatic effect.
The brain is simply not large enough to store the entire tsunami of experiences hitting us at every waking moment. When events—big or small—happen, they aren’t taped onto a movie reel in your head. Rather, your brain is more like the photographer at a movie premier—quickly snapping those moments of the event that they deem worthy of saving. When you retell the event, these moments are pieced together and reconstructed like an inspired-by-true-events documentary.
The brain hates an incomplete story, so it can’t help itself but to complete a fragmented memory by using its memory stores to bring sense to the uncertain haze.
Stuart Farrimond – The Science of Living
But the ‘Embroidered Exploit’ does more than exaggerate; it embodies a defining trait of storytelling: its infinite capacity to inspire. G.K. Chesterton elegantly captured the essence of this idea when he said,
Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
For example, consider the European perspective on storytelling. Besides riddles or ballads, Europeans generally had two genres of storytelling: stories told to be believed (legends) and stories told for entertainment or fiction (folktales).
Historical legends told of dragons slayed, maidens released, treasures reclaimed, heroes crowned. Etiological legends explained the mysteries of nature: seasons changing, thunder cracking, floods rising, or earth shaking. In Norse tales, Thor’s hammer brought thunder. Poseidon’s wrath stirred the seas and caused earthquakes in Greek mythology. The Greeks also explained the changing seasons through the story of Ceres’ grief for her daughter Persephone’s absence.
But no story can ever work without a pinch of entertainment; otherwise, it is a dry lecture. The other genre Europeans favored, folktales, play on this detail, storytelling as a form of entertainment rather than knowledge transmission. Often characterized by their fantastical elements, folktales are a gateway to a world where anything is possible. With their mandatory ‘happily ever after,’ folktales are also a form of therapy against all the rage provoked by the limited truths of our temporary existence.
We know how this ends. You’re going to die and so will everyone you love. And then there will be heat death. All the change in the universe will cease, the stars will die, and there’ll be nothing left of anything, but infinite, dead, freezing void. Human life, in all its noise and hubris, will be rendered meaningless for eternity.
[…] The cure for the horror is story. […] It gives our existence the illusion of meaning and turns our gaze from the dread. There’s simply no way to understand the human world without stories.
Will Storr – The Science of Storytelling
Stories serve not just as a means of information exchange but also as a vessel of escapism, a respite from the harsh realities of existence. In this context, the power of narrative becomes even more poignant when the storyteller has lived through the experiences they recount. For instance, the intersection of reality and fiction is illustrated in the spy fiction works of authors such as Somerset Maugham, John Buchan, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, and John le Carré. Each of these writers had direct involvement in espionage activities before embarking on their literary careers.
The greatest writers of spy fiction have, in almost every case, worked in intelligence before turning to writing. Somerset Maugham, John Buchan, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, John le Carré: all had experienced the world of espionage at first hand. For the task of the spy is not so very different from that of the novelist: to create an imaginary, credible world, and then lure others into it, by words and artifice.
Ben Macintyre – “Operation Mincemeat“
These authors’ experiences in intelligence shaped their writing, and, in turn, perhaps, their writing helped them make sense of their experiences.
When we immerse ourselves in a story, identifying with characters and their situations, we gain insights into our own lives and emotions. This connection can be profoundly therapeutic.
Image Credit: Tara Westover
Storytelling has been used in counseling for grief, marriage, and familial relationships, especially in cases involving children who have suffered abuse or trauma. Stories can be a safe way for these children to explore and express emotions they might otherwise suppress. Specialist books and therapeutic stories, like Nancy Davis’s “Once Upon a Time: Therapeutic Stories to Heal Abused Children,” are designed to help children process emotions like anger, neglect, conflictual divorce, etc. A note of warning: This is a highly specialized type of counseling, and only people trained in this field should attempt storytelling as healing.
In times of old, it was customary for the people who received housing to pay the kindness of their hosts with a story. Because a story told well doesn’t just spin a yarn. It holds magic. And even though nowadays we live and deal in magic (instant communications, labor-saving devices, central heating, etc.), our thirst for stories remains the same as centuries ago. Modern incarnations of storytelling have stayed remarkably consistent with their old roots. Novels, movies, video and role-playing games, songs, movement, theater and live performances, visual arts and photography, and even Dad jokes still strive to capture the audience’s imagination, transmit knowledge, embellish nuances, and trigger emotional responses.
As Tyrion Lannister of Game of Thrones remarks,
“What unites people?” Tyrion asked. “Armies? Gold? Flags?” No. It’s stories, he said.
“There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.”
This quote may be self-serving because these are the words of author George R.R. Martin through the mouth of his character, telling us there is nothing more powerful than a story. Hence, there are no people more powerful than skilled storytellers. But anyone who underwent surgery or had a splitting headache can tell you there is nothing more powerful than a good anesthetic or a pain killer.
There is nothing more powerful than the scratch that provides relief to the itch we have at the time. We embrace stories not because they will make us better people but because they are truly good stories and ease some of our needs.
Surely if there were any truth in the notion that reading fiction greatly increased our capacity for empathy then college English departments, which have by far the densest concentration of fiction readers in human history, would be legendary for their absence of back-stabbing, competitive ill-will, factional rage, and egocentric self-promoters; they’d be the one place where disputes are most often quickly and amiably resolved by mutual empathetic engagement. It is rare to see a thesis actually falsified as it is being articulated.
Adam Gopnik’s excellent article Can Science Explain Why We Tell Stories?
We mostly end our days as people centuries ago did: with a story. Our ancestors did it around fires; we do it by reading books to our children, playing video games, reading, and watching the latest TV series or blockbusters. As Dalia Sofer writes,
So long, viewers. We have nothing left to distract you with. We’ve shown you all our tricks, lulled you with our electronic embrace for as long as we could. Go now and face the night.
Dalia Sofer – Man of My Time
Stories are soothers because we know that monsters are real and they look like me and you. We believe we are gods only to choke on our ashes. We know that everything we hold near and dear will die. But until then, we lived ever so happily.
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Emotional Escapism: How Watching TV Shows Help Us Cope with Life’s Stressors