Three
Motivating Factors

Why We Tell Stories

As I said, when Aristotle wrote Poetics, he surveyed the canon of dramatic works written up to that time, particularly the tragedies (many of which have since been lost to antiquity, so we have to take his word for what they were about), and set out to discern the common elements among them, to draw conclusions about how we tell stories, and, just as significantly, the reasons for doing so.

It’s worth noting, just to give the work some historical context, that Aristotle was also responding to his teacher Plato’s critical attacks on tragedy, and was actually trying to defend the relevance of the art form. This was not merely to rationalize elevating the subject to a level worthy of discourse, but also to make a case for the importance of storytelling from a societal perspective.

So he starts by acknowledging that telling stories is something that has existed among human societies since we first showed up on the planet. And like any good philosopher he asks:

Why?

What need, of the individual, of society, of the SPECIES, is being satisfied by this shared desire to sit around the campfire or Theatre of Dionysus or Cinerama Dome and listen to a tale, whether of the aforementioned Great Saber-Toothed Tiger Hunt, the downfall of King Oedipus, the madness of Lear, the death of Willy Loman, or the talking butt cheeks of Ace Ventura?

He comes up with two explanations that, together, form the basis of his understanding of our need to tell stories, and thus, of everything that is subsequently required to do so.

In Greek, they are MIMESIS and CATHARSIS.

Let’s take these two vital concepts in order.

First mimesis, defined, depending upon your translation, as “imitation” or “representation.”

As the quote that begins this chapter indicates, Aristotle believed that the fundamental quality that separates us from the other animals on the planet is that we want to learn. We have questions. Who are we? Why are we here? What is our place in the universe? And we derive PLEASURE from seeking answers.

And the primary way we get those answers is to experience ourselves and our world reflected back to us, imitated, represented.

So mimesis concerns the pleasure of LEARNING, of looking at something and saying, “Ah, I recognize that,” or “I get that,” which occurs whenever we experience a representation, whether gazing at a painting or watching a play.

Consider the fact that even in English, that word “play” has a dual meaning. As adults we go see plays, the plays that Aristotle is deconstructing, imitations of life represented on stage. Similarly, when we are kids, we play cops and robbers, play house, play Elsa and Ironman. Our PLAY as kids is all about representation too.

As Aristotle observes, our earliest lessons are through imitation, and that continues throughout our entire lives. Why? Because it’s through imitation that we best learn about the world and our place in it. And exploring those universal, existential questions gives us pleasure, scratches that desire for answers that is built into our DNA, that allows us to recognize not just “Ah, that is he,” but “Ah, that is me.”

So we have an instinctual desire to learn. Still, the question remains, why must that pleasure from learning come through representation and not simply through direct experience?

Perhaps it’s because the distance between the observer and what is being represented allows us to be objective in our analysis, something that would be more difficult if the experience were actually happening directly to us. Maybe we learn most effectively by adopting a more circumspect vantage point.

Additionally, maybe the answer has something to do with Aristotle’s assertion that we get the same pleasure from watching something joyous and beautiful as we do from watching something terrible and horrifying, that perhaps the distance afforded by imitation allows the experience to be safer.

And finally, maybe it has something to do with the communal nature of the experience of observing a representation. When something is happening to us alone, we might imagine the experience is unique to us. But when we are looking at that painting or sitting in the theatre, surrounded by a group of people experiencing the same representation, we can remark not only “Ah, that is me,” but also take pleasure and comfort in knowing “Ah, that is US.”

Which isn’t a bad segue into the second reason we tell stories.

Catharsis, defined as “a purge, specifically of emotions.”

This concept is a bit more problematic to nail down, mainly owing to the fact that Aristotle mentions it only once and never elaborates on it. As a result, it has engendered a lot of debate over the centuries.

So what exactly does he mean by a “purging” of emotions?

The most common idea is that the phrase refers to an emotional cleansing of the audience. This idea is based upon the observation that while we may have entered into a civilized society, we are still basically animals, with the same primal urges and emotions of our fellow creatures.

Experiencing a drama then is a chance to purge those emotions, to laugh or cry or scream, to have an appropriate outlet for our strong but bottled-up feelings, that would then allow us to continue living in that civilized society. In other words, catharsis is a way to have a safe, communal forum for expressing and releasing otherwise troublesome and detrimental emotions.

Though a fairly common explanation for catharsis, the problem with this interpretation is that there is no evidence whatsoever that Aristotle found emotions the least bit troubling. It is Plato who thought that emotions were bad. As a result, Plato thought that TRAGEDIES were bad because they caused those emotions to be felt.

Aristotle, on the other hand, thought emotions were good, vital even. But he believed in moderation. Not too much, not too little emotion. His idea was that you NEED fear. Not so much fear that you shrink away from the slightest challenge. But not too little that you stupidly plow right into any dangerous situation. It was all a matter of balance.

So the second reading of catharsis is that it is a way to RECALIBRATE one’s emotions. This school of thought says that Aristotle’s sense of catharsis is all about telling stories in order to let off some excess emotional steam, to be able to restore a healthy and proper harmony of emotion. So there is something therapeutic about seeing a play or going to a movie since the emotional experience they provide resets us to an emotional equilibrium.

A problem with this interpretation is that it implies those with a greater imbalance of emotion would derive a greater benefit from the experience. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the case in reality. Having a disproportionate amount of emotion is hardly a prerequisite for enjoying a drama, and unstable people don’t necessarily get more out of a play than the rest of us.

So still a third approach to this question is that Aristotle is talking about the purging of emotions in a way that is similar to his more defined description of mimesis—that catharsis is also rooted in the pleasure we feel at representation, not simply in the way things appear, but in the way we respond to them.

In other words, the emotion we experience while watching a movie is an IMITATION of that emotion in real life.

Think about it. When we watch Alien, we are terrified as Ripley walks through that long, dark tunnel. Something is lurking in the shadows. Something is going to jump out. We are going to scream. And then we are going to laugh with relief that such an emotion was provoked, yet we are in fact still safe and sound.

Now imagine feeling that same fear in real life. You walk down a dark alley, knowing that someone is following behind you, knowing that something horrible is in the shadows up ahead. Are you feeling that same chill? That same giddy dread? Not at all. Because it’s real. Because that alley has the potential for actual danger and pain.

And if those feelings provide you pleasure or any positive benefit at all, then put this book down immediately and call your therapist, you’ve got bigger concerns than how to write a screenplay.

The threat of actual peril does not exist in the movie theatre, so the emotion cannot possibly be the same. Instead, we experience a facsimile, an approximation of fear. The same holds true with sorrow. With joy. With the whole gamut of emotions.

But why would we want to experience an imitation of an emotion?

For the same reason Aristotle says we desire to experience an imitation of an object.

We derive pleasure from learning—and we accomplish that through FEELING just as much as, if not more than, by OBSERVING. But, as with mimesis, that experience requires a safe environment, with that same objective distance only afforded by experiencing the representation of those powerful emotions.

Make sense? I hope so, since this is where our understanding of the purpose of storytelling starts.

According to Aristotle, we have an innate, instinctual desire to better understand ourselves and our world. And we most effectively do that by both SEEING and FEELING representations of ourselves and our experiences reflected back to us. So mimesis and catharsis, imitations of objects and emotions, together, allow us to experience the world, and life in general, while maintaining a safe, objective, and communal vantage point.

And because STORIES provide that experience, we find them not only pleasurable, but necessary.

Aristotle may have not known the term, but he is in fact describing an evolutionary imperative. We need to learn about ourselves in order to grow and develop, as individuals, as a society, and as a species. Therefore Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has blessed us with pleasure in learning, along with a built-in mechanism to accomplish that end, the desire to tell stories.

So storytelling has a purpose, an important one. And that purpose provides us with Aristotle’s Guiding Precept #1:

We might not all have owned a bar in a war-torn way station like Rick Blaine, risen to the top of an underworld empire like Michael Corleone, or rescued a space princess like Luke Skywalker, but we certainly know what it’s like to be jilted, to deal with family conflict, to dream of a more exciting and fulfilling future. These movies, like all good ones, make us cry and cringe and curse and laugh and scream as we see aspects of our own experience reflected back to us, allowing us to recognize important truths about ourselves through the experience of another.

So everything about the craft of screenwriting, from idea to story to structure to character to theme to the choice of the very words on the page, must help provide that experience.

In other words, we must fulfill the dual purpose of storytelling—mimesis and catharsis—to provide the joy of LEARNING through the experience of FEELING.

And now that we know a little more about why we tell stories, let’s begin exploring how we tell them. And for that, we should start by defining just what makes a good one.