John Yorke - The physics of storytelling

My tutor suggested that I watched the video of John Yorke’s talk to Google about the structure of stories,  in the feedback to our chat for Assignment 2 but somehow I missed it at the time

The link is here

It’s a fascinating theory linking structure of narrative to physics and he demonstrates it using examples from well known stories. 

• We are wired to turn everything into a story to try and make sense of the world
• A story occurs when opposites meet and that can be absolutely anything. When I go out I enter a different environment ( a transition of my state) and create stories for myself to explain and deal with the interaction. 

Structure

He uses several ways to explain this:

1. Set up
2. Confrontation 
3. Resolution

1. Thesis
2. Antithesis
3. Synthesis

1.  Act 1  (one unit of time)

-Turning point

2. Act 2.  (two units of time)

-Turning point

3. Act 3 (one unit of time)

He says that everyone has conflict between the appearance that they show to the world and their secret self. Drama occurs when a character reveals some of their hidden self in response to a character who differs from them. This often occurs midpoint of the story although skilled storytellers may mess about with this (This is grossly oversimplified) 

I found Yorke’s talk much easier to engage with and apply to my story than Kurt Vonnegut’s theories although they are clearly approaching  the same subject in slightly different ways.  

I applied some of his theories to my story. He has 10 questions which he asks about a narrative.

There is a lot more to storytelling than I had previously understood and a lot to think about. This is something to look at in a lot more depth after my project is submitted. I do however see my role as interpreter of other peoples stories rather than creator of my own.