by Athina Paris
Since time immemorial people have been sharing stories. However, the way they told tales in times past has changed considerably in comparison to how we do so presently. Back in the day—centuries to millennia ago—the only way they knew how to communicate and share exploits was orally.
When groups of people first gathered in caves, they could hardly be called communities. Sure, they banded together for safety, hunting power, and helped raise each other’s offspring, but they were not yet connected by any specific thread. There were no races, tribes, or distinct cultures; much less what we call civilization.
It is a fascinating fact that one of the primary things people did around fires was to describe their daily adventures; a successful mammoth hunt, narrowly escaping a saber-tooth tiger, falling off a cliff while trying to outrun a stampeding herd of buffalo. These exchanges were more a retelling of events than stories but they brought individuals and groups together, and helped create ties that bound them into collectives.
Their narratives did not have real plots, tension lines, climaxes or traditional endings as we know them today, as their oral exchanges were impartations of facts, but along the way, they also became conveyances of historic events—forerunners gathering the knowledge we share today. And there were no peripeteias (turning points) in their tales, and neither were there happy endings nor tragic ones.
Shared stories created two ways of thinking, paradigm and narrative. And whereas paradigm is often associated with set ideas that suddenly look at a new aspect on how to do things differently, narrative thinking comes across in connected and structured waves. Even back then we could already see the fundamental scientific brain at work—invention of the wheel, and the emergence of a creative spirit; cave paintings—as they shared individual and combined sequences of events.
As oral accounts began to evolve, memory and dramatization started playing a larger role. This implies that not only did the narrator remember his tale and recount it numerous times, but so did his audience, who doubtless habitually asked for a favourite to be repeated. And it must have been around this time too that storytellers felt the need to create reminders; just in case the details escaped them. Hence why a substantial number of cave paintings exist around the world.
When the narrator looked at that wall, he was instantly reminded of his adventures’ details, which began sounding better at every subsequent retelling, for not only was he digging into his long-term memory but he started elaborating in a way that crossed between realism and fantasy. It must have been then too that fish tales were invented, as raconteurs began making use of rhyme, rhythm, song, and dramatics, which further helped carve the memory into the minds of the riveted audience. As mentioned briefly, storytelling and history became a melting pot of fact and fiction.
As these events became common, so did record keeping as an essential part of each distinct group, for now they could be called tribes, and cultures were springing up and passing on at a rapid rate. Again, paradigm thinking struck; the first writing came into being. Certainly, cuneiform looks complicated to modern humans, but this system developed over 5500 years ago by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia was a godsend. They could now record daily life and historical events, but as all natural evolutions tend to, it is also possible that a creative soul wrote a couple of love letters and a few stories, even if they could not be too long; imagine going to book club with those heavy carved tablets.
After the Sumerians, came the Egyptians, then Indians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans, the Mayans… and all developed their own writing methods, as multitudes of early manuscripts routinely reflect scribes’ preponderance to directly record oral accounts, unlike today’s prevalence of complete fiction. It wasn’t until the Renaissance that the western novel appeared, albeit still mostly record keeping of our ancient verbal traditions. But in the 17th century, true novels materialized; think Don Quixote, Paradise Lost, and Othello. Finally, fictional prose was no longer oral, as it had become long and complicated. It needed the book.
Through centuries of oral storytelling and the occasional etched stone or engraved scroll, we developed a taste for specific kinds of tales and Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) set it out beautifully in his 1949 The Hero with a Thousand Faces, as he expounded on his Monomyth (one myth) concept, which is the theory that suggests that all fictional narratives are variations of one single story, that a common pattern exists regardless of origin, or time of creation. In other words, it refers to the classical hero’s journey, which splits into three distinct acts. Breaking it down further, it translates into beginning, middle and end.
In romantic novels, but specifically the happy-ever-after kind, we call it the meet, lose, and get, which sounds frivolous but if writers do not follow the prototype they can end up with unsold copies as word of mouth travels faster than a forest fire. Understand, I am not saying every story has to have a happy ending but the formula has to be followed somewhat, whatever genre you write in.
From Science fiction to romance to thrillers there has to be an exposition, a confrontation, and a resolution, even if just momentary, for the tale could continue in book two or three. Every story needs to find its inciting incident, object of desire, the pursuit of that desire, and culminate in a climax that does them all justice.
I am certain that I’m not the only one who has come across books that do not fit the expected model. Instead, we have discovered thousands of words gathered into chapters that do not fit the classical mould, because instead, they are groups of events, sequences and scenes, but that is precisely what progression does; it changes and adapts styles and formulas.
Hence, the evolution of storytelling is thus; we have changed from mere narrators into intuitive creators, swing from fact to fiction, and move back and forth between the real world and whimsical ones among the pages. And the reader begs, “Lead me in, hook me with your prose, hold my interest with your turning point, and reward me with the best pay-off you could have possibly crafted.”
Since time immemorial people have been sharing stories. However, the way they told tales in times past has changed considerably in comparison to how we do so presently. Back in the day—centuries to millennia ago—the only way they knew how to communicate and share exploits was orally.
When groups of people first gathered in caves, they could hardly be called communities. Sure, they banded together for safety, hunting power, and helped raise each other’s offspring, but they were not yet connected by any specific thread. There were no races, tribes, or distinct cultures; much less what we call civilization.
It is a fascinating fact that one of the primary things people did around fires was to describe their daily adventures; a successful mammoth hunt, narrowly escaping a saber-tooth tiger, falling off a cliff while trying to outrun a stampeding herd of buffalo. These exchanges were more a retelling of events than stories but they brought individuals and groups together, and helped create ties that bound them into collectives.
Their narratives did not have real plots, tension lines, climaxes or traditional endings as we know them today, as their oral exchanges were impartations of facts, but along the way, they also became conveyances of historic events—forerunners gathering the knowledge we share today. And there were no peripeteias (turning points) in their tales, and neither were there happy endings nor tragic ones.
Shared stories created two ways of thinking, paradigm and narrative. And whereas paradigm is often associated with set ideas that suddenly look at a new aspect on how to do things differently, narrative thinking comes across in connected and structured waves. Even back then we could already see the fundamental scientific brain at work—invention of the wheel, and the emergence of a creative spirit; cave paintings—as they shared individual and combined sequences of events.
As oral accounts began to evolve, memory and dramatization started playing a larger role. This implies that not only did the narrator remember his tale and recount it numerous times, but so did his audience, who doubtless habitually asked for a favourite to be repeated. And it must have been around this time too that storytellers felt the need to create reminders; just in case the details escaped them. Hence why a substantial number of cave paintings exist around the world.
When the narrator looked at that wall, he was instantly reminded of his adventures’ details, which began sounding better at every subsequent retelling, for not only was he digging into his long-term memory but he started elaborating in a way that crossed between realism and fantasy. It must have been then too that fish tales were invented, as raconteurs began making use of rhyme, rhythm, song, and dramatics, which further helped carve the memory into the minds of the riveted audience. As mentioned briefly, storytelling and history became a melting pot of fact and fiction.
As these events became common, so did record keeping as an essential part of each distinct group, for now they could be called tribes, and cultures were springing up and passing on at a rapid rate. Again, paradigm thinking struck; the first writing came into being. Certainly, cuneiform looks complicated to modern humans, but this system developed over 5500 years ago by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia was a godsend. They could now record daily life and historical events, but as all natural evolutions tend to, it is also possible that a creative soul wrote a couple of love letters and a few stories, even if they could not be too long; imagine going to book club with those heavy carved tablets.
After the Sumerians, came the Egyptians, then Indians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans, the Mayans… and all developed their own writing methods, as multitudes of early manuscripts routinely reflect scribes’ preponderance to directly record oral accounts, unlike today’s prevalence of complete fiction. It wasn’t until the Renaissance that the western novel appeared, albeit still mostly record keeping of our ancient verbal traditions. But in the 17th century, true novels materialized; think Don Quixote, Paradise Lost, and Othello. Finally, fictional prose was no longer oral, as it had become long and complicated. It needed the book.
Through centuries of oral storytelling and the occasional etched stone or engraved scroll, we developed a taste for specific kinds of tales and Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) set it out beautifully in his 1949 The Hero with a Thousand Faces, as he expounded on his Monomyth (one myth) concept, which is the theory that suggests that all fictional narratives are variations of one single story, that a common pattern exists regardless of origin, or time of creation. In other words, it refers to the classical hero’s journey, which splits into three distinct acts. Breaking it down further, it translates into beginning, middle and end.
In romantic novels, but specifically the happy-ever-after kind, we call it the meet, lose, and get, which sounds frivolous but if writers do not follow the prototype they can end up with unsold copies as word of mouth travels faster than a forest fire. Understand, I am not saying every story has to have a happy ending but the formula has to be followed somewhat, whatever genre you write in.
From Science fiction to romance to thrillers there has to be an exposition, a confrontation, and a resolution, even if just momentary, for the tale could continue in book two or three. Every story needs to find its inciting incident, object of desire, the pursuit of that desire, and culminate in a climax that does them all justice.
I am certain that I’m not the only one who has come across books that do not fit the expected model. Instead, we have discovered thousands of words gathered into chapters that do not fit the classical mould, because instead, they are groups of events, sequences and scenes, but that is precisely what progression does; it changes and adapts styles and formulas.
Hence, the evolution of storytelling is thus; we have changed from mere narrators into intuitive creators, swing from fact to fiction, and move back and forth between the real world and whimsical ones among the pages. And the reader begs, “Lead me in, hook me with your prose, hold my interest with your turning point, and reward me with the best pay-off you could have possibly crafted.”
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