Most storytellers (and by most, I mean damn-near all) have a particular narratological orientation. Good storytellers recognize their orientation and either embrace it or develop past it. Bad storytellers either live in ignorance of their narratological orientation or refuse to acknowledge it. Recognizing your orientation means learning to work within it, to develop that orientation as best you can. This also allows you, if you choose, to try and develop other orientations to differentiate you work. To be honest, though, it’s very, VERY rare that a storyteller of any medium can do this, or even tries.
So, what is a narratological orientation? Great question, me.
Narratological orientation comes from whichever of the four basic narrative elements is central to your writing: Plot, Setting, Character, or Theme. All four of these are present in a story. In fact, the very nature of storytelling means that you MUST have all four. But a storyteller’s individual style means that some of the elements have greater presence andusage than others. Some stories are more focused on the plot and characters, others on the theme or setting. But, there’s always one that far, far outpaces all the others. This is your narratological orientation.
Full disclosure, I’ve never really been all that drawn to Plot-Oriented stories and storytellers. Christopher Nolan is probably the most successful, most well-known of the active plot-oriented storytellers. If you do a close-reading of his films, you’ll notice the pattern. Momento used reverse plot; the story runs backwards. Dunkirk uses non-linear plot; different characters’ arcs are along different timelines, only intersecting at the film’s finale. Tenet… well, that film’s a hot mess. It runs BOTH backwards and forwards. Nolan also loves flashbacks. Even when he has a story that technically runs chronologically, like his Dark Knight trilogy, there are still a truckload of flashbacks. Not only all that, but you may have noticed that Nolan’s stories are most interested in plot development, far more so than any other narrative element.
Consider, for example, Interstellar.
At first glance, it looks like the setting is most important. Earth’s failing biosphere, the growing power and importance of the space program, the various exoplanets, the space station, and even the weird tesseract inside the black hole. Except, none of these are developed beyond the most basic facts. That water planet has slow time because Matthew McConaughey needs to experience a time-jump, missing a big chunk of his daughter’s life.
Plot point. Earth’s biosphere is dying, but only so that the mission to find a new planet can happen.
Theme and character also serve only to develop the plot. Anne Hathaway argues that love Transends time and space (I’m rolling my eyes, by the way). But this is just so that she can be sent to that final planet; we never see any interactions between her and this man she supposedly loves.
We keep getting told that Matt Damon is this incredibly brave and brilliant scientist and leader. But we only see him in the fourth act, and he’s just a plot device forcing the main characters into their desperate climax.
Everything in Nolan’s films is centered upon the establishment, development, and resolution of the plot.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying Nolan is a bad storyteller. Far from it. I love the Dark Knight films, and even though I’m really unengaged with plot-oriented movies, I can still watch any of his films and be entertained. But, I rarely seek out Nolan films. If I’m bored, it’s unlikely that I’ll say, “man, I could really go for a 2.5 hour exploration of non-linear plot.” If you’re plot-oriented, great. Like Nolan, go with it; try out all the weird things you can do with plot. Slice-of-life, unbound chapters, multi-perspective plot, circular (repeating) plot, all-dialogue, self-fulfilling prophecy, meta-fiction. There are so many different plot tricks you can try out. If that’s the way you swing, then swing for the fences, storyteller.
I’m going to skip setting for the end. You’ll find out why.
Character-oriented storytellers are probably my second-favorite. I love a good character study. There are any number of character-oriented storytellers, with Quentin Tarantino probably being the most famous.
If you notice in his films, the plot if often sort of hand-waved. The Hateful Eight is just an attempted recovery of a prisoner, just like Django Unchained. Kill Bill is a straightforward revenge plot, and if you can give a one-sentence plot summary of Pulp Fiction, you’re a hell of a lot smarter than me. I mean, other than, “A bunch of random shit happens.” If you look closely, you’ll notice that most of the scenes in a Tarantino film are people sitting around and talking. They’re exploring personal likes/dislikes, histories, hopes/fears, etc. That’s character development.
Truthfully, I think the storytellers of east Asia are much better at character-oriented storytelling. Hell, just look at anime. Think of all the same basic plots that get rehashed again and again and again. A gamer explores a world that follows RPG rules.
My everyday life as…
Common schlub gathers a harem of top-shelf girls.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, yes indeed.
In fact, most anime-watchers will identify a given story as one of a pretty limited list in just a single scene. Except, the point isn’t the plot, it’s the people. What draws the fans in and holds them isn’t the same story or setting they’ve encountered ad nausem, it’s how these particular character interact with that plot and/or setting.
Luffy from One Piece is remembered not for his world or his plot, but for him.
In fact, other than hardcore fans, few people have read all 1,100 (or more) chapters of that story, which isn’t done, by the way. In fact, the idea of a kid wanting to be a pirate, of running away and having adventures on the high seas, is nothing new. One Piece fans, you really should try reading Treasure Island.
The world of Once Piece is interesting, with a rich history and many complex societies, but it’s really the characters that draw and hold the audience. Loyal Zoro, brilliant and witty Nami, Nico’s dark sense of humor, and, of course, Chopper. It’s the characters that keep bringing us back.
Light Yagami having the power of life and death, Motoko Kusanagi battling a sentient AI, Tanjiro’s desperate quest to save his sister’s soul, and Shinji Ikari’s… well, Shinji sucks. Sorry, not sorry. In each case, these characters have rather common storylines. What engages us is their characterization. Light begins with noble intentions, to rid the world of evil-doorers, but is corrupted to madness by the power of the Death Note.
Kusanagi (depending on the specific series) struggles with her own identity, her sense of humanity as her body becomes increasingly something other.
Tanjiro is a noble kid who desperately loves his sister and risks everything to save, not only her body, but her very soul.
And Shinji… he just needs to get in the damned robot. I was glad every time Asuka gave him shit.
It’s always funny to me how bemused non-anime fans are at how popular slice-of-life stories are. The plots are always superficially bland. The settings (usually high-school) all seem the same. Even the themes are pretty repetitive: coming-of-age, true love, self-realization, the power of friendship etc. Take Lucky Star, perhaps the most iconic and enduring slice-of-life anime.
It’s about four best friends in high school. Each episode is just some random situations in their lives. Hell, the first scene in the first episode is the girls sitting around debating the best way to eat a chocolate treat.
And yet, fans are cosplaying. Go to any convention, anime, comic, sci-fi or whatever. You’ll find a whole lot of people cosplaying anime. But, of the most importance, they’re not cosplaying as a particular plot or world, they cosplay as characters. This is what separates character-oriented stories from other big IP like Star Trek or Star Wars. When you see someone cosplaying Star Wars, they’re just as likely to be representing a stormtrooper as a specific character. Go to a Star Trek convention and see how many people are dressed as Capt. Picard or Spock, versus a Starfleet officer or Klingon. For other IPs, the orientation is on the setting or the story, but in anime, it’s all about the characters.
And, just as with plot-orientation, if character is your thing, go with it. The reluctant hero, the revenant, the everyman, the sage, the lover, the innocent, the outlaw. There are any number of personalities to explore. As the Vulcans say: infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Theme, like plot, is a rough orientation for me. Not in and of itself. A theme-oriented storyteller can be great. A lot of the portal fantasies are thematic: Peter Pan and Wendy, Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, and the Narnia books are all centered upon their themes: usually coming-of-age. Wendy is about to be moved out of the nursery. Alice is beginning her education in preparation for her introduction to society. The Narnia kids are evacuated from London during the Blitz. In each case, children are being confronted with the hardships of adulthood.
My trouble with theme-oriented stories comes less from the story as the storyteller. Modern theme-oriented storytellers tend to become parodies of themselves. When theme is the focus of your storytelling, it tends to overwhelm everything else. Consider Tim Burton. Now, if you want to learn about Gothic style, he’s your guy.
Everything he’s ever done is seeped in modern Gothic. But, as his career progressed, you may notice that his stories become very same-y. The coloring shading and saturation are always the same. The characters are always the same (hell, he often uses the same actors). The music is always the same (it’s usually Danny Elfman).
Even when he adapts pre-existing IP, like Alice in Wonderland, he Burtons it up. If you’ve seen one Tim Burton film, you’ve pretty much seen them all.
Now, if that’s your taste, then great. For me, though, I need some variety.
Being a theme-oriented storyteller can actually be a little rough. This is mostly because themes tend to be timely. In the early 2000s, for example, it was all deconstruction. Zack Snyder led the charge with all this.
In the 2010s, it was all about equal representation and under-represented groups. Think of Marvel, Phase 4.
In each case, the flavor of the time, the theme that dominated culture, did so for a few years, and then fell out of fashion. People tend to get tired of hearing the same speech, over and over. If you want are a theme-oriented storyteller, my advice is to keep changing the theme. Don’t keep repeating the same moral lesson, the same cultural criticism. Make a point, and then move to another point.
Speaking of, let’s move on.
I saved setting-orientation for last because that’s what I am. And (he added, puffing his chest a bit), not for nothing, but Tolkieen is also a setting-oriented storyteller. Consider The Lord of the Rings.
Middle Earth is a fully-realized world with an expansive history, cultures, and ideologies. Tolkien created a history that spanned tens of thousands of years. Hobbiton was a very different place than Mordor or even Gondor. The Dwarves and the Elves are very different cultures. The history of the struggle against Sauron feels real. When you read the books or even just watch the (good) movies, you feel the weight of everything that’s happened before. Middle Earth feels like a lived-in place.
George Lucas is another good example of a setting-oriented storyteller. His galaxy far, far away feels lived in.
The politics, the religion, the various factions, they all feel real. Lucas couldn’t build character development to save his life, and his plots tended to get lost in the weeds. He relied on other writers, directors, and especially editors to keep him on track. But the Star Wars galaxy remains a fan favorite because it encourages exploration. We want to learn more about this place and the time, long ago. That’s what a setting-oriented storyteller does: we create lived-in places. We build entire realities.
Consider my newest book, The Cold Pit Below (cough, cough, shameless self-promotion, cough).
The book itself is pretty short. It’s a novella, and not a long one, at that. The characters are straightforward, working-class people caught in a situation for which they are tragically unprepared. The plot is, again, direct: it’s a haunted house / monster movie. In building this story, however, I first built the world. I make references throughout the story about other things happening: the terraforming of Venus, the reclamation of Earth, the Luna hegemony, worsening violence on Mars, the colonization of the Jovian moons. The story of The Cold Pit Below occurs in a broader, active universe. The upside of this is that (I hope) the narrative world feels real. The downside is it takes for-freakin’-ever to get a story off the ground. I spent over a year developing a narrative world for a story that barely clocks in at 200 pages. It’s not an efficient form of storytelling.
But.
Now that I’ve built the world, I can keep going back to it. I’ve previously mentioned that I’m starting a new writing project, a detective noir. It’s set in this same narratological universe. It’ll be on Venus, at the end of the terraforming. That means that I already know much of the setting; it’s pre-established. If, in the future, I want to keep telling these one-off stories, I have a universe already built and ready. That’s probably the biggest advantage of being a setting-oriented writer: you build your playground and can keep going back to it. You’ll notice that Star Wars expanded past George Lucas: the 90s were filled with novels set in his galaxy far, far away. Middle Earth has also grown past Tolkien; New storytellers are trying to build their own characters and plots in his playground. Great settings become worlds for others to explore, to have their adventures within.
I may be a little biased here.
So, try to figure out what your narratological orientation is. Do you spend most of your attention on the characters, their lives and hopes and dreams? Are you fixated on the plot, on developing your story from A to B to C? Do you dream up strange new worlds and new civilizations? Once you know what your orientation is, you can really dive into how to have some fun with it.
This weekend, I’ll be back up in North Conway. In fact, I’ll be up there for two weekends in October, this weekend and the 17th and 18th. For this first trip, I’ll be there for three days, Friday through Sunday. The Cold Pit Below is available through Amazon, but I’m still waiting for my copies to be delivered. Right now, UPS is telling me I won’t have them until mid-month, at best. Later in October, the weekend of the 10th, to be specific, I’ll be attending the new Northshore Horror and Anime Expo in Danvers, MA. Later, I’ll be at the Laconia Pumpkin Festival, and Halloween itself, I’ll be in Tilton, NH. Happy Fall, y’all!
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