Telling Stories by @ThamKhaiMeng

Telling

By @ThamKhaiMengWWCCO, Ogilvy & MaTher

TellingBy @ThamKhaiMengWWCCO, Ogilvy & MaTher

along with sex, shopping

and watching sports,

sTOryTelling is One Of The WOrld’s MOsT pOpular reCreaTiOnal aCTiviTies. Man has been hard at it for ten

thousand years or so without much

sign of letting up. all over the

world everyone loves stories,

especially advertising folks.

since telling stories is the

heart of what we do, shouldn’t we

understand what they are? and why

are they so popular?


The latest neurological

research shows that

Man is essentially

the storytelling ape.

evOluTiOn has hard-Wired us TO Tell sTOries, and we use them to navigate

the world. put someone in

a Mri scanner and watch

what happens when you tell

them a story: you will see

sections of the brain light

up with pleasure.


it’s a hotly debated topic why this is so, but one

thing seems fairly certain: stories help us make

sense of a complex reality. peOple Tell sTOries TO MaKe sense Of The WOrld. if you consider the control centre inside your head, at any given

moment it is a centre of chaos with thousands of

different pieces of sensory data coming in. But

telling a story, putting the various pieces of data

into a narrative sequence gives shape and meaning

to the chaos. We do it every moment of our waking

lives, and of course while we are asleep too.

a+B B+astart


storytelling is like

whisky: it gets distilled

over and over again

until it is right. The

distillery is the human

heart and over the course

of tens of thousands of

years We have arrived aT WhaT yOu MighT Call an aCCepTed graMMar Of sTOryTelling—a set of conventions. it’s the way

storytelling is done, and

it is this way because it

works.


ThaT’s Why sO Many hOllyWOOd MOvies feel The saMe. and although some movie buffs might complain, the studios know the

people who sit in the movie theatre don’t

mind at all. as long as they get something

that is the same only different.


There have probably been as many stories told

since Man first started telling them as there

are stars in the night sky. But in one sense,

reMarKaBly feW sTOries have Been TOld.Or rather it always seems to be the same handful of

stories told over and over again. some people talk

of the seven basic plots. One of the so-called

basic plots, for example, is “rags-to-riches,”

which is the paradigm for Cinderella, david

Copperfield, great expectations and ten thousand

more. another is “the Quest” which includes the

Odyssey, King solomon’s Mines and Water Margin.

another is “Journey and return” which includes,

among a million others, The lord of the rings and

Journey to the West. and what about James Bond?

Well, James Bond is “Overcoming the Monster.”


it’s not just the pattern of the story that is

the same. They alsO all feaTure The saMe CharaCTers. have you ever noticed the similarity between gandalf and Obi Wan Kenobe

from star Wars? They are both examples of what

has come to be called the Mentor figure. an older,

wiser, very experienced person – often wearing

a robe – who gives counsel and help to the hero

on his journey. The mentor is an archetype and

movies are full of them. Others include the

shadow (=bad guy) shapeshifter, Trickster, and

Threshold guardian. (These archetypes were

initially catalogued by Joseph Campbell in his

book The hero with a Thousand faces.)


Over the years, storytellers have also

evolved a speCifiC seT Of TriCKs TO Keep readers Or lisTeners hOOKed. The foremost of these is curiosity. This

is the thread that draws the reader

on through a tale and makes sure she

doesn’t bail out early.


and why do all those terrible things happen to the

hero? Because The herO is us. We inhabit his skin. and during the ordeal he changes. he

learns. he sees the world differently

at the end. he may discover all sorts of

things about himself and the world and

life and the human condition. The story

teaches him these things, and

this is called growth. growth

is good, we all need to grow

spiritually. But who wants to

fight T rexes? it’s much better

to let the hero do it for us.

That, is what stories do. They

teach and entertain, and the

best ones leave us changed

forever.

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Telling Stories by @ThamKhaiMeng