During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary in your notebooks of today’s reading: Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Future of Story. Also, write about what you think is the future of story. What kinds of stories would you like to experience in the future? How would you like to experience those stories?
ENG1101 D340 English Composition I, SPR2015
Official site for ENG1101 D340
The author called future as Neverland in this chapter. Humans cannot live without the expectations about the future. We need to fantasize and plan how it might look like, what we may be doing…
Lots of writers are getting to the point that books and literature is dead, and reality television and video games are taking places in daily lives of people. Digital entertainment is on rise.
Novels are getting new forms now. We can say that songs nowadays are new types of novels.
The reality TV is not that real. Most of it is scripted which perfectly show that all stories are written and might be changing along with acting, characters, themes, etc. Gottschall gave an example of couple reality shows in his chapter, showed their structure, the way characters are acting and how this reality stories might influence the audience. The formula of reality TV according to their procedures looks like:
Character + Predicament + Attempted Extrication
In my future I probably would like to experience 3D and 4D technology stories. New digitals and electronics are very on point when it comes to producing movies using these technologies.
Throughout Gottschall’s last chapter “The Future Story”, from his book “The Storytelling Animal” We feel, we imagine, and we understand the importance of story. Thanks to us, novels and poems, traditional fiction and story are the reality where we belong. Equally important, there’s a probability that fiction may be losing its central place in our lives which means we might be leaving neverland behind because a story delivery technology as social media makes us move from the real to the virtual world. However, I think that we are never going to leave neverland because without it is like we don’t exist, from my point of view. After reading this chapter, I realize how important are stories which in fact we don’t appreciate until we read this book that I will recommend to my friends on social media and people that like to read. As a result from the reading, I feel we all need to explore more the beauty of any reading like books, poems or novels because the fact is that we are the creation that take place in any fictional character. In addition, this is nonfiction vs fiction, creating more rich development of story with the innovation of technology. Thus, I think this chapter reveals that our reality is also part of neverland.
In the Chapter “The Future of Story”, Jonathan Gottschall talks about how we human are creatures of Neverland. We are attracted to Neverland because, on the whole, it is good for us. It nourishes our imaginations. Neverland is our nature. We are the storytelling animal. Dreaming, Fantasizing, and dramatizing is what we do every day and yet many worry that fiction may be losing its central place in our lives. Videos games and other digital entertainments are also on the rise, it draws audiences away from traditional story. Game industry is one of the fastest growing industry in the world, it is much bigger than the book industry and even bigger than film industry. It is taking over the traditional story. From reading the chapter, I learned the importance of story even though nowadays we rarely read anymore. Stories are powerful because it can influence the audiences and help us connect with our audiences.
Humans are creatures of neverland. Neverland is our special habitat our evolutionary niche. We are attracted to neverland because we are happy there. It nourishes our imagination, reinforces moral behavior and gives us safe world to practice inside. Story is the glue of human life, we are storytelling animal. But these days people are leaving neverland behind. Theaters struggle to make ends meet and poet trade accusation about who killed poetry. literature is in a midst of great and possible depression. These days reality TV shows and video games are taking place above all. The 2010 release of Call of Duty made more than arguably the best movie Avatar. This shows that fiction is dying. literary novels are having a hard time. The way we experience story on television does seem to be changing but television is still in the main a story delivering technology. The rise of reality shows and displacement of scripted shows, show the sign of end of fiction. But reality shows aren’t real. Together with team of editors, reality show writers take raw footage and twist it into classic storylines. Gottschall writes “I don’t think traditional fiction is dying and I don’t think the universal grammar will ever change. But I do think storytelling will evolve in new direction over next fifty years.” The way we experience story will evolve but as storytelling animals we will no more give it up. People don’t go to Story Land because they want something startling new; they go because they want old comforts of the universal story grammar. Rejoice in the fantastic improbability of the twisting evolutionary path that made us creatures of story and realize the power of story. Go get lost in a novel.
In Jonathan Gotschall’s “The Future Storie” he does a fantastic job at storytelling. He mentions that some say that storytelling is dead. He gives factors that prove that storytelling is anything but dead and actually on the rise. Overtime the forms in which we share stories has changed. Today, we share stories through social media, music, film, and television. On television, almost every night there is a new episode to some sort of “reality” show, a new song plays on the radio and millions of photos are posted on the internet. Music can be seen as poetry, and we know photos say a thousand words. Gotschall’s point was to show that storytelling is done in so many ways that we may not even notice how often we are really sharing. Each and everyone of us is a “Storytelling Animal” 100% of the time.
I always thought that life is full of stories, and we create them to make our lives more interesting. However, In Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Future of Story chapter Gottschall states that “Humans are creatures of Neverland” and that we are attracted to it because it is good for us. Also, it nourishes our imaginations, it gives us safe worlds to practice in, and it enforces moral behavior. The more I think of what I have read in the “Future of Story” chapter, is the more I realize how much we as humans live our lives based on some sort of story. As well, I believe that a life without Neverland, our lives would become very boring.
On the other hand, Gottschall talks about how the gaming industry is much bigger than book and film industry, nowadays. As a result, video games and other digital entertainments are drawing audiences away from traditional story. Also, yet thousands of new novels are being publish around the world. Moreover, Gottschall elaborates on how the technology of storytelling has changed from oral tales, to clay, tablets, to hand lettered manuscripts to printed books, to movies, televisions, kindles, and iPones.
Nevertheless, I like both fiction and nonfiction stories, and it would be a great honor for me to experience both kind of stories, as part of a live show, or as part of a movie.
Jonathan Gottschall ends The Story Telling Animal with the future of the story. He uses this chapter to argue on the direction of storytelling. Gottschall pointed out an example of a video game which sold more copies than a literature work. Some people think that the end of story is here but that’s not the case because everything we watch, play, and read is about a story, also because of the surprisingly growth of reality shows, and shows in general on tv. The truth is that these reality shows and video games are stories based on an individual or avatar. The shows we see on tv are stories that people rather watch instead of read, with that being said the end of storytelling is nowhere near the end instead it’s on it’s rise at the moment. One of the shows Gottschall mention as very popular among other shows was Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is a great show, it’s probably the best show I’ve seen in my life and I actually feel that if I would’ve read this story instead of watching it my feedback to it would be a lot different. The viewer sees and gets a better understanding of what a character is going through when one it’s watching it instead of when it’s reading it.
Stories are an important part of the human race. Thanks to people, books, and historical events we have stories to share. As we keep moving forward, slowly we are losing the touch to reality stories, and we move to virtual stories like TV, video games, etc. Its not really a bad thing but more like we’re just leaving behind a part of us that has stuck since forever and moving onto something new. Since stories are a part of everyone’s life, the type of stories I like to experience are usually the virtual ones, from video games. Most stories are complex and others are simple, I really prefer are the complex ones because it leaves the player wonder how? Who? And why? Will there be a sequel to this? Although I do other a simple story from time to time, a complex one just grabs my attention, I find it cool to see how others express their creativity and their thought out stories certain games like Assassin’s Creed, Metal Gear Solid, Zelda, and Metroid, these are just a small amount of my interests.
“The Future of Story” is Jonathan Gottschall’s last chapter from The Storytelling Animal, which kept me very submerged in the content. Having finished this book is very gratifying. Now I am able to understand how stories are part of us as humans, the ways it has evolved, moreover, how it will continue expanding in future generations. According to Gottschall in his very last chapter, humans are creatures of Neverland. Neverland is our niche, our special habitat.” Nowadays, many people are worried about what could happen if we lose fiction stories and forget about Neverland and the benefits it gives us as humans. The author points out that the gaming industry in much bigger than the book and film industry. Consequently, we could say fiction story is not literally dying; is jut changing the way we usually perceive it. “Story evolves. Like a biological organism, it continuously adapts itself to the demands of its environment.” It does not matter what continue happening to novels, they will continue being part of us, and without them, our lives would not have any sense. Same thing is happening to poems, they are evolving and nowadays we perceive them in form of songs. Gottschall expresses that along with the fear of things dying, there is a fear of things rising. Video games are the prime example. However, they might represent a stage in story’s evolution. Based on the author’s writing, personally, I think that everything surrounding us is evolving, and sometimes changes are hard. Is always difficult to escape from convention and the things that are comfortable for us. Same thing is happening with stories. As a result of technology and our dependency to it, story had to started changing the way we usually see it. Gottschall does not think traditional fiction is dying. Nevertheless, he does think storytelling will evolve in new directions over the next fifty years. In the future, I will like to experience stories in a more modern way, I think is good for us to change, we have to use all the facilities technology brought us. Using it as a way to storytelling would be wonderful.
Storytelling Animal
The Future of Story
By Jonathan Gottschall
In this occasion, Gottschall explains about stories itself and how people are really attach to story in a way that he defines as that people resides in Neverland and we cannot live without it because storytelling is part of the human nature because people always tell story about their life or fictional. However, the author emphasizes that these stories are not eternal and there is always an end which lead to another story. Furthermore, stories always change or evolving such as video games that started in two dimension and then became three dimensional. Stories also have different to be expressed them such as in a poetic schema in which the feelings and rhythm combines in order to tell a metaphoric story which can be interpreted in many ways. At the same time, music can tell many stories by using melodies and instruments. Moreover, there are movies which can be described as the summary of a book compressed within a limited in which describes a fictional or realistic story. In other words, story can have different connotations and can be expressed in many different ways through history. The author goes deep about how story telling is evolving in combination with science fiction which can be describe many futuristic situations such as the tv series Star Trek or The Lord of The Ring. Those stories contains a fascinating stories that tells feelings, culture, religion , and so many aspect of a daily life. Overall, storytelling will continue to evolve and will lead to many different path in order to tell a life experience or simply just get drive by our imagination.