During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary in your notebooks of today’s reading:Â 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 D371 English Composition I, SPR2015
Official site for ENG1101 D371
The future of story. Jonathan Gottschall explains that the future of the story or storytelling whether it is straight from your mouth or being told through a novel. No matter what storytelling will adapt,thrive and survive. Jonathan Gottschall compares how gaming reality television, and other activities do not deal with storytelling and especially in the sense of a novel are dominated financially by these activities and causes a major decline in reading and storytelling. But in the same breath he shows how storytelling has just adapted and is vibrant but it is flourishing in different forms such as through music, YouTube, and social media. I understood what Jonathan Gottschall was saying, people are still telling stories and people are still reading them, in just a differently way.
In Jonathan Gottschall’s “The Storytelling Animal” on the chapter “The Future of Story”, the author argues that we humans will continue to adapt to fiction as long as we are alive. As time goes on, our social norm may change with influence of politics, technology, community, and many more, but, it will never go extinct. The reason because, humans stick themselves with one another so much that eventually, we seek fiction to get out of the reality. We need it. Fiction does not change, but the method of producing fiction will change inevitably. As Gottschall’s mentions, many game developers are keen on adding storyline in their games. It not only ensures, a purpose to the story, but with what most game companies calls it, a, “role-playing experience. ” for all gamers. Games are a huge factor when it comes to developing fictions. A storyline and a virtual experience literally means, “making your reality come true.”. Games are just few parts of how fiction can be produced, there are internet, music’s, movies and many more. For as long as we progress, who knows how fiction will continue to produce in many ways when we already think it cannot be done any further. In my opinion, I think that because humans conserve a lot of their past, perhaps we will continue to follow the tradition as it has been done so, but not as often. We will continue to produce fiction through books, or from poet, however, technology will be the dominant way to be. As it provides vivid and more reality experience.
In Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Future of Story, Jonathan opens the chapter by saying, “Humans are creatures of Neverland”. What Gottschall is saying in this chapter is that basically everyone of us goes to our own sacred place in our minds that helps us think of ideas and create stories. People dream and fantasize but as children we all added a little more drama into our imagination to play it out in the real world. It’s best that all of us just have time to ourselves away from all of the technology that has been created and to just wander off in our own neverland. Why I state this is because we come up with the best ideas when we’re bored which professor Ellis has said in class last week wednesday. What he said is true because when I’m bored I start to write stories and poems and I even start drawing creative artwork. The main statement overall is to never lose touch with your own unique neverland because we are storytelling animals and we would need some time to ourselves to think the best ideas possible to keep the stories and inventions going.
In Jonathan Gottschall, “The Storytelling Animal, The Future of Story,” Gottschall closes out the book with a focus on story’s future. With today’s culture and technology, the usual forms of fiction are transitioning to media outlets such as, television, film, music and video gaming. With this transition, writers fear the future of story is ill fated but because story is forever evolving, its future is nothing to be fearful of. Story is adaptable. From novel to film, i.e.- “The Hunger Games,” to the video gaming industry, we are constantly surrounded by story. Gottschall discusses how story is played out on television and how the rise of reality shows are triumphing over scripted shows. Reality shows are far from real. They are not played out naturally. A group of editors create the shows’ conflicts in an editing room. These editors are following fiction’s formula of character + predicament + attempted extrication, drawing reality into the genre of fiction rather than non-fiction. The fantasy gaming subculture such as live action role playing (LARP), and massively multiplayer online role playing (MMORPG), also contribute to story’s future. LARP’s are adults who let their inner child out. These people come together to play pretend. Gottschall states LARP’s follow the Peter Pan principle, they just won’t grow up. MMORPG’s focus their attention into interactive story. Video games, such as World of Warcraft, allows the player to escape their reality and sucks them into the virtual world. As digital technology advances, stories may become dangerously attractive and completely taking over. Gottschall states some tips to avoid story takeover. One of Gottschall’s tips was to continue daydreaming. Daydreams are our personal short stories and they help us learn from the past and plan for the future. As for story’s future, I will continue to read novels and then watch them on film. I’ll try my best to steer away from reality shows and I’ll continue to daydream. In conclusion, we are creature of story, it is apart of our nature and for that, we are the story telling animal.
Jonathan Gottschall’s final chapter “The Future of Story” closes out with a look at the future of storytelling. Gottschall goes into depth about the recent technological advancements we have and how it has affected storytelling as a whole. People believe with the growing popularity of things like the gaming industry that real storytelling is dieing. He disagrees with this notion by stating how storytelling is natural to us and easily adaptable. Storytelling may have changed now from how it was fifty years ago but the case would be the same for the future. Storytelling is in our blood. We are the storytelling animal. Right now MMORPG is a very popular way of storytelling. Its the reason so many people are so into it. Its stories are vast and deep. We go into our own little Neverland completely isolated from the real world. No matter how advanced society may get the thing that won’t change is the fact that we will continue to tell stories because we are the storytelling animal.
Humanity thinks of a place where imagination runs wild. People envision, imagine, and think of great things. Humans can visualize ideas in ways no machine over could. Humans for the most part have free thought. Occasionally, social requirements get in the way, impeding free thought. People imagine ideas, sometimes true or false and attempt to justify them. Take for example, 2 people, I don’t care who, who imagine a conflict between them without any justification. Thoughts must be justified. Imagine a world of thoughts with no evidence, you would not know what is actually true or not. Now, how about a world with no free thought, a communist style country like North Korea. People do not have what we have, a bit of free thought. JG says that numerous groups are trashing stories. I agree but I pose the idea of what if there is no longer free thought or any stories. Imagine a world without thoughts.
In Jonathan Gostchalls book “The Storytelling Animal” in the chapter “The future of story” he talks about how we humans surround our selfs with fiction and made up stories that we want to believe in. It doesn’t have to be all made up stories but we add little details to our stories in order to make them more entertaining. Technology has taken over most of what we do and we barely have time for other stuff. Even in my life i have gotten so used to technology that thats what we use to stay in touch. We take inspiration from technology, to the people around us, and even the things we see. Not only to feel better but to get away from reality for once. We adapt onto fiction to help us face what we don’t. A Lot of social media has come in as well in order to tell events or even little parts of our stories. We still read or tell stories it hasn’t become extinct but in a very different way.
In the chapter, “The Future of Story” Gottshall’s talk about what is next in the story telling era. In today’s entertainment industry, there are a lot more things for us to get pre occupied and is constant barrage of information we are being fed to. Stories can be in different shapes and form, whether it is in a book, or perhaps a video game, explained by Gottshall. The future of story is very much unknown, but eventually we would be able to tell our stories in a different form. We would become more intuitive with how we make our stories, and as humans progress/evolve, maybe one day these stories can be passed through the next generation of life forms. I would like to experience these stories in a virtual world where it recreates the scenario of the person. It would be better if you can see firsthand what the person experienced, because not everyone is a great story teller.
In this chapter, Gottschall spoke about story and how it will change and adapt as time goes on. Story will always be a part of human nature that will never change. However, our methods of storytelling will constantly change. Whether that change is drawing, books, YouTube, or other things, it will remain to be a part of humans. Gaming in itself is a part of story. It is a way of “role-playing” in what I would guess is having to relate to the main character or imagining yourself in the characters footsteps. Technology is just a way for stories to spread faster. Take Creepypastas for example. If you google it, I’m sure many results will pop up. As time goes on our method of storytelling will differ, but the stories and storytelling itself will remain the same.