Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Once upon a time when my child and her friends were five,

they said we're going to put on a play.

And we're selling tickets.

They're $0.25 each.

Of course, we had to buy some.

Of course, we had to buy some.

We sat down to watch the play.

The play was about breakfast.

And it consisted of would you like some orange juice.

Yes, thank you.

Good.

Here is your orange juice.

I am having cereal.

Would you like some cereal?

Yes.

Would you like some milk for your cereal.

Yes, I will have milk on my cereal.

This went on for a while.

And finally, we said is anything else going to happen.

And they said no.

And they said no.

And we said, in that case, we're leaving,

and we'll come back when something else is

going to happen.

The story needs to have events, and it

needs to have characters.

And any story, even the most elementary stories,

which are things like "Aesop's Fables" or jokes.

They have characters, and they have events.

A story needs a break in a pattern to get it going.

A story needs a break in a pattern to get it going.

And breaking the pattern can be, one day,

Mabis, who was an avid gardener, went out

to her rose patch and found a severed hand.

If everything is perfect all the time, there isn't a story.

Life is just wonderful everyday.

And so it doesn't become a story until somebody kidnaps

Rover the dog.

So an event of some kind interrupts the pattern.

So an event of some kind interrupts the pattern.

And with that interruption, the story is kicked off.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A good plot has to have something happening

in it that is of interest to the reader,

and we hope to the characters.

Or maybe I'll put that the other way around.

That is of interest to the characters,

and we hope to the reader.

Something has to happen.

And that something can be any number of somethings.

And that something can be any number of somethings.

So John and Mary are living happily

in their split-level with two cars.

And then, one day, a strange green light is seen in the sky,

and a canister descends to earth right behind their house.

And out of it comes a tentacled monster.

So that's one kind of story.

Threat from without.

John and Mary are living in their split-level bungalow,

John and Mary are living in their split-level bungalow,

but then Mary discovers that John is cheating on her.

That's another kind of story--

threat from within.

Combine those.

John and Mary are living in their split-level bungalow.

Then, John discovers that Mary is mysteriously absent

during parts of the night and has developed an alarming

tendency to sleep in the bath tub

with all the curtains drawn.

with all the curtains drawn.

What has happened?

What are those strange white fangs that have appeared?

Could it be that Mary is a vampire.

Yes!

What is John going to do?

And what about the children?

Have they inherited this tendency or not?

That's another kind of story.

So, yes, all of these are events.

So, yes, all of these are events.

They're all blood pressure increasing,

suspense building, plot devices to make

us want to know what is going to happen next.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The building blocks of story in Western civilization

is going to be somewhat different in other cultures,

is going to be somewhat different in other cultures,

but they all have their own set of building blocks.

That's the toolkit, if you like, the toolkit of stories.

Think of it as a giant LEGO set from which

you can build your own structures because the pieces

fit together.

So for Western culture, it's going

to be Greek and Roman myths.

It's going to be folk tales, for instance, the Grimm's

It's going to be folk tales, for instance, the Grimm's

collections and people who follow on from that

like Andrew Lang's collection of world fairy tales and folk

tales.

And we have recently added in indigenous stories

from North and South America.

And as people move here and there in the world,

African stories have gotten into that mix as well.

So all of these are building blocks of story.

So all of these are building blocks of story.

And the Bible, of course, has some

of the fundamental stories.

I hate to use the word fundamental.

It has some essential stories that people

should know because it's almost impossible to read

English literature written before, say, 1940

without encountering biblical references and modes of thought

without encountering biblical references and modes of thought

that come from that.

If you are interested in writing and in having

a large toolkit of stories, these

are some of the things I suggest you

can look at because those stories have

been building blocks for a great many writers before you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If you're going to pick up one of these pieces of the toolkit,

If you're going to pick up one of these pieces of the toolkit,

I suggest you just read it.

You're not in a university classroom

in which you have to analyze it, study it, come up

with a theory about it, et cetera.

I think for a storyteller, this is the way

these kinds of stories go.

And people make fun of this all the time, of course,

but in order to get the joke, you have to know the original.

but in order to get the joke, you have to know the original.

Cinderella story, for instance, is probably

the oldest extant story that we know about.

It's known in all kinds of cultures.

It has all kinds of variance.

But it always ends with the Cinderella figure coming out

on top.

If you were going to do a satire of it,

Cinderella would remain sweeping up the ashes,

and one of the bad sisters would go off with the prince.

and one of the bad sisters would go off with the prince.

Or in modern day, the prince turns up

and Cinderella basically decides that's not what she wants.

But unless you know the original,

you don't understand why that's an interesting variant.

Let us talk about the film, "Maleficent".

It's the Sleeping Beauty story.

In the standard Sleeping Beauty story,

there's an evil witch who appears

at the time of Sleeping Beauty's birth

at the time of Sleeping Beauty's birth

and predicts that she will prick her finger with a thimble

and then sleep for 100 years.

And then, she can only be awoken by true love's kiss.

In the standard story, the true love's kiss

is this prince who comes along.

What happens in the "Maleficent" film?

The prince comes along, but he's dud.

Nothing happens.

He's too self-centered.

The person who turns out to really love Sleeping Beauty

The person who turns out to really love Sleeping Beauty

is her surrogate mother who turns out

to be the initially evil witch who has had a conversion

experience.

But if you don't know the original, what's happening?

This is weird you will simply say to yourself.

Now there are, of course, some who brilliantly

have played upon that.

One of them being Samuel Beckett.

One of them being Samuel Beckett.

He has a play called "Happy Days"

in which a woman is being increasingly buried by sand.

And in her handbag, there is a gun.

Chekov famously said if you put a gun on the desk

in the first act, it has to go off in the third.

But by the third act, she's so buried in sand,

she can't reach the gun.

Though you keep expecting her to get a hold of it

and shoot herself because things are so awful.

But by the end, it's out of reach.

But by the end, it's out of reach.

So if you didn't know about the Chekov comment,

this would make less sense to you.

So I would just say expand your frame of reference

because it will give you a lot more depth

in your thinking about stories.