The Science of Storytelling, Why We Need Stories, and How to Rewrite Our Own | with Will Storr

About Episode

My guest today is Will Storr, an award-winning writer and author of the book The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better. In our conversation together, Will and I dive deep down the rabbit hole to understand the inner workings of storytelling and discuss why the attraction to stories is a key part in not only our own personal human evolution, but the evolution of our society as a whole.

Will shares many of his unconventional approaches to storytelling (including why he doesn’t believe we need to follow a strict formula). He also shares why he believes character development should come before the plot and how that approach can even be used to help you achieve your own goals. Will and I also talk about why ‘gossip’ is fundamental to us as humans and why it can make even the smartest people believe the craziest things.

As you’ll hear in our conversation, Will and I fully nerd out on the science and psychology of storytelling. Not only will you understand as a creative how to better write your own stories, but you’ll learn how to apply Will’s unconventional approaches to rewrite the story of your own life. Whether or not you’re working in a creative industry, I know you’ll find this conversation as helpful and entertaining as I did.

Transcript

Zack Arnold: I am here today with Will Storr who is an award winning writer and author, your journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New Yorker, The New York Times, just to name a few. You've been a ghost writer for books that have sold more than 2 million copies. You're also the author of six critically acclaimed books, including The Sunday Times bestseller, The Science of Storytelling, which, frankly, is what we're mostly going to be discussing in depth today. And Will given you're on the other side of the pond, tremendously grateful for the fact that you're taking time on what would be your Friday evening to talk-shop and talk storytelling with me and my audience. So thank you so much.

Will Storr: No, thank you, Zack, it's great to be here, looking forward to diving into it.

Zack Arnold: So the interesting thing about this conversation is that you're actually here right now, because of Amazon's algorithm. I was doing a deep dive into some other authors that I was really interested in reading their work. And of course, the deeper we get into AI, the more it knows us better than ourselves. And all of a sudden recommended reading, I see this book called Science of Storytelling. How have I never heard of this? What is it? This is perfect, because I just finished an interview with Christopher Vogler who is the writer of The Writer's Journey, which we're going to be talking a lot about today, because I've also been diving into the mythology of Joseph Campbell. So it makes logical sense that you would then come up in the Amazon algorithm. But here's the first piece that stuck with me almost immediately. And this is where I want to start the science of storytelling, that's a word that I think could potentially trigger a lot of the people that listen to this that are in my audience, they're like, Excuse me, story is not a science. Storytelling is an art form. We are creatives, we are artists, it is creative expression. So let's just get started with why do you call your book the science of storytelling?

Will Storr: Yeah, well, I mean, it implies that I'm suggesting there's like an algorithm is a formula for storytelling, that's not what I'm doing, isn't it like a scientific and A, B, and C, and you get our best seller? You know, I believe that science is, you know, has has over the last sort of 10, 20 years, especially become the really the best lens through which to kind of address the puzzle of storytelling. Because, you know, this is a huge amount of evidence, which is now available that the human brain is the original storyteller, and the greatest storyteller. I mean, that's what the human brain is, the human brain takes all the confusing and chaotic inputs of reality, and turns it into a story. And the story is you is you, you know, puts you in the middle of the world, and sets you on these great goals and the goals or the goals of your life or your plots. And you go up and down and you learn things. And the reason that we tell stories in the way that we do in the form of movies, or plays, or whatever the form might be, is because we're mimicking the way the brain remixes reality. So So yeah, so you know, I think that I think it's a perfectly legitimate and actually, I would argue the best sort of lens through which to address the puzzle of storytelling.

Zack Arnold: And that's one of the things that really gravitated this book to me other than, of course, the Amazon algorithm is that I too, have been fascinated for years with applying science and psychology and human behavior to the creative process. I've spent years learning specifically about the athletes mindset and goal setting and how you can apply that to the creative mindset. And the intersection of those two is fascinating. So I'm glad that you brought up this idea that it's not about, well, here's a formula, I now have the science of a great story, because that's funny, I almost think that that's the direction that some of the reworkings of Joseph Campbell, and the hero's journey is like, Oh, you're just you have these beats, and every story is going to hit these beats. And it's going to be a fantastic story. And instead, you're saying, let's understand the neurology, the neuroscience of the human brain and how we tell stories, and how that can apply. If we're a writer to tell fictional stories which we have writers that are listening and storytellers that do that as a craft and as a living that are listening today. But I'm so much more interested in the bigger picture of how am I the writer of my story and how all of this psychology intersects. But where I do want to start, just so we kind of have a general foundation of language between science and art. formula and otherwise, is that we have the story structure of the hero's journey from Joseph Campbell. And for anybody that wants to learn more about that I talked to Chris Vogler about his book, The writers journey, which is the contemporary Hollywood version of this, but then we have Aristotle, but then we have people like Christopher Booker, and then we have people like you, and everybody's got all these different story structures. Yeah, so let's just start with a foundational vocabulary of what you mean by the formula or the act structure of a basic story and how you approach it.

Will Storr: Okay, so, yeah, I mean, you know, as you say, I mean, since the days of Aristotle, people were looking for the kind of the secret of storytelling. And when you read these books, what you'll tend to find is that somebody comes along and says, I found that I found the answer. And so there are various answers to that, to that to that question, you know, surely the most influential, as you say, is Joseph Campbell, especially Campbell, translated very helpfully by Vogler because Campbell to read raw is pretty, pretty awkward.

Zack Arnold: It's a challenge, it is not an easy read.

Will Storr: Vogler did a wonderful job of of making it, you know, accessible and actually readable. It's a well written book. And then, you know, more recently, John York's into the woods, he's very influential, influential over here in the UK. And then Christopher Booker, of course, submitted plots, and what they tend to do is have this, this, you must do this kind of formula. So, you know, I don't think there is a must do this kind of formula, I, you know, all of those kinds of solutions to storytelling, tend to be kind of roughly similar, they have differences, but they're roughly similar. And when I think those structures are really the equivalent of a three and a half minute pop song, you know, they're like pop music has, you know, kind of evolved over the years to have this kind of ideal of what's the stickiest, most infectious, most popularly satisfying version of a pop song. And that will have certain qualities like it'll be roughly two and a half minutes long. And it'll have, I don't know, verse, verse, chorus, verse, or whatever, whatever that thing might be. And so to say, you have to have these qualities, you have to follow the 22 steps of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey, or you have to have 5x, with the midpoint or whatever it is, or you haven't got a story is to say that the only the only true song is a Ariana Grande song, and there's no other kinds of songs, it is kind of ridiculous, really. So you know, in my book, I do I do present a version, what I think is a successful version of this is kind of five act structure. But as I say, in the book, this is completely voluntary thing, and it's certainly not compulsory. And it's certainly not true that if you don't follow these rules, then you weren't, then you're gonna miss this, this whole story is just that, you know, this is the pattern that that you know, from, including Shakespeare, that most of the most successful, most satisfying stories kind of actually have.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, so again, I just I wanted to make sure to make it very clear that you and I are both on the same page, there isn't a formula. This is a science, it's more about understanding the science and this title would be way worse than yours, but understanding the science of human behavior and character development and our need for achieving goals and that being part of our plotline so we can tell stories, that's a really shitty version of the title, but it's a to me a better understanding of what you mean by the science of it.

Will Storr: Absolutely Zack Yeah, like, but also the the evolutionary history of storytelling. You know, like evolutionary psychologists have done some incredible work, looking at why we tell stories in the first place. And once you figure that out, that of course is massively helpful to your to your storytelling, you know, when you when you figure out, you know, why, why we evolved the storytelling brains? Why why humans are so so addicted to story why story surrounds us? So finding out this stuff, of course, is gold, I think if you're if you're a storyteller,

Zack Arnold: yeah. And that's one of the big questions that I've had for years and years and years is not just how can I be a good storyteller? But I always ask the bigger question, why? Why do I care about telling stories? Why is it so important to me, because in a creative field, and we're going to talk more about goal attainment later, and fulfillment and stories and whatnot. But it's really important to me as a creative to make sure that I am connected to the stories that I'm telling where I can do the same job with the same tools and the same hours and the same pay. One is a dream job one is a nightmare. And it's all about the quality of the story that I want to tell. And I've learned that it's just ubiquitous amongst all creatives in the form of expression, whether it's music or painting, or whatever, they're all versions of stories. So I want to get to the big question and just dig right in. Why? Why are stories so important to us as human beings?

Will Storr: Well, story stories are how we navigate reality stories. Stories are how we understand ourselves and how to survive in the world. In you know, all living things as we know thanks to you As Darwin want to survive and reproduce, that's the basic, you know, urge that kind of drives all living things. And of course, humans are no exception. But all living beings have different different strategies, different ways that they survive and reproduce, obviously, our ways from from a worms ways or fishes ways or trees ways. And, you know, the human way of survival and reproduction is very much group focused. We have, we're a species of ape, you know, we're not like an ape or evolved from an ape like creature. We are an ape. But we're obviously a very strange ape, not like the other apes, we've got language. And so you know, we evolve language, to help us form successful highly cooperative groups. And that's why we're so successful compared to other animals, because we've worked out to coordinate and divide and divide labor, you know, to exist in these kind of two spheres at once we exist as individuals, but we also exist as members of tribes. And so you need language to make that work properly. You know, you need language to tell stories about how to do that. And so, you know, the current kind of consensus in academia is that we evolved language in order to gossip. And you know, and we think of gossip as being kind of like, tabloid, talking about Meghan Markel, or whoever, you know, but gossip is, is fundamental to the human condition gossip is that you know, that the early if you want to trace story back to his absolute DNA, you'll find gossip. And gossip is a way of keeping groups working together. Because when you gossip about people, you're figuring out who are they? Is this a good person? Is it a bad person, and if he's a good person, we'll treat them as a hero in the group. If it's a bad person, we'll punish them. And that's how you police the trial. That's it. That's how you keep everybody working together. Because nobody wants to be the villain in the gossip, if it wants to be the good guy, or the good girl. So it's so you orient yourself towards being a hero, or villain. And so that's how, you know, for millions of years, our tribes police themselves without a police force without a legal system without prisons, were sort of gossip and we treated people well, or harshly depending on how they manifested in the general gossip of the tribe. So you know, additionally, to that, you know, people who study gossip, say that there are kind of basic two to two functions of it. The first one is reputational, which is opposite of what I've just been talking about, we figure out who's good, who's bad. And we treat them as heroes or villains. You know, according to that, but the other way that there's the form of gossip called strategy, learning, gossip, is everything about gossip, you're telling tales about this person, something really bad happened to this person? Or something really good happened to this person. And the next question is all out, you know, so you know, what did they do to make that happen? So that's it. So in that way, we're kind of working out how the world in our in our tribe works, who are who have I got to be in order to get what I want out of the world? And who and you know, what do I have to do? You know, what's my strategies for survival? So is it so you know, that's, that's really why I think a lot of us are riveted to stories, like if you if you if you show somebody that that basic story pattern of a person pursuing a goal, and meeting an obstacle, and trying to figure out how to get around that obstacle in order to achieve their goal, we're immediately interested, like, James Bond, for example, is an example where millions of people around the world just riveted by how is James Bond gonna get this crazy, you know, situation, even though they're never going to meet the obstacles that James Bond needs are never going to be like, dangling over a pit of sharks or whatever, or chased by a, you know, Soviet gunman or whatever. But still, we can't help it. Our brains are programmed to be interested in that simple pattern that pursued the meeting of obstacles in the way of goals. So it's so you know, that's why we are addicted to stories. You know, partly, it's partly because we're interested in that always interested in the moral nature of other people, because that's what we've evolved to be interested in to keep our tribes functional. And also to figure out how the world works to figure out how do we get what we want and overcome obstacles.

Zack Arnold: It's fascinating because it just helped me clarify in about three sentences why I'm obsessed with being a podcaster. Because this is essentially you and I gossiping and me better understanding your vision of the world and your vision of reality and how you were able to accomplish the things that you did and better understand how others did. So I can accomplish similar goals, which is just I didn't even realize it's like evolutionarily hardwired. And what I'm doing as a podcaster with a microphone via remote connection via Zoom is just the 21st century version of what we've literally been doing for hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of years. So that in and of itself is fascinating. The parts that I want to go into next is talking about this idea of understanding Who's the hero and who's the villain? Because that can be very similar. It can be very complicated because how we define a hero versus villain is subjective, which is part of the fascinating process that you went through to come up with the idea for this book, you are studying the question, how is it that intelligent people believe crazy things, which is a larger portion of your work? So talk a little bit more about your understanding of the subjectivity of good versus evil? And how people will just believe the craziest things and how that led to you deciding you wanted to go down the path to write this book?

Will Storr: Yeah, so that was the question that I pursued in a book that was called to heretics in the UK and Australia, America. So it's called the unpersuaded balls. And so yeah, that was looking at, as you say, how is it that smart people end up being crazy things? And the answer that I came to there was the minister came across all this science about the storytelling brains. And that is, as Jonathan Hite, the psychologist says, the brain is not a logic processor. It's a story processor. So we're not programmed to figure out what's true in the world. That's not what the brain is specialized for, that the brain is specialized it for. You know, I call it a hero maker, who do I have to be in order to be to seem heroic in front of my tribe. And so that, and that's that, generally speaking, that's, that's who we become. So it's so so we don't really believe what's true, we're much more likely to believe what we what we feel we're supposed to be, but what we're supposed to believe in the context of our tribe, you know, like, it's quite difficult for us Westerners to sometimes to see the tribe, because in the West, we're very individualist, and we're very me focused compared to people around the world. But you know, it's still true that, of course, very tribal, most obviously, in the shape of politics, you know, left and right, Republican, Democrat, you know, Tory, labour, whatever it might be. But but most of us are, you know, members of multiple tribes. We might be the music tribe, or, you know, the company we work for will be a tribe, the hobby group that we're a member of will be a tribe. So, you know, we have all these kind of multiple identities. And you know, that, generally speaking to tribes, it takes what we believe not the truth. So that's how really smart people can end up believing crazy things, because they have these human brains that aren't interested in truth. They're interested in their own personal state of heroism.

Zack Arnold: So this could become a much larger question. And I want to keep it contained, because I realized we could talk about this for hours and hours. But I want to go one layer deeper with specifics, which what I think can be a very triggering question. But at the same time, I think that if we're looking at it from an academic standpoint, is really interesting. And understanding how our brains are wired. And this is something I know that you've researched. How is it that people with all the information that we have the legitimate evidence that's in front of us, really, and truly believe that the holocaust didn't happen?

Will Storr: Well, as I say, like, you know, we believe we tend to believe the things that make us feel good. We tend to believe the things that make us feel heroic. And so it's part of my research into for the heretics or the unpersuaded walls. I spent some time undercover with some Neo Nazis. And they're not like, like internet, now. They're real Neo Nazis with Nazi tattoos and things. They're the real deal. And so yeah, I went to, I went to this kind of holiday that they had, where there was this kind of tour of World War Two kind of Holocaust related sites. And never there was a kind of revisionist historian there, who was he's very well known in the UK, you know, undeniably smart individual, but it's gotten in this weird path. And now believes that, that that Hitler was a friend of the Jews, and he didn't know the Holocaust was happening, all this all this stuff. So but you know, just as interesting as him of the people that were following him, you know, and I was just trying to figure out how is it that you cannot simply believe that the Holocaust didn't happen, we were literally going through death camps in you know. And so what that found was really interesting, it became apparent that most of the people there most of their all men, most of the men, their, their parents had served in World War Two on the side of the Germans. And on the last night of the trip, there was this showing of the film Downfall and if your viewers and listeners are familiar with the movie, but it's

Zack Arnold: I actually I edited the trailer for Downfall, so I'm very familiar with that. I lived with that movie for months. Yes, talking about small world. But anyway, go ahead.

Will Storr: Yeah, well, you'll know that it's a hyper realistic account. And

Zack Arnold: Basically, you feel like you're watching a documentary, you're thinking to yourself at moments like how did they get cameras down here? Oh, wait, no, this is a movie. It's fascinating. It's such a fascinating film.

Will Storr: It's incredible. Yeah, it really is. I mean, it's probably I mean, it's by far and away my favorite Warfarin because it because you really feel like you're there, you know, like, but anyway, it's the last six days, I think or maybe seven is life in the bunker. So you know, they're gonna show the film and then do they talk about how what was wrong with it. But one of the guys who was on holiday, didn't want to go to see the film. And the reason we didn't want to get to see the film is because his dad was in there with Hitler. And he would find it too upsetting. So yeah, so So that's, that, to me was a real wow. And so, you know, I felt that I think a lot of those guys, they're listening to the talk and spending the week with them. They, it seemed to me that they love their parents, you know, as we all do, they love their mums. They love their dads, but their mums and dads were Nazis. And so it's they're brought up with this sort of state of intense dissonance. On the one hand, they love their mums and dads and they felt their mums and dads were good people. But on the other hand Nazis a synonym for evil in our generation and for the generation they grew up in. So you know, what, what we do when we're in those intense states of cognitive dissonance is we just decided to believe what makes us feel better. And I think what made these men feel better, was that the Holocaust is a myth. It never happened. They couldn't allow themselves to believe that their parents had participated in such a monstrous act. So so that was where I ended up. i Yeah, I mean, obviously, I don't know for sure. Nobody can sort of literally open their brains up and figure out the cause of their beliefs. But I felt like that was a, you know, like, when you understand the science of belief, it felt like a credible answer, because the other thing about these these guys was, was that they weren't like two dimensional Hollywood villains that, you know, when you hang out with them, they're just normal people. And actually, they were they were, they were very kind to me. Even though that I was undercover. They didn't know that I wasn't one of them. But they didn't know I was writing a book. And my sort of what I was trying to do was interview the guy, the historian, David Irving, who was leading the tour. And when I sat down with Irving, for our first interview, he ended up walking off, because I think I made it too obvious how I actually felt about the thing. And he got, again, suspicious. And then so he would give a lecture every evening, and they were all asking these questions to him about his childhood and all this stuff. And then halfway through the week, one of them told me that they'd all got together, and they felt sorry for me, because they come all this way and hadn't got my interview. So they conspire to Article these questions him that would be helpful for my book. And you had this weird moment of fuck that. It's really nice. It's so nice of you, you know, to do that for me? Yeah. So and it's sort of, you know, that's what that's what we do isn't in the world. It's the storytelling brain, again, is that we make monsters of people. And for me, yes, I mean, they believe in things that we that we consider monstrous. But they were otherwise good people that had just made a terrible mistake. That's that that was my takeaway from that trip.

Zack Arnold: Speaking of compelling stories, if we're talking about at the James Bond level, I would easily watch that movie of you going undercover, just this exact process as a film, I would totally watch that, because this is absolutely fascinating. And I can't imagine being in that reality, just like as far as having to be undercover in a situation which could become very dangerous. But I think that what is actually more interesting. And again, I don't, I don't want this to become a political discourse discussion, because that's not my strong suit. Nor is that the direction I want to go. But what we find universally through storytelling, and it's one of the vehicles that movies and film and TV has really done with the centralization of storytelling and the Internet worldwide, is that we realize the more we learn about people that we disagree with, or people we call enemies are villains. We have this realization of we're all way more similar than we are different. And that can be kind of scary.

Will Storr: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree. And if for me, I'd rather read a novel about the guy whose dad was in the bunker and struggled with, you know, the fight between the love of his father and the reputation of the Nazis than it would sound it's kind of two dimensional story about some evil Nazi who goes around punching people because he's evil, you know, the truth. You know, as you say, it's triggering for people. It upsets people. But I think it's more interesting and ultimately, gets us much further than the two dimensional cartoon version of this stuff.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. And the reason I wanted to bring that up is because I think a core power part of what you talk about in your book, not only if you are literally a writer or a storyteller, storyteller for a living, or if this is about better constructing your own story, you have a very key point that I think we need to dig into, which is the compel Link profound original plots emerge from character and complex characters, not just a bullet point list. And we've talked a little bit about complex characters in the real world, how we can tell their stories to understand the complexities of good versus evil. But if we're just kind of getting back to the foundation of, I want to tell a good story, whether I'm literally sitting down to write a script, or it's about me telling my story, a lot of people argue you need to have a really good plot, you got to focus on story, and then the character comes later. And you will say, character must come first. So how do we build a character, whether fictional or we're building our own character?

Will Storr: Well, yeah, so the reason I say character has to come first. I mean, I'm going against Aristotle here, so so I've got some formidable enemies he was, he argued the plot should come first. But if you look at the evolutionary history, it's all about character, because because what gossip is asking, Is that fundamental question of who is this person? You know, who is this person? Are they good? Or are they bad? And if you think about the, the most iconic, memorable stories that they tend to revolve around fantastic characters, like Scrooge or David Brent or James Bond, or, you know, like, you know, is it like Joker was, was a film recent film that was just just brilliantly done in terms of characterization. So it's so you know, and the, the secondary reason why I think character is, is the most important is because, like, you can't figure out what your plot is, until you understand your character. And so, the way to understand that is to think about how we are as real people in real life, non fictional characters, you know, the goals of our lives, which are the plots of our lives, the mistakes that we make, the obstacles that we pursue, are all a function of our character, they're all a function of who we are. So, you know, our stories emerge out of our character. And so that's how it is in real life. And I really think that's how it should be in story too. And, you know, the plot in really good stories, and really compelling stories, is specifically designed to challenge the character in a very kind of specific way. You know, the way writing the book is, the plot is there to plot against the character. So if you think about like a classic film like Godfather, the Godfather, you know, it centers around the Al Pacino character, is it Michael? Who, you know, we meet him at the beginning. And he says, and they're at the wedding. And his fiance is realizing, Oh, my God, there's all gangsters at this wedding, what's going on? And he says to her, don't worry about that. That's them. That's not me. And that's what the film is about. That's not them. That's not me. And then because the prices start, at this point, we're just finding out who this dude is, and what his what his thing is, and then the plot begins is an attempt on his father's life. So then he has to choose. Is it me? Like, am I going to just back away and let this happen? Or are I going to allow my family to be brutalized in this way? So everything in that story, everything that happens in that story is testing that one core idea of that comes out of Michael Corleone, his character, which is, Are you a gangster? Or are you just an ordinary guy like you say you are? And of course, we know the answer is no, you just use a gangster. But the entire plot revolves around that. So So that's, that's an example of, you know, a really brilliant new story that is absolutely expertly told, because the plot is not just, he's not just put together what's, what's the most exciting thing that could happen at this moment, I know, an asteroid comes down a dinosaur walks in, or whatever it is, it's all there specifically, to test that one idea about his character. And, you know, I've got lots of examples in the book. But you know, so many of our great stories, take that form. And that's what I think things like the Joseph Campbell, model, miss, they miss the purpose of story, the purpose of story, ultimately, this gossip, is to find out who this person is, are they a good person? Or are they a bad person? And so the, the plot is there to do that.

Zack Arnold: Right. In the deeper version of that is not just who is this person on the screen or on the page? It's who am I? Yeah, and if we, if we go back to this Godfather example, for a second, because I love this. If you're a writer, whether it's fiction, whether you're telling your own story, you think to yourself, if I change one line of dialogue, what effect does it have down the line? Imagine we're in the wedding scene. And she says, these are all gangsters. He's like, Yeah, as an A Great, I'll be taking over the family eventually. You can attention out of three movies like that dialogue, because then there's no more tension.

Will Storr: That's the I mean, that's I had never, I've never thought about that. It's a musical way of thinking about it. Because Because as soon as you say that this You're right. You just deflate you start Oh, there's no story then there's that the story vanishes. You know, it's not interesting anymore. You know, you know, yeah, all the tension is gone. Because there's the plasma that doesn't have any work to do because he's already decided he's gangster. So yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting way of looking at it. I mean, the other classic movie that I think is also interesting is jaws. Because Because people miss this thing in Jaws, they could because it's quite subtle. But it's but it's definitely there. The whole film revolves around essential idea of character. In I think Jaws is a film about shark, but it's not. It's a film about a man who's scared of the water. And it's Martin Brody, who's we meet Martin Brody at the beginning. He's the police chief. And his job is to protect you know, the safety of this beachside community. But he's terrified at the water like he's so phobic of the water that when he gets the car ferry over to the to the town, he stays in the car, you know, so so, you know, the whole film revolves around this guy's fear of the water being tested. And you know, it's very telling is always very telling what's the final beat of the movie before the credits roll. Because the final beat the movie will tell you what that movie has been about. Because if it works, because you'll have this emotionally satisfying feeling of completion, for a subconscious thing. In the Godfather, the final beat of the movie for the creditor of the very final thing you see is all the elder gangsters gathering in a in a sit in a room with Michael Corleone kissing his ring and crowning him godfather. So that's what the movie has been about, right? But the vital scene, JAWS is not the shark blowing up, everybody remembers is Brody swing back to sea and saying, I used to be scared of the water. I can't imagine why. That's what the movie has been about. So even even a big broad best, you know, show that Jaws is actually is structured around character, and its character that's driving the plot is this guy wrestling with his terrible fear of the water?

Zack Arnold: Yeah, the reason that I want to dig even deeper into this is, first of all this idea if you are a writer or a storyteller, and understanding the connection between what is that core idea or belief about this person, that either they're trying to change consciously, or they're trying to prevent changing, and connecting that one moment, or dialogue or scene to the final image. That's a huge revelation that I wasn't even aware of that I loved. But I want to extrapolate it even deeper to the world of my own story, and I am the character versus the plot. And to me, the analogy is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it would be Well, for me, my life is plot driven. And it's all about the goals that I choose, versus it's about the identity that I want to assume. And let me give you a very, very simple example that most people can relate to, well, I'm going to set the goal of I want to lose weight. Well, for most people, that's not very successful. But what if instead, the goal was I want to see myself as a healthier person, they're actually very similar goals. One is character based one is plot based, but it completely changes the way you approach the story, and the plot points. And for me, in order to have a compelling and fulfilling story and be the character or something in a story that I want to actually do, I have to ask myself the question, not how do I avoid problems or challenges in my life? It's what obstacles do I want in my life? What problems do I want to create that are fun to solve? And it's not about here's just the plot points and the objective, it's what identity do I want to assume throughout this process? Is that a fairly accurate representation of character and plot and movies versus in life?

Will Storr: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that Yeah, that's correct. So so so it's very much about don't focus on the Yeah, on the prize at the end, you focus on who do you want to be who you want to become. And then when you focus on who do you want to become, as you say, the obstacles become fun and challenging and a test of who you want to become rather than, you know, when you when you focus on I want to lose weight, you're focusing on the obstacle rather than the kind of ultimate goal. And the ultimate goal of any story like subconsciously is becoming, you know, a better person in your tribe. You know, like I always do at Star Wars. We meet Luke Skywalker being in Star Wars, he's, he's just this dude who works in a moisture farm and his nickname when he was a kid was wormy. And then by the end of Star Wars, he's being paraded down this great hall with a big gold medal around his neck. But you know, that that's, that's a model for life. That's what we all want. And I think, as you say, focusing on the, on the who I want to become, rather than on the obstacle, yeah, is a really good principle.

Zack Arnold: So here's where this gets really interesting is that we're talking about formulas, and how we really want to focus more on character driving plot and plot not determining character, and the hero's journey, there is no more quintessential example used across time and literature of the modern hero's journey than Star Wars. Yeah. So now we're talking about a formula that works but from both directions, right? It's not just they hit all the plot points and we have the call to adventure and you know, the meeting with the mentor like all these these steps, that works, but it also works from your perspective. have character and not plot?

Will Storr: Yeah it works. That's the thing about Campbell is that obviously it can work. There's like there's loads of movies that follow that. I mean, I think I think I'm right in thinking the Godfather also follows that, that that thing, but there's loads that don't is low there, you know, the IMDB is littered with, you know, four star reviews of movies, or TV shows that have followed the 22 point plot to the letter and it's dead and flat. And but but I think that's because whether by instinct or genius, Starwars these first three movies anyway, hey, and you know, the Godfather, they had all that character change stuff going on it as well, like they like they understood. The whole point of the plot is to is to transform a character. So you say so, you know, my five story beats in the book are, this is me, and it's not working is that one act two is is is there another way they start experimenting with becoming a new, you know, perform person that kind of works against their, you know, wrong belief or flawed idea about the world, middle of the movie is this big transformation. Act Four is when when the chickens come home to roost, you're really testing this idea that you're testing this idea of, do you, you know, have you really got the courage and the backbone to stand the pain that change is going to make and then act five is the final test in front of kind of transformation. So you know, for me, that's a much simpler way of understanding that classic five act thing that so many people have talked about over the years. And but what's what I think works about that, is that it that it's kind of a it's a character first kind of version. And if you look at the Godfather, for example, or Jaws, that it follows it perfectly even down to the very middle of those movies are these moments of, you know, transformation, like in the beginning, like the beginning of Godfather, he says, a gangster, at the very middle is when he kills a cop, and he kills the gangster. So he's become one, you know, yeah. And the middle of Jaws is when he goes out into the ocean, and he becomes this person that is not afraid of the water anymore. So So yeah, I you know, I think that when, when those movies followed, you know, roughly that pattern, those are the ones that tend to work.

Zack Arnold: What's really interesting about having discovered this one I did, which is now making this Amazon algorithm, downright creepy to me, is that when I was going through both Joseph Campbell's work, which as we discussed, very dense and very difficult to get through, and for anybody that wants to get through it without having to read all the words, he did an interview with Bill Moyer on PBS. I gotta admit, I mostly cheated. And I watched that because the book was very heavy for me, then Christopher Vogler, simplified it for the world of Hollywood and entertainment. But I kept looking at this thinking, there has to be a simpler way to explain this. There's Aristotle's three acts. And I said to myself, What if I were to really break this down into five acts? How would I do it being there's your book, I'm like, You gotta be kidding me. And it didn't say that you broke it down into 5x. But all of a sudden, we get to, I think it was part four, I don't remember where it wasn't like, oh, it's to find that structure that I've been looking for. I don't know what it was about the number five that stuck in my head. But I felt like stories are complex enough that the Aristotle beginning middle end, it's really hard to use that in a practical sense. But so it's 12 steps is hard to have. And when I thought to myself, five seems like a good number stumbled upon your book, I'm like, Well, clearly, this is a conversation we need to have. And there was one key word that I think is so important to dig into next, specifically, for those that are storytellers, for a living, especially editors, it's very important for writers, but for those that edit like I do, the word is change. And it's understanding how important changes in storytelling and guiding somebody's attention. And using changes in story, whether it's a change in music, or a change in sound effects, or a change from wide shot to close up. So I really want to talk more not just about change in the storytelling process, but understanding how our brains perceive reality, or their inability to perceive reality, and how that translates to storytelling and the importance of change.

Will Storr: Yeah, well, I mean, change is obviously critical storytelling in the book, I say, you know, good story is a symphony of change when there's constant changes happening to keep our attention. You know, one neuroscientist, Professor Sophie Scott, who's sort of very well known neuroscientists here in the UK, she told me that, you know, brains just don't work unless there are changes to detect. Basically, the brain is a prediction machine is predicting what's going to happen next, and it's and what it thinks is going to happen next, it puts in front of you. So it actually makes you see what's gonna happen next. But this this thing we have on the front of our brain, the face is basically a machine for detecting change, you know, when we detect any kind of check, there's barely a millimeter on, it isn't dedicated somehow to the detection of change. So, you know, temperature, something moves, we're not expecting, we hear something we're not expecting, you know, when that happens, and we think it's relevant to us, you know, we move this change protective machine off in the direction of the change to ask the question, What just happened, and what's gonna, you know, and what's gonna happen next. So that's, that's kind of how it works. And of course, that's how this story should work. There should be consult continual changes to keep people engaged. Otherwise, they're just going to get bored. You know, if you imagine a story where the character is pretty much the same person in the beginning versus the end, and nothing has changed in between those two points, that's going to be a pretty boring, pretty boring story.

Zack Arnold: And I think that the, the arguments, and I agree with that, but an argument that I know that even Christopher Vogler makes that sometimes there are characters that don't change at all throughout the story, but they're the instrument of the change in others. So there's still some form of change. And that's what we're compelled to compete watching to continue watching and learn and see that change.

Will Storr: Yeah, so in in an archetypal story the central character is doing is changing, but the characters around that doesn't necessarily have to change, but they're there to facilitate the change, test them to throw obstacles or to teach them things. The other example, of course, is sitcoms and soap operas. So in sitcoms and soap operas, characters don't change very much. Your sitcoms, especially like you think about John Cleese, in Fawlty Towers, he never changes. David Brent, in the office in the in the UK, one at least didn't change until the very last show, when he did change, and that's what signals that the program has over the finally change and learns. But I think a lot of the comedy comes from the fact that these characters don't change. You know, they act in these predictable ways. And it's very funny, but we also will, you're still seeing in sitcom and in soap opera, our you know, characters pursuing goals very, very well, specifically drawn characters, pursuing goals and negotiating obstacles. In episodic shows the obstacle is the whole point, you know, every show every episode of Dallas, where everybody's out of the office or Fawlty Towers, or whatever it might be, there's, you know, an obstacle arrives in the world. And that's it. And then the show describes the characters dealing with that obstacle. And the other kind of telling quality of soap operas and sitcoms is they just don't end, they go on and on and on. They're designed to go on and on and on. And they don't end because the characters don't change. And that's not all we see in novels, of course, or films is that is that what we're looking for, specifically in those in those stories is a satisfying ending. And the satisfying ending comes when the character finally has learned, or has failed to learn and dies, and gets, you know, kicked out to convince whoever whoever it might be.

Zack Arnold: And what's fascinating about this idea of change to me, and this, we're gonna get existential, real fast, we're gonna go beyond story structures, and how can I be a better sitcom writer, to, you know, the perception of reality. But this idea, and I'm going to quote, some of the information and you know, might be generalized or whatever. But essentially, we're getting millions of pieces of information, every single moment of our lives. And according to the stats, we're maybe aware of, like, 40, out of those 11 million pieces of information. So I did the math, and I'm not so good at math. But that is for millions of 1% of our actual actual world that we consciously experience, which then begs the question, What the hell is reality if our brain is choosing 40, out of 11 million things any given moment, because that that is going to change the story that we are telling and that we're experiencing?

Will Storr: Yeah, of course. And that's, you know, that's kind of what we're talking about into like the storytelling brain, what you're experiencing is a story. And stories are always massive simplifications of reality. They really are, you know, one of the studies that looks at that kind of shows that effect, which is, which I think is really good is that they call it the cocktail party effect is that that idea that when you're in a busy room full of people, you're just talking to somebody and having a conversation, you'll focus on the conversation. And then suddenly, somewhere over in the distance, you've heard you hear someone, say your name, and you look, you look over. So what that shows is that the brain is monitoring every single one of those conversations. But until someone says your name is entirely becomes irrelevant to your story, it just keeps them out of your consciousness. And then as soon as somebody says your name it pops it in. It puts it it's like an editor it throws it into your, to your story. So So yeah, it's kind of creepy. When you think when you think about all that all the things that we are, you know, not conscious of, there's another very famous study in psychology, the The lots of people know about the look at these images, the Invisible Gorilla effect, where you show people a video of basketball players throwing a basketball around and your goal, your goal is to count how many times it's thrown, I think that's what it is, then people are watching this video. And most people watch the video, don't notice that it right in the middle of a video, somebody in a gorilla outfit, walks onto the court, beats his chest like that, and then walks off again, they don't see it. Because that because the brain is gonna put one particular goal in mind, which is to count the balls, it's focused on it. So it just edits that it's not relevant to your task. So it edits that out of consciousness. So it's quite extraordinary when you sort of drill down into the science of this stuff,

Zack Arnold: Which again, can get very, very existential, because we can ask the question, well, how much actual control do we have over our reality versus his lack of control, and we're creating a sense of control, because if we had any perception of the total complete lack of control we have, we would literally fall apart and become basket cases and say, What is the point of doing anything. And a lot of that, again, is based on we're making this choice, whether consciously or more likely, subconsciously, here are the 40 things I'm going to pay attention to at any given moment. And I don't see the giant gorilla in the middle of the floor pounding his chest, right, which, again, becomes very existential. And the reason that I bring that up, is I don't know whether or not I have any control over anything whatsoever, I perceive that I do. And I try to make sure that the majority of the actions that I take in my life are directed towards things that I feel I have control over. I don't know if I do or not, but I feel that I do and I have the perception of there are things in life that I can't control and things that I can't control, I have a very limited amount of time and energy in my life, why would I focus on the things that I know for a fact I can't control, I can least trick myself into believing that maybe I can control these things. So that's where my time is gonna go. But from what we've learned through the neuroscience, and I'm sure you can talk about this even more, is that by consciously choosing certain kinds of things for us to focus on in an exam, the example that came into my mind would be a gratitude practice. Oh, it sounds all airy, Fairy and woowoo. And yeah, gratitude practice, but from the the lens that we're talking about this through, we're choosing the very specific things that we want to focus on and be grateful for them, which then neurologically can increase our happiness and fulfillment factors. So it kind of factors into this conversation of having at least a perception of control of our reality.

Will Storr: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I agree, you know, gratitude is kind of does feel a bit there. But the science is sound on it, you know, gratitude practice, make people happier, you know, so, so yeah, and I think you're right, I think I think a lot of that is, you know, we're choosing, we're choosing what signals to input into our, into our, into our brain, and we're choosing what part of our world to kind of focus the attention on. And it's very easy. I mean, you know, we have a negativity bias, generally, we're much more, the brain naturally focuses much more on the negative, because that's sensible for our survival. You know, like, we need to fix fixate on the things that are going wrong, because we might have to deal with the obstacles, you know, we have to deal with those obstacles. So actually wrenching our attention away from all that doom and gloom and potentially, I mean, we, I mean, you all know that 90% of the things we worry about never happened. I mean, you know, it's so it's such a truism, it's banal, but we can't stop it. And and it's kind of makes us miserable. But the brain is, in particular, interested in our happiness, the brain's interested in keeping us alive and surviving, so focuses on those obstacles. So that's why I think gratitude practice, you know, does appear to be so powerful, because he kind of breaks that he breaks that pattern.

Zack Arnold: Exactly. And like I said, I can't answer the question whether or not I actually have any control over my reality. But for now, I'm going to go with the choice of I perceive that I do. And I want to focus on asking questions or going in a direction that are going to tell the story that I want to tell instead of focusing on all the things that are negative, and it's so easy to get wrapped up in that and the reason I bring all this up, is there's a core fundamental concept that I've been talking about for decades, I didn't come up with it that this is years and years or decades old, specifically in the world of learning filmmaking and learning, editing. And I was fascinated that you talked about the exact same thing in the larger context of both storytelling, and just our perception of reality. So I'm going to give a little bit more context to this, which is that I have taught film editing and filmmaking at USC and their filmmaking program. I've just kind of done it independently, but that's always teaching to people that kind of know the craft. What I find really interesting is when you have somebody like my father in law, that's a lawyer and asks, So explain to me what you do. Right? I can't actually explain the nuances of what I do, because most people In the industry don't understand what editors do. But there's a term that I use to get it to click for anybody in about two minutes. It's the coolish off effect. This, to me is the foundation of all filmmaking and editing. And I would love to geek out on better understanding of the Kuleshav effect was somebody who brought it up in a totally different context, because I love talking about this.

Will Storr: So this is, I think the Court I think the context I wrote about the Kuleshav effect in the book is about cause and effect about how the brain understands, you know, what just one of the many components of the storytelling brain is that we understand the world has a series of causes, and effects. So they've done these really sort of interesting studies comparing the behavior of infant children to chimpanzees, who obviously are one of our closest relatives, evolutionarily speaking, and they give the babies and the chimps his game to play, which is stacking these wooden blocks, if they stack their wooden boxes, they get a little tree, but one of these blocks has got a lead weight hidden in it, that makes it fall over all the time. And what they find is that the chimp just keeps relentlessly trying to make the block stand up over and over again. But the infant children, and these are pre verbal children, then, you know, they're very young, they start picking the block up. And they start examining it, trying to figure out what's causing this, you know, and what's gonna you know, what's gonna happen next, if I do it, they try. So it's so so this understanding of the world as patterns of causes and effects, is really fundamental to the storytelling brain and all good stories. Really understand causality, they understand that character is on this causal journey of one thing triggers the next thing triggers, the next thing triggers the next thing, this thing happens because of that, because of that, because of that, and not and then, so in badly constructed stories, this thing happens, and then something else happens and something else happens. And we find this really hard to concentrate on because they're not causal. And I was actually reading, there's a story, there's a, I think it's a Pulitzer Prize winning short story writer called George Saunders, who also teaches storytelling and I was reading his book last year. And he says that there are two things that tell him whether he's writers, again, if we're going to get published, the first one is how they feel about being edited and rewriting. But the second one is understanding causality. They understand because obviously, they're going to get published. So you know, it's a really big deal for storytellers is hard to do. Even films that don't get made, somehow, films that do get made sorry. And books that do get published, sometimes have very poor causality and therefore confusing, and the cooler show effects. exploit that, that understanding that one thing is linked to another, it's when you show two contrasting images, but I'm sure you can give us a an end, we could conclude.

Zack Arnold: Let me break it down, like because I want to take your understanding of it the way you explain it with the way that I do, because I think the intersection of those two is both fascinating, but it also is the key to unlocking How can I become a better storyteller, writer editor, or even just apply this to my own life? So the simplest version, like let's just say that I were explaining this to my father in law, who asks, what do you do as an editor, and I've actually had this conversation and he listened. So you know, you know, welcome to my show. But essentially, the study was done by a filmmaker Kula Shah, who essentially took an image of a man's face this a fairly blank neutral expression. And then from there cut to or juxtaposed it with three separate images. The first one was a baby. The second one was a pretty woman, and the third was a coffin. And when you show these three different juxtapositions to different groups, and you ask the audience, what is this man feeling? They juxtapose the feelings based on the Edit, right? So if you go from bland, neutral face to baby, oh, well, you know, he's happy or he's proud, or whatever the emotion might be, then you go from picture of his face to picture of this woman who he's energized or attracted, or whatever it might be. Picture of face to coffin. He's very sad. They didn't realize they were looking at the exact same face.

Will Storr: Yeah, again, yes, that's right. And it's because of causality. So you automatically assume that the one thing is cause the other. So the baby the dead body, the woman has caused that expression. So then that tells you what the expression says. So So yeah, so it's an incredibly interesting effect. And as I say, it really sort of, as you say, drills down really into the heart of, you know, how the storytelling brain works.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. And going even deeper into cause and effect that this was a study I wasn't aware of. This was so interesting to me. And I'm just gonna start by saying two words and I want you to describe the study. And you probably know what they are because we're talking about the cause and effect section. But if you just give two words to people, they're going to tell a story. Banana Vomit. What's going on?

Will Storr: So this is an experiment that's so proposed by Daniel Kahneman. A very famous social psychologist and author of Thinking Fast and Slow. Yeah. And he says that, you know, if you if you just show the people the webinars and vomit, they automatically begin construct this sketchy scenario in which the bananas cause the vomit, you know. So those words have nothing in common. There's a reason why they should be linked, but you automatically assume, you know, one after the other. Yeah, another version of this experiment is where they show people, you can you sit people down in front of a screen of randomly moving dots. And every time if a human looks at those dots for long enough, become convinced that there's that one door is chasing the other, and then it's hiding there, we'll build these causal stories around these dots that are actually moving completely randomly.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and again, like this, to me, is if you understand this one concept of cause and effect, and unlocks the entire world of storytelling, and I've seen this over and over and over, where I've worked with other editors, or other writers in the room, or whatever it might be, where this is a concept that they don't consciously understand, or can explain or can apply. So they'll just take a bunch of random shots and throw them together and say, hey, it's a montage, we've got these shots, we'll put the music under it, it's just pumping. And people are like, this isn't working, we don't understand why it's not working. And I always say it's because you don't understand what is my thoughts? And what am I feeling when this one shot comes up? And how does it lead to my feeling of the next and whenever somebody asked me in you, this is usually within the context of people that do editing for a living, they say what's the most important core skill or understanding of how to be a great editor? It's not well, you need to be really good with your technology or your tools or whatever, it's, you're doing two things, if you can do these two things, well, you'll have an entire career and you'll be very successful. Number one, you understand where somebody's attention is at any given moment. So I can direct their attention, attention through the juxtaposition of images and changes in number two, I know what they're feeling while I have their attention. I know those two things, and I can control them, or I have the perception of that control. That's going to make me a better editor and a storyteller. Yeah.

Will Storr: My best friend is a screenwriter. And he worked on the Elvis movie with Baz Luhrmann. And I was having dinner with him a couple nights ago. And I said, Oh, you know, I sort of apologizing for me seeing the movie. I said, I'm going to want to wait and see it on the IMAX screen. And he said, I wouldn't ever go and see a movie on the IMAX. And I said, Why is it because the job of the director is to tell you where to put your attention. On the IMAX. It's so big, you don't know where to put your attention. And I thought that's a that's a pro. You know, that's really interesting. I immediately sort of recognized that he was That's correct. Yeah, that's why IMAX doesn't really work.

Zack Arnold: So funny, because that never occurred to me. But I hate watching movies and IMAX I Hate. Like if it's if it's about the sensory experience, like I considered seeing Maverick in IMAX, I'm like, just for the sensory overload, that would be a fun experience. But for actually getting into the story and the characters. I hate IMAX movies, because I don't know where I'm supposed to look. And I physically have to move my head to see the entire image. And if it's not contained, then I know that all of the work that in that example, editor Edie Hamilton was doing day in and day out to direct my attention and maximize the quality of my experience. The screen destroys that I've just never been able to consciously understand why I hate it. That was so useful to me. I appreciate that.

Will Storr: Yeah, it was to me it was, as you said, just just one of them just it just makes perfect sense.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, that's amazing. So the just want to emphasize one more time for anybody that either does this for a living, or we're even talking about our own stories, it all starts in my mind with understanding the concept of the cooler shop effect, because how we juxtapose and combine certain things is the combination of them, that makes the story in the emotion. It's not the two individual pieces, or 10, individual pieces, or whatever it is, is the combination of all of it, which without, again, getting too existential or going off on a tangent is also a conversation that I had with I don't know if you're familiar with the author, Jyothika phone, but he wrote a book called The laws of creativity, which is essentially breaking down creativity into a series of laws and a science rather than this nebulous, esoteric art form. That doesn't make any sense. And the big thing that we talked about was the idea of creativity is the combination of things, not the inception of new things, or new ideas, which to me, again, is so central to storytelling. And if we were to again, go off on a different tangent, I think it's one of the reasons that creatives suffer from impostor syndrome are my ideas aren't original. This isn't a new character, a new setting or whatever, but it's how you uniquely combined them and take people on that journey of change and tell that story with an unique elements in a unique combination.

Will Storr: I agree. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's quite a Yeah. I think that's right. I think a lot of creatives have that anxiety of how it's all been done before, it's all been over, there's a myth of pure creation. But you know, there's no such thing as pure creation. It's, you know, it's a bit of a cliche, but it's true that everything is remix. But it doesn't mean that things can't be profound and interesting and original, just because they have elements in common with other other things. And you know, and I think there are fundamental rules to our, you know, there are fundamental rules to, you know, these things, you know, basic rules, you know, like things like, something's got to change, you know, like, you know, so it's so things are always and you know, we have a human you know, we share human DNA, we share, you know, basic understandings of how the human world works, that there's universal, you know, we universal interest in fairness, we universally interested in selflessness, we universally interested in status, we universally interested in moral character, we universally interested in how the world works. So you know, successful stories are always going to, you know, converge upon similar ideas, similar structures, it's inevitable because they're being consumed by human brains, which also have similarities in common.

Zack Arnold: And to add to that list of the things that we're so universally compelled by in stories, whether in fictional stories, in other people's stories, or in our own comes back to something we talked about a little bit earlier. That to me is really, the whole reason I wanted to have this conversation is about setting goals and the direction either of our characters lives or of our own. And you say specifically that our goals, give our lives order, momentum and logic. But there's a deeper level to this, and this is what I really want to dig into now, is that we are our own personal projects. What in the world does that mean?

Will Storr: Well, personal projects is a concept that was I think it was created by this guy, Professor Brian nickel, who's he's a manga, American or Canadian, I think he's Canadian. But anyway, he teaches at Harvard, he teaches personality science at Harvard, and at Cambridge in the UK, so he knows his stuff. And so he's been studying what he calls personal projects all his life. And so he, you know, a personal project is the things we're trying to do with our lives. You know, it could be something as banal as teaching a dog to sit, or something as important as trying to rid the world of racism and homophobia, or whatever it, whatever it else is. And so Brian little says, as far as he's concerned that, you know, our personal projects are so central to our lives, it's central to our identity, that we are our personal projects. That's who we are. And when I interviewed him, as I sent the book, I asked him, you know, are our personal projects sort of analogous to the plot, plot in a novel that we'd like heroes in a novel pursuing plots? And he said, Yeah, that's exactly right. That's it. That's exactly what they are. So yeah. So, you know, that's why, you know, I said it a bit when we started talking that, you know, again, it's another part of the storytelling brain that we that we are running multiple plots at once, usually, as people, you know, we have these goals, and the goals are incredibly important to us, and the goals and products of our character. And the obstacles to our you know, are things that we try and overcome, and we become better people. By figuring out how to overcome these obstacles, we become more heroic when we figure out how to do that.

Zack Arnold: And the reason I wanted to bring this up, there's a few things that I want to dig into. But the first one is my endless pursuit of understanding, how do we find fulfilment in our work? Because I think that with as much as our entire first world culture has become obsessed with work and productivity and getting things done, that we've lost a sense of fulfillment and creative connection to it. And this idea of we are our personal projects really made me think more about, again, answering this question, why am I so compelled by storytelling, first of all, but secondly, why is it that I can do the same job? One story I'm telling you is a dream job. I'm doing the exact same thing on a daily basis. And it's a nightmare job. The only difference is the stories that I'm telling. And this idea of us being our personal projects really hit me I'm like, oh, where we're storytellers, literally, to the point of a fault. Where if we are not engaged in the stories, or the goals or whatever it might be, we lack fulfilment. And you talk about how being more connected or fulfilled by the worker by the story literally can impact the quality of your health.

Will Storr: Yeah, absolutely. I you know, and a lot of this comes down to a lot of this comes down to sort of two very fundamental human needs, and they and then the human needs for belongingness and for status. You know, we're so tribal. You know, because we're tribal, we are compelled to Raise belongingness and status belongingness. Because evolutionarily speaking, we had to pursue acceptance by our tribe, and status, we had to prove ourselves useful to that tribe. And when you prove yourself useful to a tribe, you rise in status and your awards increase. So even in pre modern groups, hunter gatherer groups, the more status you have, the better food you get, the more food you get, the safer your sleeping status, the greater your access to your choice of mates, everything gets better. And that's true in all human communities, you know, ancient and modern, Eastern or Western wherever you go, status equals prizes. So, and I think, you know, the stories that we tell reflect that, you know, we tell stories about connection, status, that's that those are the subjects of human stories. And, you know, survival is the other is the other is the other thing. And I think when we talk about the fulfilment in the stories of our lives, it depends on the extent to which we do receive those basic rewards of community and status. You know, if we, if we, if we, if we're sort of strongly identified with our job, and we get a lot of personal status out of it. We feel that, or, and we feel that other people award our status for success in that job. When we enjoy it, we get out of it, it's not related to money. I mean, money is one way you can measure status, but there are loads of other ways you can measure status. And, you know, to a probably slightly lesser degree, with jobs, community, you know, we've, we've, if we feel that we are enjoying an increased sense of connection with other people, that's also going to be a reward. So it's, I think that's, you know, that's, that's how it depends. I mean, you know, I had this experience myself, when I was still a journalist. And when the global financial crisis happened, it became really hard to make money. So is it so as a freelance journalist that I started, I sort of taught myself photography and started offering these kind of packages of, and we do words and pictures, you know, and I had some success I had, I had some magazine covers, I had an exhibition of my photographs. But other photographers never gave me any. They just saw me this interloper, you know, a and b, I just wasn't, you know, I had some distance, but I wasn't that good. When I compared my work to seasoned photographers, it's mediocre. So I kind of gave it up. And the people around me were like, Why have you given any photography? You were good at that you had an exhibition? And at the time, I couldn't answer the question. I was just like, I'm just not getting in the habit. But it was I was earning money. It was it was I was, it was working. And now I know what I know, is because I just wasn't getting the status, like, like photo editors didn't take me seriously. Other photographers didn't take me seriously. And so I just thought, oh, what's the point? You know, it's so so yeah, it's, um, I think, I think especially in the world of work, you have to feel like you're earning that fundamental price of status. And if you do, then you're going to be engaged in the job, you're going to enjoy your job, and the job is going to be fulfilling, even if it's not earning you particularly much money.

Zack Arnold: But if that were true, just to play the devil's advocate, when we find a direct correlation between those that are at the highest level of their fields, whether there's material wealth with it or otherwise, and their level of fulfillment and happiness, I would argue that, especially in our industry, there's an inverse correlation, the more miserable, horrible, wretched human beings are usually the ones that are near the top, because they're not connected to the purpose of their work. And it is more about the attainment of wealth, and materialism and status.

Will Storr: Well, yeah, I mean, I understand the argument. But there's a couple of things that the first thing is that I wouldn't. Like, I think that status gives you a sense of meaning in your job, but it doesn't necessarily make you happy, like the idea of the status makes you happy. It's not true. So status makes you happy in the moment, you know, like, if you when you win an award, when you you know, get a book published or a film made, or whatever, you know, and your clips shown at the Oscars or whatever. For a moment, you feel like it's incredible, like a drug, you know, you feel a huge rush. But of course, as we all know, then the next thing is okay, now I've got a beat that they've got, you know, stasis kind of goes, it runs away, you know, like, you can't contain it. So it's maddening. It's like a drug is like heroin status. Like you get this here. You're always chasing the next one. And the next one, the next one. The other Isn't that super successful. People aren't any happier because of their status particularly. It's because we don't compare ourselves with the whole world. We compare ourselves with our peers. So So Elon Musk isn't feeling amazing everyday because he's so high status compared to a warehouse worker at Amazon. He's feeling tortured everyday because he's comparing himself to Jeff Bezos and you know, the legacy of Steve Jobs. Whoever else he's comparing himself to. So so so yeah, I mean, status gives our lives meaning because it gives us a goal to pursue. But it's a but it's a it's a chimera, we never get there, you never, you never earned the crown, you know, like, like it's a, it's a trick the brain, the brain plays on you.

Zack Arnold: And the reason I wanted to bring that up is that I am in the endless search of understanding and finding more of a balance between the two words doing and being. And if we talk about specifically, the story structure, and this idea of, we want to make sure that the plot or the goals we're working towards are driven by character and motivations, especially if we're talking about ourselves and movies is different. Like, we don't want to watch somebody being for 90 minutes, right? That's not going to be a whole lot of fun, maybe as an arthouse film, but watching somebody be for 90 minutes, not terribly interesting. But I think that there's a lot of value in learning how to better tell your own version of your story where yes, it's character driven. It's so much more based on here's the identity that I want to assume, here are the plot points or the goals to get me there. But so far, all we're talking about is doing more and achieving more and hitting all these goals. And I just know that right now, for the last 10 minutes. My poor Podcast Producer, Debbie's head, hit her hair's on fire. She's like, why are we only talking about goals? How do we interject more being into our stories? I mean, if we're talking about East versus West, this idea of stories and character being driven by goals, Buddhists would say, well, that's the root of all suffering, is the attainment of trying to get something else rather than accepting the reality as it is? So how do we start to play with this dichotomy?

Will Storr: Well, it's difficult, isn't it? Because even Buddhists have goals, you know, you want to be reincarnated as a good thing, not a bad thing. I mean, you know, just the world of Buddhism is so hierarchical and status driven, it's no better than any other religion as far as I can see. You know, with its different realms of reincarnation, and so on. So, so yeah, it's difficult to separate out the the pursuit of goals, from the human condition, because it's, it's baked into the human condition, you know, it's a fundamental part of the human operating system. And if it wasn't, we wouldn't have civilization, we wouldn't have healthcare, we wouldn't have science, we wouldn't have electricity, like, you know, it's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's both, but you know, it's, it's essential to, to our kind of, you know, status beings. And that's why, you know, compelling stories are, you know, often about the pursuit of goals, you know, the the overcoming of obstacles, kind of in pursuit of goals. I mean, as I write in the book, there are, there are there are kind of forms of storytelling in in, especially in Japan that don't have that aren't sort of got aren't goal driven.

Zack Arnold: Well, and it's interesting, this is exactly where I wanted to go next, it's like you read my mind, you talk about how storytelling is very different in Western culture, versus Eastern culture. And just to wrap up this previous one, if anybody were to say that I don't have goals, well, then your goal is to not have goals. It's a paradox that you can't get yourself out of that circle. But the reason I put this in here is I just want to make it clear that I don't think the only way you can attain fulfilment is by constantly achieving more and more and more there has to be being wrapped up into it. But I think it's really important to dig deeper into this idea of the goals in Western culture and eastern culture can be very different specifically, in the way that they tell their stories. People listen to this all over the world. I have multiple students that are in China, I've got a student that's in Japan, I've got people in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and for this idea of I'm the hero, and I'm the center of the story. And it's about pursuing my goals, entire cultures would be like, I don't get it. It's not even interesting to me. Yes.

Will Storr: Yes. So it's so the broad difference. I mean, I wrote about this in most depth in my book selfie, that the you know, the broadest difference between East and West is the level is the extent to which we are group focused. So as we already talked about, all humans are a group ish. But in the West, we have this emphasis on the individual much more so our stories are much more likely to be about an individual, all conquering hero, you know, from the days of ancient Greece, which is, you know, reckoned to be the kind of birthplace of Western thought and Western individualism, you know, in stories about heroes slaying monsters in East Asia, and in Africa, too. It's far more group ish and that's actually the default state of human beings and it's us in the West that weird so so so so it's kind of group first thinking so the most important said the, the agent of change in East Asia is the group much more than the individual and but you still have goals, but your goal is to be a good group member. So In my book, the status game, you know, I read a very interesting paper about status pursue in, in East Asia. And they were talking about Japan. And the concept of face, you know, they have the concept of facing in East Asia. And so they said that, in Japan, if an individual is picked out of a group at work for praise, and said, you do really well you do, you're the best in the group. Of course, in the West, we'd be going yeah, I'm the best in the group. I'm the king. Yeah. But in Japan is deeply shaming, because what you've done is you've made the rest of the group feel bad. And so what that person will tend to do in Japan is deliberately put in a worst performance at work for a couple of weeks, in order to restore the, you know, the, the coherence and the harmony in the group. So so they still have a goal, the goal is the coherence and the harmony of the group. But it's just a very different goal. So the one that we're used to in the West, and this is where Eastern and Western stories are often different. That you know, there's there's a whole kind of strand of Eastern storytelling, which is all about harmony to the, you know, trying to figure out how to achieve harmony, the harmony between kind of conflicting forces. So there's a, there's a very famous Chinese film where there's been a murder. And you're just given, I forget what it's called now, but it's very famous film. You're just given the different with different witnesses. Rashomon, that's it Rashomon, what am

Zack Arnold: I was gonna bring this up anyway, one of my favorite films for this specific reason.

Will Storr: Yeah and the point of that is that is that you've got all these conflicting accounts of what actually happened. And it's your job to figure out, you know, what actually happened at how to achieve harmony between these conflicting forces? So there's a very, very east Eastern way of thinking that is, I mean, I interviewed a South Korean anthropologist, and he said that you guys in the West had to find these stories completely boring and pointless. Yeah, I understand them bigger, because they're just not they didn't seem there appear to be goal driven, that the goal is the pursuit of harmony.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, again, these are all things that we could dive into incessantly, all of the various books, all the various concepts and circling back to, I wouldn't even know where to start. And you and I are gonna have to do this seven more times to cover your body of work. But having said that, I feel very good. And I've learned a lot myself about this, better understand what it means to talk about the science of storytelling versus the art form or the craft of it. And I really, really hope that this is tremendously beneficial to other editors, directors, producers, writers, specifically, to understand how do I create compelling stories and compelling plots, and characters? But is there anything amongst either this specific book or your general body of work where you're just like, how can we haven't talked about this? Why didn't you ask me about this? Is there anything that you're just like, I gotta get this Adam II system before we wrap it up?

Will Storr: There isn't Zack? No, no, we had a really good chat about the science of storytelling. Obviously, I've got other books, but this is, you know, this is this is the one that's probably the dearest to my heart, and the one the subject that I'm most interested in. So I've had a great time, you know, chatting with you about it. Thank you for your interest.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, absolutely. So for anybody that is listening that's had some of the same aha moments as me that they want to dive deeper. Obviously, you can just go to Amazon and put in science of storytelling, because it's the algorithm that brought me to you in the first place. But the more important question is, where can they find you and your body of work if they want to dig in deeper?

Will Storr: Well, my website is willstorr.com. That's S T O double R that's my surname. So you can find out about my books, my books there. As I said, that is the Unpersuadables, which is about crazy belief. Then there's Selfie, which is about Western culture, Western versus Eastern culture. And there they all are kind of centered really on the idea of the storytelling brain. And my latest book is The Status Game, which is looks at we touched upon that in our chat looks at the importance of status. And again, that goes into the storytelling brain to about how lots of you know like one of the things that kind of drives the subconscious life of so many of our stories is the status of the hero going up and the status of the villain going down so so yeah, there's there's stuff in all of those books. If you're interested in stories head in brain.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I have a feeling that I'm probably going to be going into your larger body of work because I found just this one book revelatory. Now that I know you have all these other books as these may end up on my shelf as well. Just not as cleanly organized as your bookshelf. Anybody that's listening to this only go on YouTube and just take a quick look at that bookshelf behind. Well, this guy is clearly a reader and a well organized one.

Will Storr: They're not organized though. I spent hours looking

Zack Arnold: At least they're facing in the right direction facing right. That's a big step forward from if I I want to show you my my bookcase. So it just that alone is impressive. So, I really appreciate you taking the time, especially on your Friday evening just to talk shop and story and personality and characters and the entire meaning of life and existence. This has been a tremendous pleasure. Really appreciate it.

Will Storr: Cheers, Zack. I've had a good time. Thank you

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Zack Arnold

The Science of Storytelling, Why We Need Stories, and How to Rewrite Our Own | with Will Storr

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