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History of Story

How did ancestors understand and express their world?

How has Aristotle's use of tragic flaw changed from the early Greeks to the novel?

Why do novels offer a personal experience and how is this experience achieved?

What techniques in film consistently elicit emotion from the audience?

How has technology changed the definition of story?

Since the begging of time, every culture has engaged in storytelling as a way of understanding the world around them. As soon as there was a notable consciousness of self, it became imperative that we as a species make sense of our particular place in the world and our reason for being (raison d'etre). It was this natural drift toward introspection that created the need to tell a story. Primitive at first, our story telling became more and more complex. So complex that, in fact, we have reached the point where we need to engage in the process not just as members of an audience, but also as active participants as we do in video games.*

* (from M. Krawczyk and J. Novak, "Game Story and Character Development")

One reason why there may be such a need for humans to tells stories, is to survive or adapt to the ever-changing real environment. Changes in the environment bring out the worst and best in people (Darwinism) and those changes may be natural or man-made but they are always on the move. Watch 10min clip of koyaanisqatsi

	History of Story How did ancestors understand and express their world? How has Aristotle's use of tragic flaw changed from the early Greeks to the novel? Why do novels offer a personal experience and how is this experience achieved? What techniques in film consistently elicit emotion from the audience? How has technology changed the definition of story? Since the begging of time, every culture has engaged in storytelling as a way of understanding the world around them. As soon as there was a notable consciousness of self, it became imperative that we as a species make sense of our particular place in the world and our reason for being (raison d'etre). It was this natural drift toward introspection that created the need to tell a story. Primitive at first, our story telling became more and more complex. So complex that, in fact, we have reached the point where we need to engage in the process not just as members of an audience, but also as active participants as we do in video games.* * (from M. Krawczyk and J. Novak, "Game Story and Character Development") One reason why there may be such a need for humans to tells stories, is to survive or adapt to the ever-changing real environment. Changes in the environment bring out the worst and best in people (Darwinism) and those changes may be natural or man-made but they are always on the move. Watch 10min clip of koyaanisqatsi