The Purpose of Stories
Do you have any stories that you always go back to? Has someone ever told you a story that helped you in some way? I bet you answered yes to those questions, and that you’d say those stories are meaningful. So, what is it about those stories that makes them meaningful?
In the last post, I talked about the definition of story. One of the definition’s implications is that a story has an armature — a point or conclusion. Over the next three posts, we’ll discuss what an armature is, learn how to listen for armature in the stories people tell, and finally explore how an armature helps the audience make meaning.
By the end, I hope you understand the armature of this series: Armature creates meaning in a story.
The Purpose of Stories
Understanding armature starts with understanding the purpose of stories. As Brian McDonald points out in Land of the Dead and some of his podcasts [1, 2, 3], every known culture through history has told stories. The only reason that would be is if stories are a survival strategy — that is, stories give people survival information. Survival information can be anything that helps us live better, especially something that helps us resolve a conflict. Survival information comes in different types: physical, emotional, spiritual, or cultural/social. Each type informs the audience about surviving or living better within that category.
We can also approach the same conclusion from a linguistics perspective. Cognitive scientist and linguist Dr. Mark Turner proposed in his book The Literary Mind that language emerged from the human mental capacity for story [4]. In other words, the foundation of our interpersonal and intrapersonal communication is not language but story. If we view communication as a survival strategy, we can infer that the purpose of our stories (our communication) is based on survival.
Armature
The purpose of stories leads us to armature, another idea from Brian [5, 6]. The armature of a story is what a story proves or says. It is why the author told the story, and within it is the survival information the author offers the audience. A key question to identifying an armature is this: How does this story help others survive? The armature is what resolves the main conflict in a story.
Here are some example armatures and survival information categories to get a feel for what they look like:
(1) Armature: Hatred breeds blindness to life.
- Stories: Princess Mononoke
- Survival Information Type: Emotional, Spiritual
(2) Armature: You may already have what you’re looking for.
- Stories: The Wizard of Oz, You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift
- Survival Information Type: Emotional, Social
(3) Armature: Know thyself.
- Stories: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
- Survival Information Type: Spiritual
(4) Armature: The small things are what make life worth living.
- Stories: Our Town, The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Survival Information Type: Spiritual, Emotional
(5) Armature: Empathy gives life.
- Stories: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
- Survival Information Type: Social, Emotional
For more examples, including some featuring physical survival information, check out my previous post about openings.
Brian chose the word “armature” to describe this concept because of how armatures function in sculpture. A sculptor must use an armature to support the weight of their work. Otherwise, it will collapse. For their work to be successful, the sculptor must design the armature before they begin the finished piece.
Story armatures work in the same way. First, they serve as the story’s structure. The author has to explore and understand what they want to say before they say it (Think before you speak…another armature!) [7]. Then, every decision in telling a story should ideally support the armature. Anything that deviates from the armature should be removed, as it detracts from the audience’s experience of the story and from the communication of the survival information (the sculpture/story might fall over!).
Armature and Other Terms
Some use different names for the concept of armature. I’ve heard terms such as theme, thematic, thesis, point, lesson, and moral. These words all describe the same idea: there’s a meaningful point with survival information at the story’s foundation. Here are a few more guidelines to help distinguish armature:
- A story has one armature. More than one armature makes the story unclear. The word “theme” — as typically used — is the group of concepts in a story related to the armature through metaphor. The Wizard of Oz might have “themes” of family, home, courage, etc., but those are all concepts used in dramatizing the armature, “You may already have what you are looking for.”
- Most of the time, armatures can be expressed in a simple sentence. Sometimes an armature can be written as a question, and the story should answer it.
- Stories can share the same armature and be wildly different. Think back to The Wizard of Oz and Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me. They are very different stories, but both have the same armature.
- Everyone will likely identify a different armature that fits the story. So, if you identify different ones than I did, that’s completely fine. This may seem to violate guideline (1.), but it does not. More on this later in the series.
Visualizing Armature
Here’s one last way of thinking about armatures and survival information. I’ve always thought Brandon Sanderson’s story diagram was a good visual for summarizing the main components of story: conflict, setting, plot, and character [8]. The main idea is that conflict unifies all other elements of a story. After learning about armature, I drew a modified version of Sanderson’s diagram on a sticky note. Below, I share that modified (and digitized) diagram with you.
The main difference between this and Sanderson’s original is the red center. I think of it as the core or heart of a story. The armature is embedded in the conflict and all other story elements. Another minor difference is the addition of “meaningful action” to plot. It’s a helpful way of understanding plot, but that’s a post for another time. The key takeaway of the diagram is to think about armature as the core of a story.
A story has people (characters) in a place (setting) doing things to resolve a conflict (meaningful action). When all those elements are crafted so that the armature resolves the conflict, then the story will communicate the armature and its survival information.
Example: The Wizard of Oz
As an example, let’s look at the The Wizard of Oz. I’m assuming you’ve seen it, so I’ll keep the summary brief. Then, I’ll describe how the elements were crafted to prove the armature and communicate survival information. The Wizard of Oz perfectly follows the purpose of stories: to pass on survival information.
In the beginning, Dorothy is dissatisfied with where she lives and the people around her. So she tries to run away, and then she ends up in Oz (setting — one “over the rainbow”, in color, wonderful) and wants to get home (conflict). So, she follows the Yellow Brick Road to see the Wizard (meaningful action).
By the end of the story, Dorothy realizes that from the beginning she had everything she was looking for.
In terms of other characters, Dorothy had the relationships she found in the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion at home on the farm. And speaking of those supporting characters, they also already had what they were looking for: the Scarecrow was always coming up with plans (using his brain), the Tin Man was always showing emotion (heart), and the Lion was always going along on the journey despite being scared (courage).
For Dorothy herself, she had the ruby slippers (her way home) at the beginning of her journey. She even says the armature in her own way at the end: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” This realization is the setup that makes the line, “There’s no place like home,” meaningful. There’s no place like home for Dorothy because everything she was looking for was already there.
Everything in this story points to Dorothy realizing that she already had what she was looking for, and that’s what ultimately resolves the conflict and brings her home.
The Wizard of Oz is a great story. It’s not a coincidence this story has lasted. It’s not a coincidence this story is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. We keep going back to watch it because it’s incredibly well crafted and dramatizes clear survival information, even if we may not articulate it the same way (Notice how Dorothy says the armature differently from how I say it. Again, more on this later). The Wizard of Oz follows the purpose of stories and because of that, it survives (keeps being passed down to others) and remains a classic.
Conclusion
To recap, the purpose of stories is to pass on survival information — to pass on an armature. We can think about armature as a statement containing survival information. By crafting all the elements of a story with the armature at the core, we can communicate the survival information through telling the story.
And here is where things get interesting: you already know how to use armature. The concept is descriptive, not prescriptive, of how humans tell stories. When we tell stories in the wild (in person), we automatically have an armature and we automatically self-edit things that do not contribute to the armature. Otherwise, everyone would always ask, “What’s your point?” [9]. In the next post, we will explore how to listen for armature in the wild by being mindful of story structure.
Ready for part two of the series? Here’s a link to the next post: Learning to Listen.
Sources and Notes
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You Are A Storyteller, The Land of the Dead and Its Use in Stories ↩
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You Are A Storyteller, What Is a Story? ↩
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You Are A Storyteller, The Armature ↩
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Note: Methods and tools for exploring how to discover an armature in your own work will be a post at some point. ↩
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Note: In constructed stories (the ones we sit down to write), it is ideally no different. Every story should have an armature. Unfortunately, not all writers/creators craft their completed stories with an armature, or they do not clearly communicate their armature. That is a mistake in craft. But, it’s important to remember that even the best make mistakes from time to time. ↩
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