This blog will pause for a few weeks for my summer break. I have lots of new ideas and when I return I shall write about them here. If there is anything you would like me to write about comment on this or any other post. Thank you for paying attention.
One version of the tragic story type is close to the seventh and final common basic plot, Rebirth. It is where the hero repents at the last minute . They are too late, nemesis consumes them, all too aware of the mistake they made.
But what happens where it isn’t too late? What if such a hero lives?
Just like all but one of the seven basic plots, this story develops in five stages. At first glance you may think the middle sections are very similar. Although on one level a lot happens, stasis marks this story-type. Nothing much happens for years or decades. Frustration is absent until something precipitates a crisis.
There are three variants at the start of this story-type. They influence the outcome and perhaps our feelings for the hero.
In the first, the hero remains innocent throughout the story. They labour under a dark power that immobilises them. This is common in children’s stories, eg Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. Both these heroes are held in stasis until some external influence brings about change. There are adult versions. One such is Florestan, the hero of Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio. He is imprisoned and Leonora, his wife, takes action to free him. He needs to be released and has no need to repent. Nevertheless, his release is a rebirth.
The second type is where the dark power springs from within the hero’s personality. We meet Scrooge at Christmas, well into stage 3 or 4. We learn during the story the reason why he became a miser. This is the most realistic of the three variants and one businesses should study.
The third variant is where the dark power takes over the hero and turns the hero into a dark figure. Peer Gynt is a well-known example, where he discovers late in life he never escaped the magic of the trolls. Kay, from the Snow Queen, is another example. Neither of these heroes is particularly malevolent, they lead pointless lives.
One constant is the sense of a life lived to no purpose. The hero often looks back to a time of innocence. Perhaps a story on the cusp of tragedy and rebirth is Citizen Kane. He dies with the word “Rosebud” in his lips. We learn as the film progresses that Rosebud represents the last time he experienced happiness.
The point is the sense of constriction. The hero is not necessarily a villain, typically he or she shows little malice towards others. Others may fear or avoid them because they are cold, hard, inured to the feelings of others. They see the world from a mechanistic perspective, they calculate and measure. They don’t appreciate or delight in life.
On one level, they may be successful. Perhaps like Kane, they build a business empire. They pursue pleasure but see no beauty or purpose in what they accumulate. From outside, they appear successful. Within though nothing changes. They care for no-one, not even themselves.
That one word, Rosebud, is the only clue we have that Kane appreciates he took the wrong road and could not find his way back.
Typically, we encounter this person without feeling at the height of their power. It is not that Scrooge hates Bob Cratchit, he simply doesn’t care, he lacks sympathy or compassion.
Some of these heroes are monsters and do terrible things. But the thing that separates them from the villain in other stories is their lack of malice. They don’t care.
We baulk at Shahryar’s brutal rule. He has power and uses it to rape and murder young women. But we are given his back-story and see what caused darkness to overwhelm him. Modern people perhaps want to see him punished but the story goes in an unexpected direction. If we want to see him punished, if we don’t care what happens to him, does that not make us just like him?
In the end it is just a story and it is what it is. It raises issues for us, it does not tell us what to think. Scherezade could have run him through with a sword. But perhaps her strategy was the only one available to her.
Love precipitates rebirth. Frequently love for a child, a young woman or a dashing young prince. The hero is incomplete until they feel something for someone outside of the world they created for themselves. Scrooge falls for Tiny Tim, who does not die.
Of these three the most interesting is the young woman. A child can make a big difference but is essentially passive. The hero must choose to take care of the child. The young prince belongs solely in fairy stories as far as I am aware. The young woman (who may grow old during the story) is not always passive. Sometimes she takes action to rescue the hero. Indeed, perhaps she becomes the hero. She is the one prepared to love the hero. Think of Gerda in The Snow Queen or Sonia in Crime and Punishment.
Scherezade is a frame story and so gets lost in 1001 other stories. Unlike Gerda and Sonia, she does not know Shahryar. She loves him but cannot possibly feel that way from the start. What is different about her?
She is a young woman and so are all Shahryar’s other victims. How is Scherezade different? She determines not to follow her sisters but to put an end to Shahryar’s reign of terror. We assume his other victims tried every conceivable seductive charm to no avail. Scherezade could see this was not about sex. She was a scholar and so used scholarship to help him rediscover his true self.
She has a plan, assisted by her little sister, who asks for a bedtime story. Maybe the child’s presence made a difference. Maybe Shahryar let Scherezade live out of sympathy for the child and found he was gradually drawn into a world of stories and there rediscovered his true self.
The rebirth story is an arrow aimed at the heart of business. It challenges all business owners to be true to themselves. To remember who they are, as they contemplate their figures and plan the next sale.
It challenges those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. To ask, what is it that is truly important?
A business person spends 15 years building a successful business, takes early retirement and returns home to a splendid house with a spouse who barely remembers him and a brood of moody Goths. Yes, he provided for them, made sure they could do anything they wished. But is that all his family wanted from him?
It is easy in business to lose track of reality. Seasons come and go and suddenly you are a lot older, wondering what happened to all that time. Success may have happened but under the surface, everything else has been on hold. The faithful spouse complains “we had it all planned, we were going to do so much together but he died.”
How many business people die with “Rosebud” on their lips?
Some business owners tell how they realised time was passing and they no longer wanted to work for others. They longed for freedom to live their lives to the full. Business itself can be a story of rebirth.
These seven common basic plots are not the only story-types but they open up models for stories that work. There’s no need to force your story to fit one of these plots but if you can, find a story that resonates, a story you like, that has meaning. Your story will benefit from the dialogue.
If the rebirth story-type shows us one thing, it is the technical side of business is not on its own enough to bring satisfaction to us or our customers. Remember no-one did business with Scrooge because they wanted to.
The word tragedy is from the Greek for goat: tragos! It is rooted in the idea of the scapegoat, the person who dies for the sins of the community. Frequently the innocent suffer and die in a tragic story. Even the central character can be innocent.
This is the only story-type that does not have a happy ending. All other types show the hero somehow prevailing but in these stories the hero fails. Does this mean this story-type is less applicable to business? Who would trade with a tragic business?
Actually, this story-type is really important to businesses but to see why we need to understand how the tragic story works.
Just like most story-types, the tragic story passes through 5 stages. I shall illustrate it with a simplified business story.
This is a complex story type and so the summary should be seen as one possible pathway. There are several routes to the tragic ending and the threat is not always from the hero.
These stories end in ultimate defeat, namely death. Fortunately business people rarely kill anyone or commit suicide. The tragic ending as a final defeat with no hope of reconciliation or rebirth. It does not have to be death in a real life story. Clearly, if someone does die, it is not them telling the story!
To understand the scope of this story better, let’s look at the hero. There are several ways the hero works in tragic stories. There are dark and light heroes. Where the hero is dark, they are a threat to society. Where the hero is light, society is a threat to them.
The 5 stages describe a journey from hubris to nemesis. When we think about tragedies, we tend to focus on nemesis. But from a business perspective perhaps we should focus on hubris.
Hubris is to step over the mark. You might find a law irksome. You decide to break it and at first it’s exhilarating. But then …
Last time when I wrote about comedy, I suggested a typical business comedy might be where the boss is immortal. The person who identifies with the business to such an extent that they are a single entity. I’ve seen this several times in my working life and it is always painful and difficult to move on. In a comedy, eventually they come to their senses; what happens when they don’t?
What is the nature of hubris? It can be infectious, whole populations can succumb to it, usually out of fear. What exactly is it?
It is a decision to focus on something that challenges the status quo. We find this often in modern politics where the so-called liberal establishment is the target of so-called radical challenges from the right, eg Brexit and President Trump.
As far as it goes such challenges may be based on a degree of truth. There is a lot wrong with the establishment. However, they don’t understand the problem and reach for the easiest solution to hand.
What is the problem Brexit solves? Is it immigration, loss of sovereignty, too many regulations, austerity …? Each of these could be solved in several ways and Brexit is proving not to be one of them.
Hubris is where the wrong solution is found to a poorly understood problem. The hero is bored or frustrated in some way and an apparent solution presents itself. It can be very seductive and is sometimes called a temptation.
The hero commits to the wrong path and then because of their immediate success becomes more committed to the path. We don’t know what story-type Brexit will prove to be but we saw the dream stage for the Brexiteers after the referendum result and now frustration and nightmare are setting in. The opposition is rallying (perhaps) and we may see a final battle.
The thing to note is how positions on both sides become increasingly entrenched. Focus has shifted from the problem to a badly formed solution that bewitches political discourse.
We even have a saying: “Jumping to conclusions” which means coming up with an ill-conceived solution, most likely to the wrong problem. Businesses are familiar with this and so are community and voluntary organisations. Religious organisations too are not immune.
Take any of the four subtypes I listed above and there is another possible outcome. The hero repents. They see clearly what is happening. Number 4 already will have a good sense of reality, which puts them out of step with everyone else. For subtype 1, the change is likely to be cataclysmic, for 4 less so or perhaps there’s no need for it.
In a tragic story the change of heart is too little or too late to effect the outcome. The hero contemplates their folly and the disaster they have brought down on their own heads and for their loved ones.
The truth is folly has implications for not only the hero but for those around them. Too late they see what has happened to those they love. They repent and the full horror of what they have done comes home to them. They die with regret on their lips.
This is important because to make the wrong decision is likely to cost in terms of turnover, relationships, work-life balance and maybe legal proceedings. These stories paint the picture in an extreme light but the point they make is highly relevant. The choices we make matter.
Tragedy shows us what happens when repentance is too late. But what happens when the villain’s repentance allows them time to make amends? This opens the way to perhaps the deepest, most meaningful story-type: Rebirth.
If you think comedy is about humour, you must be joking! People associate comedy with humour because many situations in comedy provoke laughter. But many stories that follow the comedy plot are not particularly humourous. And of course not all humour is comedy!
So far, all the plots we’ve explored have a five-fold development. Comedy is remarkably versatile and one reason is it has fewer steps. The first two are typically missing; if they are present, you are likely to have another plot with humour!
Most plot types are ancient and their origins lost in the mists of time. Comedy evolved during recorded history, it is only a few thousand years old. I’m not going into a lot of detail, you can find an account in Booker but there are a few things worth highlighting.
The key to comedy is the point of recognition, where everyone suddenly sees clearly what has gone on before. Recognition reveals the key dark character as a hypocrite, who either fesses up or departs never to return. It is this key revelation that is distinctive to comedy. This revelation prevents bad things from happening and so results in a happy ending.
Not quite so ancient but from a very early stage, lovers kept apart form comedy’s main preoccupation. Frequently the resolution revolves around one or both lovers identities.
We naturally find, in these stories, the pompous powerful figure shown up for their hypocrisy, hilarious. Think of Basil Fawlty, who is manager of a well-run hotel (in his own mind) and spends most of his time covering up the chaos happening behind the scenes.
Traditional comedy then has four key ingredients. You are likely to find vestiges of them in any comic story.
There are many traditional comic devices and if they happen you are likely to be enjoying a comedy. These include disguises, mistaken identities, lost objects found, overheard and misinterpreted conversations.
Three basic variations go back to the earliest forms of comedy.
Note in the second, the dark hero or heroine must turn around to bring the story to a happy ending. In the first, the dark figure can be unreconciled and so removed from the story. This is unlikely where the dark figure is a parent and more likely where it is a dark rival.
Note too that for much of history, women lacked agency. So, in comedies they are likely to disguise themselves as men. Many of Shakespeare’s comedies use this device.
Given a powerful person deluded is often the reason for confusion in the story, the question is: from where will they be opposed? They have power and often the rule of law on their side, so parents decide who their children marry, for example. The nightmare comprises power misused. The wielders of power do not have all the information and so think they are acting rationally. The audience sees the full picture and so knows they are mistaken.
Opposition must come from those below the line, those without power. This may be the dark figure’s wife, children, the lovers and servants. They may form an alliance to overturn the dark figure.
Below the line is the source of both opposition and insight. Think of Jeeves, who applies wisdom and helps Bertie out of the tight corners he gets himself and his friends into. Or Pierre in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”. Here the dark figure is Napoleon and Pierre learns wisdom from the old man he befriends when taken prisoner by the French.
Perhaps of all the story types, comedy is the most self-conscious and contrived. It is easily burlesqued and the crucial recognition is often missing or the situation is reset at the end of each episode of a situation comedy.
Why then is it so rooted in modern Western literature? Perhaps because it is about handing on to the next generation. These stories are about the powerful older generation coming to terms with the new generation coming up to take their place.
Modern storytelling, often separates the serious love story from the comedy. We have stories like War and Peace, which is essentially a love story, with two main couples and little humour. Or else we have comedies like Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas, where the lovers take second place to the humour.
Is it possible to use comedy in a business environment? Note this is not the same as use of humour. Certainly the heavy dependence on lovers and marriage suggests perhaps only for dating agencies!
However, from the earliest times, comedy pivots on a truth hidden from the players in a story revealed. Anyone who can say they were unable to see clearly and their misunderstanding confused others, may have a real life comedy story.
A small business is in a state of confusion. The business owner is no longer clear about the orders she gives. She gives contradictory orders to her staff, or else they make no sense or someone else has already completed the task.
She plays the staff off against one another and does not encourage them to collaborate and in their efforts to please the boss, they compete and become more confused. Eventually a few realise they must confront their boss and tell her why she is no longer able to lead them.
Gradually it emerges the boss faces some life crisis and her attention has been elsewhere. Now all the staff can rally round and help her sort out her affairs and get the business back on track.
OK this is not a brilliant story but the point is to see the overall shape. A situation like this is rarely funny. It can be painful for everyone who lives through it. Usually businesses resolve such issues because the boss must leave or everyone else will.
Business people telling their life story often recount how something got in the way of their business, eg alcohol or depression. In telling the story, they often focus on their own experience and rarely on those around them.
Someone going through a personal trauma might say they were going into work wearing a cheerful mask. People see the mask and perceive the contradictions under the surface.
This story type may be helpful to those who can tell a story of personal pain and the impact it had on their immediate community.
The positive ending depends upon that crucial insight that opens everyone’s eyes so they see reality as it is. But what happens where the revelation never comes or comes too late? What happens where the dark figure triumphs and precipitates those around into tragedy?
Over the last 30 weeks, I have posted about elements of value. There are probably many more but the point is: what are the things your customers value? Do you provide them? Do you market them? How can you use elements of value?
Can you break down the elements of value in your business for your customers? Perhaps an overall benefit and several lesser benefits. Here’s a brief recap. You can find a full list of the 30 elements of value at the end of this post.
These are perhaps foundational values and for most offers, several apply. One of these may be your overall benefit, if you offer something like accountancy or insurance. However, look at the higher levels if you work in these industries, for example an accountant or insurance broker might reduce anxiety. The work of an independent financial advisor might even be life changing!
For others, you sell something that maybe saves time and reduces risk. Loads of things do this and so these are your lesser benefits.
In what sense are they foundational? If your offer does not meet at least one and preferably several, then perhaps you don’t have a fully developed offer.
You may not have noticed some of these elements of value. This is where this list of values comes into its own, it helps you name existing elements that add value to your offer.
These elements address substantial needs in areas people are anxious about. People worry about, eg health, attractiveness, community.
Some offers focus on these values and you may find your overall benefit belongs here. A hairdresser for example might focus on attractiveness as their overall benefit. You can of course offer several emotional values.
You may find many people cannot meet these values because they need to carry out life changes. This implies you need to set your overall benefit at a higher level. You should aim to set your overall benefit at the highest possible level.
These values make a substantial change to peoples’ lives. The person seeking to become more attractive may need help with self-actualisation, for example.
At this level, choose one value as your overall benefit. Your other benefits will be from emotional and functional value sets.
This value may be common but of course your offer should be very different from anyone else’s. As we climb up the levels, the scope for variations in the detail of offers increases. People seeking progress at this level will often need to build on values at the lower levels too.
The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:
In some respects, Voyage and Return is like The Quest. Both involve a journey but beyond that they could not be more different.
Let’s start with a summary of the story structure. Note it has the 5-fold structure of all the story types we’ve explored so far.
Voyage and Return is a common story type, often haunting and mysterious. It takes several forms. There are at least 4 main types:
To understand the nature of this story type, we need to answer three questions.
Unlike The Quest, the hero or group of heroes have no purpose in making the voyage. The voyage is usually involuntary. Even where the hero plans the voyage, there is no aim other than to see what’s there. Usually they stumble upon it; there is rarely significant planning.
However, the hero is often psychologically ready for something to happen. They may be frustrated by their life or job and ready for a change.
Whereas the journey in The Quest often takes up about half the story, preparing the hero for the challenge to come, the Voyage is often just a means to effect a transition to a different world.
The hero or heroes are trapped in an unfamiliar world, perhaps where their inability to interpret what’s going on makes it more threatening. Encounters with the inhabitants gradually lead to a sense of increasing threat.
The early stages are often quite pleasant. The hero makes contact with the inhabitants. In many stories this includes bonding with a sympathetic character of the opposite sex. However, the outcome of this relationship is not the same as it is for The Quest.
This is the crucial question for this story type. They return transformed or not transformed. Occasionally, the untransformed are left trapped in the other world.
The transformation often leaves them chastened, repentant or visionary. They return as a different person, able to deal with the issues they face in their own world. Consider the five stages from the point of view of such a hero:
The untransformed can be neutral or dark. There are many examples of neutral, where the hero shows no change, perhaps because it was all a dream. Examples include Alice and Dorothy.
Often a sign of lack of transformation is leaving the friend of the opposite sex behind. They return with a sense of loss that reinforces their original state. There is some inadequacy in the relationship that is never rectified. They are tested and fail.
Whatever the outcome, this story type poses the question: what difference did the voyage make?
Like Overcoming the Monster, this is a popular story type but perhaps one with fewer business applications.
The social voyage and return may be the most helpful here. Many people have stories to tell about an accident that moved them into a new world and how they returned as a different person. Examples might be victims of crime, spending time in prison, paralysis. Any event that knocks a life off-course, raises similar questions. The interest in the story is how the hero found their way back and the nature of the transformation they undergo.
This story may work for markets of survivors of some life-changing event who seek help in finding their way back. But it is worth pausing here because we can see in real life it is not possible to return to life as it was before. Everything changes. This is not just a personality transformation, return is not possible if by return we mean the same state as at departure. The world visited creates a new world in the here and now. The state at the end of the story combines the old and new worlds.
Perhaps the key is in the return journey? In The Quest, the outward journey is important. In this story type it is the return journey. Where the return is precipitate, leaving important elements behind, then transformation is unlikely or unsuccessful. Where the return is planned and taken seriously, then transformation is likely to be successful.
There are at least two types of case study based on this story-type:
Telling this story-type may help coaches find clients who are somewhere in this story. The threat they must overcome is internal and often they are not clear what they are up against.
There is another story type that takes this same concern, of overcoming inner darkness, in a different direction. What do we do when someone close to us is trapped in their inner darkness? What if we don’t understand what is happening to them?
Maybe the best solution is to resort to Comedy!
Do you have a business that informs; provides reliable and trusted information?
A business must provide reliable information. If your information is wrong or deceives, you risk losing trust. In these days of social media, you cannot guarantee an undamaged reputation.
Distinguish between information and opinion. Context does not change information. Advances in research occasionally supersede something we thought true. We can cite sources so clients can check facts.
Opinions vary with context. We may believe some group of people wrong, while others believe them. You can never prove political beliefs, for example.
Information is valuable to customers in two ways : recreation and utility.
Sometimes a particular topic interests a client. Even though they do not use the information for business purposes, they find it helps them grow as human beings.
Utility is where information has short or long-term business use. It helps us advance in the business world and may be paid for by the customer or their employer. There are three basic approaches:
What information does your customer need or want? Too little information and the customer may feel short-changed. It’s not only about operating instructions, you may find there is other information they appreciate, perhaps about other user’s experiences. A blog may be a good way to explore other dimensions of the work.
Too much information and the customer may become bored or impatient.
Turn this element of value to your advantage by being clear about the information on offer and how to access it. Offer guidelines so people can find the degree of information they seek. Offer more information to those who express interest.
This is the thirty-first of 31 posts about elements of value. Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below. The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:
This third basic story-type, may be suitable for many businesses, when it is about business origin and development. However, quest stories are usually very long, eg The Lord of the Rings or The Odyssey.
As you read the five stages of The Quest, you see parallels with Overcoming the Monster and Rags to Riches. You see also why quests take a lot of telling. For this reason, I have adapted a real-life story of a business origin. It shows how to cover a quest in 10 or fewer minutes. The business story is in red type.
The Quest often divides into two roughly equal parts, the journey (stage 2) and the final ordeals (4). This story is a journey with a purpose and so most of the story is about achieving the purpose. Often the hero and companions have no idea about the final ordeals until they reach the end of the journey. Here their first goals are usually radically modified.
The business story does not necessarily share the jeopardy of the traditional story. The hero journeyed to further her second best career. The final ordeal was really a great opportunity. The traditional story offers an underlying structure for a story that could become pointless. We’re on the side of the little girl with a dream, who achieves it in a few years. The story is more satisfying when presented this way and not as a simple account of what she did in New York. The person who told this story had already sensed this underlying shape to her story.
Let’s begin with the treasure. What the hero sets out to do or find is not necessarily what they do or find when they get to their destination. But their first promise sets their feet on the road and so it is important. Typically, it is one of these:
The treasure is a big part of the call and may be sufficient to get the hero and companions moving. Sometimes they need more.
Clearly, the treasure is left behind, if the home is under threat. This means the hero and companions are moving towards danger and this may not be at all attractive. So, there will be some menace at home. Something that puts them in danger even if they stay. They may be pursued on their journey.
A different type of pursuit is the race, where a rival group are seeking the same treasure.
The word companion means one with whom you share bread. You can see the French word for bread in the word if you look closely! They are the people who go with the hero and help or hinder her progress. They share the risks and dangers of the journey. There are four different types of companion.
Helpers provide respite and guidance. On the journey, following an ordeal, the helper provides a safe haven and useful advice. Remember Elrond and Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings. This type of support is typically provided by an old man and a young woman.
Sometimes, defeat of an enemy leads to them converting into a helper. Circe in the Odyssey, once defeated helps Ulysses with his quest.
It is always worth asking in any business story: from where did help and support come? Many business owners see themselves as the hero of their own story. Heroes accept help and offer it to companions and helpers. Teamwork is often an essential element in business development.
Respite and guidance are one function of the journey. As the journey progresses, the hero learns more of the problem they face and what’s at stake. The other thing they face is ordeals. Sometimes ordeals are stories in their own right. You can see why quest stories can be very long! So, what sort of ordeals? There are four basic types:
Business and personal stories have their share of competitors or other obstructive people, distractions, the need to find the right path between two equally bad options and giving up the entire enterprise.
Key to understanding the quest is the final ordeal. The hero reaches journey’s end with all or some of their companions. They discover things are not as they expected. There is some final, apparently insurmountable barrier.
This part of the story can take as long to tell as the journey. The journey equips the hero and companions with knowledge and experiences they need to overcome this final obstacle. The reward at this stage is to secure the original goal.
The ordeal is often three-fold and the test is one only the hero can pass. At the beginning of the journey they had little or no hope and now they can work out how to overcome the ordeal.
The little girl who watched The Wedding Planner many times over, would not have been able to organise the big event on New York. She needed training and experience as well as to travel a long way!
The outcome depends on the goal of the quest. The goal changes because things rarely work out exactly as planned. However, we recognise the goal is achieved.
There is a sense of renewal in many quest stories. The typical marriage of the hero and her partner and their benevolent role in their kingdom is likely. But there is a strong sense of renewal for everyone because some threat is overcome and people can live in peace.
This is the third of Booker’s seven plot types. Remember the aim is not to put your story into a straitjacket but to help structure your marketing story in a way that resonates with your market.
Next time we’ll look at a plot that on the surface is similar to the Quest. Voyage and Return is the second about journeying and presents some very different challenges.