First and last stories
I am reading Neil Gaiman’s ‘Ananzi Boys’ at the moment. He is one of my favourite writers because he mixes complete mundane reality with magical, mythical stories that are a total gift! A recurring theme in most of his works (in my opinion) is that the first stories – stories that were told as the world of was first formed – are the basis of all the tales and stories that come after.
I have also heard that there are actually only 27 plots in the world and that all stories, whether film, book, theatre, comic etc follow one or more of these basic plots. (I have tried to track this theory to its source and failed so if anyone else has heard of it or knows where I can learn more about it please let me know.)
But all this got me to thinking about blogging, PR and journalism. How many ways of telling a story are there? And why are there so few of us who get it right? What is the secret to a great story?
Some stories are all plot and no character (Da Vinci Code) and others all character and no plot (The Rock Alphabet). Occasionally there are books which seem to have neither (anything by Maeve Binchy) and still others which have both (Shantaram) but in the end – its the telling which makes it worth listening to.
And that’s why, in the corporate world anyway, we have PR people – we are company storytellers. I like to think of myself as a truthteller but that might be a little optimistic – its still PR after all.
