Gregg Morris a writer and narrative consultant based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, attended the Smithsonian Conference on Storytelling this past weekend (#storycon #storytelling) tweeted @Bonifer with this question:
Investigate ’story’ & you will find enough definitions to make you dizzy. Have you formulated a definition for ‘narrative’? Thanks!
We appreciate questions that put the GameChangers fundamentals to the test, it’s good learning, and this is one question that had never been asked quite so directly as the way Gregg phrased it. Because we at GameChangers are such self-proclaimed champions of (improvised) narrative, and because our work contrasts narrative and story, I should have a good answer for Gregg’s question, right?
Here’s what I came up with:
narrative: a flow of events connected to a theme. story: the conscious ordering of these events to elicit meaning.
@greggvm tweets back :
@Bonifer Thank you sir! What a wonderful and succinct definition of both. #gamechangers
Here, in allegorical terms is the difference. Narrative is how Native Americans saw a river. Story is a fish caught from that river by a boy who gets named Big Fish by his tribe.
Today, a friend of ours, Natan Volkovich, wrote this in his Facebook status:
has walked the earth for 23 years. Looking back, my memories feel as but single frames in a long and lengthy film that has come to this precise moment. Running through in fast forward, I feel an awesome sense of fortune at having lived those frames and learned from their images. My gratitude goes out to all that have played an important role in shaping the movie that continues to piece itself together in my mind.
That is Natan’s story. His narrative is the frame he’s standing in now…
Tags: Big Fish, Flow, Gregg Morris, Narrative, Natan Volkovich, Native American, Newtonian Narrative, Quantum Narrative, River, Smithsonian, story, Story Conference, Theme
Mikey baby – awesome that you’re riffing on this. I actually had Lily Liu from AARP pose me the same question in my session at the Smithsonian/GoldenFleece Storytelling Conference.
Despite my love of semantics, I’m not one to get my knickers in a bunch around the distinction between narrative and storytelling. Still the questions was posed, and so here was my answer if I recall right:
A story recounts a causal series of events – more so as an artifact or outcome, whereas a narrative suggests a more conscious act of choice and self-awareness (the consequences that come out of choice). Like being the narrator of our own story. But still one can totally argue the opposite, which I think is what you suggest in your initial post above. Still, we seem to agree that narrative is a more elegant term to describe the process of framing one’s point of view.
All that said, I am more partial to using “storytelling” because its vernacular, pop culture accessible, of the people. “Narrative” makes it all sound more rarified, with tweed jackets and horn rimmed glasses. And I’m all for stripping down the artifice where we try to over-rationalize this story stuff to death. Just my two pesos…
In a related sense – IMHO, its less how you tell the story, and exponentially more important to have a story worth telling. Arguing about definitions especially with something like storytelling vs narrative, (which I consider to be the prima materia of reality) is like debating whether God likes to eat pancakes or flapjacks for brunch on Sunday. Either way, go easy on the syrup.
Believe me, I don’t like semantic battles. Sometimes, though, a person does have to de-construct for clarity. Almost daily, for example, we address a parallel issue to the one Denning describes, the ‘improv = comedy’ perception, which is why we never call what we do improv, it’s always improvisation. My purpose in drawing the distinction was initially to express a kind of understanding of Denning’s need to change up his diom. We can relate.
Here are some other recurring issues that the distinction between narrative and story can help address:
- what do you call the morass of non-linear messaging generated by social networks, causes, and platforms that aren’t discernably stories yet at the same time are connected via something more than the underlying technologies? One thing they can be called is narrative elements, meaning that what defines the morass itself, what the elements have in common, is narrative. Storytelling is the act of lining them up to make sense of it all.
- what role does the customer/audience play? How do we involve them in our brand’s story? (They generate narrative elements that are composed by the brand into stories.)
- how do we address the ever-changing business environment, and the fact that no plan (i.e. story) can survive the network effect intact? (The distinction between narrative and story can address this question, too. Narrative is the constant; story adapts to the changing environment.)
God eats blintzes for brunch, btw ; )
Hi folks
Great question and was someone overhearing a few conversations from Friday and Saturday that many of us were having??? If storytelling and narrative are the same, then we lose out on the possibility of differentiation, and the world of story is so huge a territory and so vague, any distinctions that we can make, the better to be able to understand it. For me at the center for Narrative studies, it has always been very clear-blood is what is flowing in the veins, and Haemetology is the study of blood, so stories is what we do, and the study of stories is narrative. I ground that usage in other disciplines of narrative therapy which is much more than story therapy, and narrative theolgoy or narrative psychology which is interested in the way stories work, or even narrative geography, my latest foray into the narrative world and maps. Some might want to use the term narratology, but that seems forced and not in use that much. Narrative is the study of stories, how they work, a balcony view rather than a dance floor view to quote Heifeitz. And that is what I feel is so necessary, because stories draw us in, they want us to get lost in them, but narrative and Maps of narrative practice, the title of the late and great Michael White’s last book, allows us to work out the story of the story, to work out where a story is taking us. I know that narrative is still used for story etc but when I hear people claiming that storytelling can transform the business world, I think-no, but narrative can, and a deep understanding of how we story our life to make sense of it, that claim I believe is far more substantial because narrative draws from hermeneutics and literary critical theory, and translation and all the lanaguage and interpretive arts. I would rather have storytelling be storytelling, the ancient art of the practice of, and it is a verbal formation, which means, it is caught in the act. But narrative is story telling and story listening and stories as patterns and stories as genres and the interpretive work that goes on between the big story and the small story, the new story and the old story. That is the dynamics of narrative, a much bigger story than storytelling.
If was smart enough to figure out a way to ask other than directly, I would!
Mike, that was a wonderful post. Thank you for answering my tweet, directly (backatcha’!) and then with this post as well. The comment from Michael, and then your response as well, were both thoughtful and thought provoking. I’ll post this in tomorrow morning’s Storytelling and maybe we can expose some more people to this dialogue. I know that Michael’s background is in anthropology. May I ask what yours is? I am curious too as to whether either of you have been exposed to Crites’ Narrative Quality of Experience or the work of Stanley Hauerwas. If so, what effect, if any, have they had on your thinking on narrative?
One other thing. I WISH I had been at the Storytelling Weekend. I was there in Twitter spirit thanks to Michael and in audio spirit thanks to what Steve Denning has been posting.
Thanks again for your thoughts on this. I feel Luke to both of your Yodas.
Gregg
It’s simple: a narrator narrates a story, a storyteller generates the existence of an idea.
[...] The Difference Between Narrative and Story [...]
Awesome discourse here gents. I am neither a narrative expert nor a “professional” storyteller. My background is in design (architectural) and has evolved into brand strategy and how that happens at the intersection of business, technology and culture. We look at how these three entities converge and how that convergence develops into new brand realities (and how design thinking guides this process).
I feel all parties’ differing perspectives have immense value.
With our company, we have a diverse set of clients. We are helping build brands for communities and cities as well as building brands for businesses and companies. In the realm of building brands for cities (where development dollars, gov’t funding, community involvement, etc converge), narrative is much more apropos. Narrative has the ability to support the weight of these entities. Narrative has the weight to effectively hold that space. Then what becomes germane to the equation: what are the stories that need to be told within these cities, within these communities, that continues to create the landscape that motivates interested parties to join in, contribute, and participate in the continued growth of a city and or a community/business or place.
At the end of the day, I think you also have to look at your context and your audience. What becomes the more opportune strategy? Positioning your engagement with a narrative or with a story? And as each of you communicated there is a need for both. How you approach it all depends on your environment, who you are talking to, and your objectives.
Thank you Mike, Michael, Paul, and Gregg. You gents came with it and I feel a billion times smarter and more equipped to discuss these ideas in our work.
Hi, first time I land here, thanks for creating an interesting place.
The question is a long standing one to the extent it seems to me we are waiting for someone to say “this is it”. As we well know, if someone would come up with scientific proof for a definition being right or wrong, most people would say “Amen”. Or it might be a person many people see as “expert” or at least a celebrity…
- If you are a storyteller, this question does not really bother you. If you’ll be able to take apart all the components of the entity called “woman” what will you have? Will you understand “woman” better? Are all those components spread out in-front of your knowledgeable eyes “woman”?
- If you are not a storyteller coming directly from art but rather a person coming to storytelling from a different discipline you are trying to evaluate storytelling with the tools and mindset you are accustomed to either in the academia, business, therapy, whatever.
But there is another way. I would say it combines the desire to deconstruct with the mindset of a storyteller. Here is my go, mentioned already in various places. Important notice – none of the entities behind each definition listed here stands alone in storytelling. They all work together and interrelate, inter-influence each other all the time. We are talking about a living form. Trying to make them stand still for a moment is only relevant if you remember the above.
Narrative is the playground of what will eventually materialize or not (depending on intention) into a story event – including the medium. Endless pieces of information, connections, sensations etc.
Plot is a choice taken in the narrative. A linear path of actions meeting details put in a certain way.
Story is the emotional arch that rises in the listener – listening to the plot, using parts of the narrative, some of them not mentioned at all in the plot.
The plot’s influence on the narrative is – form.
The way the story is expressed in the plot is – theme.
The purification of story in the narrative is – metaphor.
Saying that, if I try to relate to Paul’s work, the story (as defined here) can influence the narrative it echoes. The story gives the listener the motivation to create change or see beauty or whatever. We go back into our lives, change some of the narrative and this allows us to change the story.
If I’m relating to the brand question (and this is of course over simplified but workable) what marketers are dreaming about is getting to the metaphor. Since all the above are interrelated and necessary to the existence of a storytelling event, skipping a couple does not get them there…
I could go on, enough for now. There is no battle really; just push the window flaps wide open.
Regards,
Beautiful, Limor! Thank you for your eloquent additions to the conversation. I like the way you describe the relationship of story to narrative, and, further, the way you define the elements of form, theme and metaphor.
Speaking of metaphor, here’s the newest twist on Twitter: Annotations. http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/04/14/twitter-announces-annotations-add-metadata-tweet-starting-quarter-2/
Because, to your point, brands see metaphor as a kind of elixir, the tendency of many marketers will, I believe, be to read this fresh metadata as metaphor. Of course, this will be an illusion because, also to your point, the metadata does not stand alone. It belongs to a narrative.
This, I think, is a place to ‘open the window flaps wider,’ and intervene. Whenever we see people calling a hump a camel, it’s a business opportunity.
[...] and a story? We often use the word interchangeably, but there is a slight difference. The author Gregg Morris came up with narrative: a flow of events connected to a theme. story: the conscious ordering of [...]
[...] “narrative: a flow of events connected to a theme. story: the conscious ordering of these events to elicit meaning.” ? see: http://www.gamechangers.com/index.html/archives/1775 [...]
[...] and a story? We often use the word interchangeably, but there is a slight difference. The author Gregg Morris came up with narrative: a flow of events connected to a theme. story: the conscious ordering of [...]