Periodic Table of Storytelling

I stumbled over this on Twitter a few days ago, but I actually think it deserves a bit more than the 140 characters I gave it then.

This table, put together by ComputerSherpa, is pretty ingenious (and fun to explore). It’s a collection of tropes that can be combined in a great number of ways to describe different kinds of stories.

Clearly, this was put together using a good deal of humor. Still, I think it’s worthwhile to point out that this table, as well as any other narrative model, only has descriptive, not formative, value. There is no finite number of ways to construct a narrative.

Storytelling is a complex and ever-evolving form that cannot be reduced to dogmas. I used to call it “the pancake approach” when people would assume that it is possible to come up with some sort of recipe for stories — recipes that would list a certain combination of “ingredients” (tropes) that when combined would surely produce stories — in the same way as following a recipe for pancakes will surely give you pancakes.

Historically we know, of course, that this is not true: The narrative form has always been evolving, and what we consider a story today was not considered a story a hundred years ago. Hence, it is impossible for any static model to grasp the non-static narrative form.

However, I do believe that the ongoing evolution of the narrative form feeds off of any presently existing tradition. It is by contrasting what is, and what has been, that new – intriguing — forms of storytelling develop. It may be the true value of the periodic table of storytelling, and other narrative models, that they provide the necessary contraposition for new kinds of stories to develop.

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