This video brings up all sorts of questions about storytelling and the effect of good storytelling on brain chemicals and personal behaviour. Can an effective story increase altruistic behaviour?
I had an interesting phone call this morning from a fundraising campaign. They wanted sponsorship for a cause that I considered reasonably appropriate - a support book for soldiers with post traumatic stress syndrone. The telemarketer was using quite emotive words that were clearly meant to make me more altruistic - 'young diggers', 'kids' etc. When I said, 'kids' don't you mean adult soldiers? He had to agree but still kept on presenting Australian soldiers as poor suffering kids. He didn't tell me a story either.
So story techniques can be used for all sorts of purposes but you can't dot point the technique though. You have to tell the story and tell it in a way that engages.
Watch out for the 'dramatic arch' idea however, on it's own it is not enough to make a good story. Listeners need to be able to recognise the setting and empathise with the characters. It helps heaps if characters in the story actually speak and there has to be a resolution. That was one thing that annoyed me about the story in the video. We weren't told the resolution. The story ended with the problem.
Hopefully Aussie Diggers will have some good resolution to their issue of getting better support for those of them suffering from the impacts of serving in the defence forces. Here's the FaceBook link
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Young-Diggers/127819490624464
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