Why do stories matter to you? What do you get out of them?

[Muspelheim]

So if it's nothing that obvious, what am I missing? Am I without the capacity to appreciate something or is it really just not there? Am a sociopath? I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing something but, without a frame of reference, I have no idea what it is, or if it is, for that matter. The thought that keeps coming back to me is that this is what it would be like for someone who doesn't feel the rhythm of music in their body. But you can't miss what you've never had, you can barely even imagine it, so...

I was writing a really long and detailed explanation that it is not stories you hate, but Escape Fiction which is the predictable crap that everybody eats up, but I misclicked and lost it all. You try to help somebody and look what happens... Grrrr...

Anyway, you'll want to look up Interpretive Fiction (in my original post, I explained the differences and gave some examples of games with Interpretive Fiction stories that you might not have noticed (and many people say "sucked" or "didn't make sense", when in reality those people just didn't know how to use introspection to take the lessons the story is trying to teach to heart and learn how they could apply them to themselves and better themselves). You've merely matured and are now able to see how every mainstream story is exactly the same and boring. IF changes all that though (it abandons the 5-point story structure completely) and seeks only to teach in an entertaining way, and is usually completely unpredictable. You don't have to accept the lessons, if you don't want to, or if you don't trust the author's "expertise", but it is supposed to be a journey of the self, rather than a journey of a character's development. You can interpret the lessons and the story as it applies to you in ANY way you wish (hence the name "Interpretive Fiction").

For some reason, IF isn't taught in school. Instead you're supposed to read all of Shakespeare's utter garbage and a few poems for all of high school - even in advanced writing courses, inexplicably. So it's not very well known, though it should be.

If everyone involved in IF is that rude, pompous, petty and dismissive, then I'd rather not bother, thank you very much.

 

[Rattja]

snip

After reading your post a few times and thinking about it I'll just say this.

I think you lack something yes, I think you lack imagination. Or at least the ability to immerse yourself in a story.

It is not about what is going to happen, it is how it happens. In a game you can, to some extent, control how (and sometimes what)something happens, adding another layer.

Any story, be that a game, movie, book, speach or whatever else, have something they want to tell you beyond what is actually happening or being told. The moral will still be true, even though the story is not.

If truth is an issue for you, and things like magic and made up facts break the story for you, then you should just stay away from fiction.

 

[Angelous Wang]

Simplest answer.

To engage my mind, so that I am not bored.

That is the point of video games, to make me not bored.

 

[ATRAYA]

So if it's nothing that obvious, what am I missing? Am I without the capacity to appreciate something or is it really just not there? Am a sociopath? I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing something but, without a frame of reference, I have no idea what it is, or if it is, for that matter. The thought that keeps coming back to me is that this is what it would be like for someone who doesn't feel the rhythm of music in their body. But you can't miss what you've never had, you can barely even imagine it, so...

I was writing a really long and detailed explanation that it is not stories you hate, but Escape Fiction which is the predictable crap that everybody eats up, but I misclicked and lost it all. You try to help somebody and look what happens... Grrrr...

Anyway, you'll want to look up Interpretive Fiction (in my original post, I explained the differences and gave some examples of games with Interpretive Fiction stories that you might not have noticed (and many people say "sucked" or "didn't make sense", when in reality those people just didn't know how to use introspection to take the lessons the story is trying to teach to heart and learn how they could apply them to themselves and better themselves). You've merely matured and are now able to see how every mainstream story is exactly the same and boring. IF changes all that though (it abandons the 5-point story structure completely) and seeks only to teach in an entertaining way, and is usually completely unpredictable. You don't have to accept the lessons, if you don't want to, or if you don't trust the author's "expertise", but it is supposed to be a journey of the self, rather than a journey of a character's development. You can interpret the lessons and the story as it applies to you in ANY way you wish (hence the name "Interpretive Fiction").

For some reason, IF isn't taught in school. Instead you're supposed to read all of Shakespeare's utter garbage and a few poems for all of high school - even in advanced writing courses, inexplicably. So it's not very well known, though it should be.

If everyone involved in IF is that rude, pompous, petty and dismissive, then I'd rather not bother, thank you very much.

Once you learn about the differences between Interpretive Fiction and Escape Fiction, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Almost every Hollywood movie that comes out has the exact same plot, whether you realize it or not. A lot of games are like his too, though there are a few that use the immersion factor of games to their advantage, and create really compelling Interpretive Fiction stories (often unbeknownst to the player, to which many of them respond with "THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! WAH WAH WAH!"). My frustration with mainstream reactions to brilliance is very transparent in my post, and with good reason - because the creator will usually dumb down their forthcoming works and give them a shitty Escape Fiction structure in order to appease as wide an audience as possible.

Occasionally I will indulge in some old fashioned Escape Fiction, but only for its flashiness; you can bet it will not be for anything thought-provoking (or for any meaningful plot whatsoever). In general, it will be because it was a movie I liked as a child, and I am still nostalgic towards (such as Star Wars).

Captcha: case closed.
Indeed, my good Captcha... indeed.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I'm curious what the rest of you have to say about these questions because I've been thinking about 'em a lot lately and I honestly don't think I can answer them. A book has never changed my life in any meaningful way. A video game has never made me empathize with its characters. A comic book has never empowered me. I wasn't moved by those scenes in Spec Ops or Heavy Rain or The Walking Dead. The only modicum of enjoyment I take from storytelling is in sating my curiosity in finding out how authors resolve their plots, but since so much fiction is so similar, especially mainstream content, I can almost always figure out where something's going to go within the first fifteen to twenty minutes. I imagine feel much like anyone else does when they watch one of those terrible romance movies from the '40s; you know the man and woman will meet, fall in love, get pissed at one another, reconcile, and live happily ever after with fifty good Christian kids who all smoke Winstons. Culture is no less predictable to me today. And even when it is, the pleasure isn't all that intense.

Really you've never empathized with a character?
That's kind of sad.

The vast majority of stories, even among the best ones, are unreliable for the dissemination of information. You can't trust facts or most ideas shared in fictional works because important details and reality itself are frequently overlooked in service of the story itself. This ranges from topics as diverse as historic accounts, to the mechanics of lockpicking, to the emotional states of survivors, to, well, everything. The best that fictional stories can offer in this regard is the essence of an experience, the likes of which could easily be derived through a few moments of thought or glancing at the headlines in a web search. In other words, stories are godawful teachers.

You're legitimately bringing me down right now.

Storytelling is also a dubious source of morality. On what grounds do entertainers deign to teach us their non-expert life lessons? Why on Earth should we listen to them? How can you take them seriously when the limitations of entertainment media prevent them from fully discussing anything in depth?

I don't get it? Story telling is the only source of morality, besides like, the justice system, or getting your knuckles wrapped with a yard stick.
How would you explain to someone that rape was bad without telling them a story? Would you rape them?
I really hope you're joking because, I can understand disliking entertainment media because it's bland, overdone and predictable but to discount the entire art of storytelling because it's not comparable to tangible experience is beyond words.

Here's a hypothetical example that I've used before. How do you know World War 2 actually happened? It happened before you were born, I'm assuming. And you've only ever heard about in stories, whether those stories were in text books, documentaries, told by a teacher or fictional. So if WW2 never happened, and storytelling is a "dubious source of morality" how do we know genocide is wrong? Obviously not common sense because Hitler did it.

Where, or more importantly why do you draw the line between something that happened to you and something that happened to someone else (Real or not)?

My grandmother died earlier this month.
Now, you have no way of knowing or reason to believe that statement is true. It is true, but as it stands it's just a story.
Do you feel sorry for me? Do you empathize with my loss?

These are all just hypothetical examples that don't make a very good explanation but I'm kind of at a loss here.

So if it's nothing that obvious, what am I missing? Am I without the capacity to appreciate something or is it really just not there? Am a sociopath? I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing something but, without a frame of reference, I have no idea what it is, or if it is, for that matter. The thought that keeps coming back to me is that this is what it would be like for someone who doesn't feel the rhythm of music in their body. But you can't miss what you've never had, you can barely even imagine it, so...

I don't mean any offense by this but lack of empathy is a symptom of Sociopathy
Empathy shouldn't be reliant on absolute of an events credibility.
With a complete lack of faith in storytelling how do you get, or trust any information?

I'm sort of stumped, I might be on the far opposite end of the spectrum to the point I can't even comprehend where you're coming from.
I can see not liking fiction, fantasy or Sci-fi,
I can see not liking non fiction
I can see not liking comedy
I can see not liking Drama
or romance
or action
or horror
or thrillers
all of those groups have real good reasons not to like them, but to not like storytelling, to not have any feelings towards any story that could be told, I don't even know how to respond to that.

Maybe the thing you're missing is the inherent joy in escapism? Perhaps your day to day life is the coolest thing ever and you have no need to experience the perspective of anyone else. Maybe in the time it takes you to watch a movie or read a book you could just go and do something incredible.

...just what does a story mean to you?

storytelling is my main source of entertainment, and my job from time to time.
I find that the better writers do a better job writing compelling narratives than real people living their actual lives do. (Like the most interesting thing that happened that day would pale in comparison to the most interesting thing a writer could think up)

I'm able to get emotionally attached to fictional characters, and invested in fictional events, and I've never met anyone who couldn't (Except you apparently)

I'm a bit of an extreme case because I don't make the distinction between something that didn't happen and something that didn't happen to me. But if a series of events or state of mind is relatable I don't know what's stopping you.

 

[lacktheknack]

ITT: a person with antisocial disorder struggles to understand emotions.

You either get it and enjoy it for the inherent qualities of storytelling, or you don't.

This is <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.397709-The-Narcissism-Test?page=8#17133881>a bit <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.402724-Dont-say-thats-retarded-it-hurts-special-kids-feelings-NOT-ABOUT-CALLING-SPECIAL-KIDS-RETARDED?page=7#16644377>too <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.399080-Why-do-people-get-trolled#16353369>on the nose.

 

[SoranMBane]

For me, I think the main reason I enjoy stories is that I enjoy the emotional connection I can build with a well-written character. You see, I'm at this weird place where I find it very easy to empathize with others, but I'm very shy and withdrawn, so I find it difficult to actually interact with people in person unless I'm already on familiar terms with them. Fiction gives me a safe place to engage with other people on an emotional level without having to actually interact with them. Of course, there are other reasons I can enjoy fiction, depending on the story (contemplating its themes and morals, exploring interesting new worlds, experiencing visceral fun, etc.), but that's the main thing I get from stories, regardless of the medium; the engagement with the characters.

 

[PeterMerkin69]

Thanks for all of the replies, Escapists. Lots of interesting perspectives here, and that's exactly what I wanted. Uhm, but not the literary kind. Ahem.

Another thing with which I struggle is to pick a favorite movie. Everyone has one, right? That's what they say, anyway. Not me. I obviously have ones that I like but nothing that really gets me exicted just talking about it. When people ask me that I honestly have no idea how to reply to that question. And given that the available body of work is so big, there should be something I can feel that about, or at least that's what makes sense to me. But I just don't.

I love A Song of Ice and Fire, for instance, but I didn't really feel any connections to the characters when reading it. I was grinning from ear to ear when I read a handful of chapters that, apparently, made other people cry(?), refuse to read the rest of the series, etc. I was mostly just happy that something finally surprised me for once. And they're obviously well written books. But emotional investment in fiction seems so unnatural and alien to me that I have trouble believing people when they say a movie scared them, or a book made them sad, or anything like that.

This isn't true for games. I can rattle off a list of my ten favorites. But it's because I enjoy the gameplay or and imagery, not because I can relate to their protagonists. Unsurprisingly, a lot of them are games wherein you get to create your own character, where you actually get to put yourself into another world, rather than the other way around.

Are you really at a better means? Are you really going to explore issues from all around the world on your own? Unless you can teleport and/or have omnipotence, I don't believe so. Also, not caring about the perspectives of others because you can't trust them is pretty cynical and selfish, no offense.

None taken, but I don't think I phrased that clearly enough. By directly, I meant by viewing studies, listening to news reports(for the sake of argument, pretend they're reliable), asking other people on forums... in other words, experiencing them without risking a game of telephone from yet another intermediary between myself and the event.

The thing is that to me, listening to a million facts about the Holocaust is more useful than listening to a handful of survivor accounts from Auschwitz victims. You can only hear how atrocious an experience it was so many times before you get the point. Raw facts, on the other hand, can't be as easily inferred from the premise, and you can make much more reasonable conclusions with them than with your feelings. Like, how big of a memorial you're going to need, or how much food for the survivors you just liberated, or what zyklon does to the human body.

Spoiler: click for rest

Okay, so that was a dirty lie, there's no story. What I wanted to point out is that, unless you truly are a special snowflake, you just pictured a man walking down a street. A man who doesn't exist, and will never exist, but exists in your mind as an idea built upon by your own experiences in life. I find something inherently amazing about that.

For what it's worth, I saw her walking toward me from a first person perspective.

"Interpretive Fiction"

Honestly I'm sure I've experienced it at some point or another, but... what the Hell? I'll try anything twice.

How would you explain to someone that rape was bad without telling them a story? Would you rape them? I really hope you're joking because, I can understand disliking entertainment media because it's bland, overdone and predictable but to discount the entire art of storytelling because it's not comparable to tangible experience is beyond words.

That's beyond the scope of the thread, but the short answer is that you can't, because it's not. Our morals and ethics are informed by our feelings. In their absence you're more or less free to do whatever you want. It mostly traces back to a point of contention known as the is/ought problem, but for people who aren't automatically repulsed by the idea of rape or its consequences(getting caught, the financial strain it places on the society in which they live), they're largely immune to the whole concept of wrongness.

Here's a hypothetical example that I've used before. How do you know World War 2 actually happened? It happened before you were born, I'm assuming. And you've only ever heard about in stories, whether those stories were in text books, documentaries, told by a teacher or fictional. So if WW2 never happened, and storytelling is a "dubious source of morality" how do we know genocide is wrong? Obviously not common sense because Hitler did it.

I was referring primarily to fictional stories in my OP, not historical accounts or otherwise anything thoroughly documented.

ITT: a person with antisocial disorder struggles to understand emotions.

You either get it and enjoy it for the inherent qualities of storytelling, or you don't.

This is <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.397709-The-Narcissism-Test?page=8#17133881>a bit <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.402724-Dont-say-thats-retarded-it-hurts-special-kids-feelings-NOT-ABOUT-CALLING-SPECIAL-KIDS-RETARDED?page=7#16644377>too <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.399080-Why-do-people-get-trolled#16353369>on the nose.

Yeah but self diagnoses are so unreliable...

 

[Fox12]

I'm curious what the rest of you have to say about these questions because I've been thinking about 'em a lot lately and I honestly don't think I can answer them. A book has never changed my life in any meaningful way. A video game has never made me empathize with its characters. A comic book has never empowered me. I wasn't moved by those scenes in Spec Ops or Heavy Rain or The Walking Dead. The only modicum of enjoyment I take from storytelling is in sating my curiosity in finding out how authors resolve their plots, but since so much fiction is so similar, especially mainstream content, I can almost always figure out where something's going to go within the first fifteen to twenty minutes. I imagine feel much like anyone else does when they watch one of those terrible romance movies from the '40s; you know the man and woman will meet, fall in love, get pissed at one another, reconcile, and live happily ever after with fifty good Christian kids who all smoke Winstons. Culture is no less predictable to me today. And even when it is, the pleasure isn't all that intense.

The vast majority of stories, even among the best ones, are unreliable for the dissemination of information. You can't trust facts or most ideas shared in fictional works because important details and reality itself are frequently overlooked in service of the story itself. This ranges from topics as diverse as historic accounts, to the mechanics of lockpicking, to the emotional states of survivors, to, well, everything. The best that fictional stories can offer in this regard is the essence of an experience, the likes of which could easily be derived through a few moments of thought or glancing at the headlines in a web search. In other words, stories are godawful teachers.

Storytelling is also a dubious source of morality. On what grounds do entertainers deign to teach us their non-expert life lessons? Why on Earth should we listen to them? How can you take them seriously when the limitations of entertainment media prevent them from fully discussing anything in depth?

Some people say that storytellers simply archive their environment, perhaps tinting it with their own perspective. But I'm already a part of that environment, interacting with it directly is a much better means of exploring it. And I just don't care about, and probably can't trust, their perspectives anyway.

So if it's nothing that obvious, what am I missing? Am I without the capacity to appreciate something or is it really just not there? Am a sociopath? I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing something but, without a frame of reference, I have no idea what it is, or if it is, for that matter. The thought that keeps coming back to me is that this is what it would be like for someone who doesn't feel the rhythm of music in their body. But you can't miss what you've never had, you can barely even imagine it, so...

...just what does a story mean to you?

A complex question, but let me try and give you a relatively simple answer. First of all, I'm also able to guess what will happen next in a story. I'm a writer, so I already know there are only a handful of directions a story can go in, depending on the beliefs of the writer. Ergo, the villain may win or lose depending on the pessimism of the author. However, my music major friend put it best. He said it's almost impossible to find good music, complex music, or original music, but he appreciates the good music even more than everyone else because he understands why it is good. That's how I feel about writing. It's a sort of art I enjoy, observe, and judge.

As for storytelling's importance to society, it allows us to express ideas that we couldn't explore otherwise. If you read Lord of the Flies, it gives a pretty good breakdown of the fundamental faults of human society. You can tie it in to WW2 and the rise of fascism, or to the French Revolution, or any number of other world events. Sure, the writer could have just stated his opinion, but telling a story actually allowed for a far more compelling argument.

Fiction, or I should say good fiction, does have a large impact on our society. 1984 voiced the fears of an entire generation, and gave a warning to the dangers of statism. No, the exact situation created in the book couldn't really happen, but if you let that distract you then your missing the forest for the trees. The Jungle directly affected United States legislation, influencing the food safety regulations we have in place today. Charles Dickens novels were social commentary on the evils of society at that time. Good literature drags the problems most people ignore out into the light, and forces them to acknowledge the ugly truths about the world. Not all art is beautiful, some art exists to make you see the problems that exist.

Keep in mind, most writers write for themselves. Writing can be very therapeutic, and may allow them to express the nagging questions in their own lives. Would Lord of the Rings be the same if Tolkien had never gone too war? He wrote early drafts of the story in the trenches, so I have to assume no. The same is true of Hemingway. Art, in general, is what gives life flavor and value.It would be a dreary world without it. High art makes us acknowledge things we'd rather avoid.

I assume you consume a lot of commercial fiction, which I also enjoy, but I would recommend reading some classic literature as well. Most of your complaints seem to describe escapist storytelling, which is meant to distract you from your problems, as opposed to artistic storytelling, which makes you acknowledge them.


As for me, personally I can't enjoy any video game that doesn't have a decent story, but there are different games for different people.

 

[Dangit2019]

\

Are you really at a better means? Are you really going to explore issues from all around the world on your own? Unless you can teleport and/or have omnipotence, I don't believe so. Also, not caring about the perspectives of others because you can't trust them is pretty cynical and selfish, no offense.

None taken, but I don't think I phrased that clearly enough. By directly, I meant by viewing studies, listening to news reports(for the sake of argument, pretend they're reliable), asking other people on forums... in other words, experiencing them without risking a game of telephone from yet another intermediary between myself and the event.

The thing is that to me, listening to a million facts about the Holocaust is more useful than listening to a handful of survivor accounts from Auschwitz victims. You can only hear how atrocious an experience it was so many times before you get the point. Raw facts, on the other hand, can't be as easily inferred from the premise, and you can make much more reasonable conclusions with them than with your feelings. Like, how big of a memorial you're going to need, or how much food for the survivors you just liberated, or what zyklon does to the human body.

Spoiler: click for rest

Okay, so that was a dirty lie, there's no story. What I wanted to point out is that, unless you truly are a special snowflake, you just pictured a man walking down a street. A man who doesn't exist, and will never exist, but exists in your mind as an idea built upon by your own experiences in life. I find something inherently amazing about that.

For what it's worth, I saw her walking toward me from a first person perspective.

Oh, then you're problem isn't against stories there, it's logic over emotion. I can't help you with that as I am not a Vulcan.

 

[nepheleim]

A story is 26 letters and a handful of punctuation creating art that outlasts civilizations. It's basically magic. But as to your question, Neil Gaiman answered this already.

***** Note: If there is some forum rule against giant quotations please let me know. *************

Spoiler

"There was a girl, and her uncle sold her. Put like that it seems so simple.

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived and then by some means or other, died. there. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'll mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection) but still unique.

Without individuals we see only numbers, a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, "casualties may rise to a million." With inidividual stories, the statistics become people- but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themsleves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child's swollen, swollen belly and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, this skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from the inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted distended cariacture of a human child?...

We draw our lines around these moments of pain, remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.

Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book and resume our lives.

A life that is, like any other, unlike any other.

And the simple truth is this: There was a girl, and her uncle sold her."
Gaiman "American Gods"

Spoilered(sp?) to prevent giant block of text.