10 Secrets Many Writers and Readers Still Need to Learn from Aristotle about Great Storytelling
So many go to the ancient Greek master for storytelling wisdom, but leave most of the rich feast Aristotle provides on the table.
The wisdom of Aristotle’s philosophy of story, as found in his Poetics, is often cited by storytellers, especially screenwriters.
There are even entire screenwriting manuals devoted to Aristotle’s philosophy of story: Ari Hiltunen’s Aristotle in Hollywood and Michael Tierno’s Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters.
Yet I submit that most of those who turn to Aristotle for advice have not plumbed the full wisdom of the ancient Greek master and of the tradition of storytelling that developed from it—a tradition that features Dante’s Divine Comedy as the jewel in its crown.
Here are 10 “secrets” from the Aristotelian tradition of storytelling too often ignored by writers and readers:
1. There is not just a philosophy of story, but storytelling itself is a kind of philosophizing. In fact, it is a kind of moral philosophy, a reflection on human action.
2. As a reflection upon and imaging of human action, storytelling concerns the quest for the ultimate good that all human beings aim for: happiness.
3. By happiness, Aristotle does not mean essentially (as we often do) a positive feeling. Happiness for Aristotle is an activity, not a feeling. It is a doing. More particularly, it is a doing that brings our human powers, especially our rational powers, to excellence (or virtue).
4. The fact that happiness is the excellent functioning of the powers of human nature implies that there is such a thing as human nature and that it has an end “built” into it.
5. There is a distinction between the “end” of human nature and the “purposes,” the particular decisions, that a given individual may make. When the purposes of a story-protagonist clash with the “end” of human nature, there is dramatic conflict—conflict screenwriters often refer to, ambiguously, as a conflict between “wants” and “needs.”
6. Storytelling is not only a kind of moral philosophy, it is also a branch of logic. Why? Because, like other branches of logic, it concerns the making of arguments.
7. That’s right: a story is a kind of argument, an argument about what truly makes for human happiness.
8. Because storytelling is an argument, it aims at truth, at real ethical knowledge. But the way a story persuades us of the truth is not exclusively rational (as in other branches of logic), but is emotional as well.
9. The form of a good story’s argument is dialectical—i.e., it takes up conflicting views about what makes for human happiness—views not simply stated but embodied in the actions and thoughts of the characters—and sifts through them, seeking insight into the best resolution of the conflict.
10. For Dante, the highest and best genre of storytelling is comedy, because comedy images the resolution of all conflict in the ultimate source of happiness: God.
***BONUS SECRET: Aristotle never talked about “three-act structure,” as screenwriting manuals often attest. He talked, rather, about stories having “a beginning, middle, and end,” which is not the same thing as act-structure. Hamlet has five acts, not three, yet it still conforms to Aristotle’s principle that a story have a beginning, middle, and end.
How strange the tales we often enjoy in light of what the Aristotelian tradition has to offer!
How much richer our stories would be if they drew upon this wisdom!
There are lot of big ideas compressed in those 10 points. Questions and comments welcome.
(I spared you the scholarly citations of my 10 points, but if you want to delve into those just let me know in the comments.)