As the New Year arrives, I am working on a new book entitled How to Write Stories to Explore Possible Worlds which I plan to have out later this year. The premise is that it is difficult to evaluate the ethics of emerging ideas from technology and social policy because we tend to evaluate these things in terms of the world as it currently is rather than the world that will be brought about. How do we get a better handle on the possible worlds that may be brought about? My answer is by writing stories to explore the possibilities. In order to make a little more room for these stories, I thought I should look at the variety of stories that we have today and wedge in stories to explore possible worlds.
A story written to explore a Possible World may be like other stories in some ways and different in other ways. To make a little more room for this idea, I thought it would be useful to show that there is not a single generic concept of a story. Stories are written for a wide variety of purposes, of which exploring Possible Worlds is just one, albeit a small one at the present. To avoid confusion, I should mention that in an earlier post I asked why writers write stories. In that case we were talking about the writer's purpose. Now we are going to move to the story's purpose. This analysis of stories in terms of their purpose can be referred to as a teleological analysis. It is one of many ways to carve up the landscape of stories. However, it is useful for my purpose here because, although stories written to explore Possible Worlds may have a lot in common with other stories, there teleology is unique. So, in this post, I thought I would lay out some of that landscape to show how stories written to explore Possible Worlds can be the same or can be very different from other stories.
Let us begin with the easy case and ask - are there any things that all stories have in common? I think there are. First, stories provide imaginary scenarios in which humans are involved in some way. Granted some stories use animals instead, but those animals are anthropomorphized to represent humans. Second, stories provide something to the reader, listener or viewer that is considered to be of value. That could be anything from diversion to comfort, to profound insight. Finally, stories employ narrative reasoning (as opposed to logical reasoning) to achieve their goal. A story about robots or Vulcans would not be very interesting unless they were anthropomorphized or put into a human context. If you wrote a story about a mountain, or about a guy whose life was uneventful, it is unlikely that anyone would want to read it. And, if you wrote a story that read like a logical argument, it would not get many readers engaged. So, most stories are about people (that we care about) confronting events (that we are concerned about) expressed in a narrative (that we can relate to). Now, let us turn to differences.
A typical way, although far from the only way, to slice up the fiction landscape is to distinguish between literary and popular fiction. This is a reasonable dichotomy as it captures an important distinction between certain books. And, as with most dichotomies there are endless examples that don't fit. Nonetheless, I am going to use this to simplify things.
Generally, literary fiction is about personal growth and popular fiction is about escapism and enjoyment. I know that is a gross oversimplification but bear with me as I attempt to make a point here. Stories have purposes beyond the simple literary/popular dichotomy. For example, consider Grimm's Fairy Tales. Are they literary or popular? It would be easy to dismiss them as merely popular children's tales. But there is a significant personal growth factor to them. Fairy tales and folktales often do double duty in that they entertain, but they also convey important values. Little Red Riding Hood, for example, teaches children not to talk to strangers (the wolf) and to listen to her mother (don't go through the woods). Does this make them literary? Well, that is a stretch. All one must do is to read a few of these tales to see that. Today we have the benefit of children's stories that are told at two levels: one for the children and one for the adult. Examples include The Wizard of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth. This was not the case with fairy tales. But fairy tales do convey important values which is a purpose that does not fit easily into the literary/popular dichotomy.
In fact, books are written for any number of purposes that do not fit neatly into the literary/popular dichotomy. There purposes may be to advance a political objective, provide an alternative interpretation of historical events, affect the direction of future events and so on. Stories are written for a purpose. This is not the same as the theme. The theme hopefully serves the purpose. But the two are different. And every element of a story must serve the purpose of the story.
Going back to the literary/popular dichotomy, the purpose of a literary work may be to push boundaries in the art of fiction, and the purpose of a popular piece might be to make the bestseller list or draw attention to the author. These are not the only purposes, far from it. But there is a purpose behind every story because stories were created by humans and humans have motivations. And, that purpose may be implicit or explicit. It may be focused or fragmented. But there is a purpose. And the only way to judge a story is in how well it achieves its main purpose.
Getting back to Possible Worlds, the primary purpose of the story is to be a thought experiment about a possible future as opposed to a change in a character that occurs as the result of confronting a conflict. In this way, stories about possible Worlds are quite different from more traditional stories. But they are not the only stories that are different. For, example, while the basic structure of having a character confront a challenge is the basis for many stories, it is not the basis for all. Detective fiction has the protagonist resolve a mystery and may not be changed at all by the experience. And if they are changed, this is secondary to the resolution of the mystery. So, stories about Possible Worlds are different from some stories and similar to some other stories. Well, I guess that can be said of all stories.
