How to Tell a Story | Aristotle

This episode of Books for Men features How to Tell a Story by Aristotle. A new translation (by Philip Freeman) of Poetics—Aristotle’s classic surviving text on the art of storytelling. Maybe the most important work ever written on the subject matter. Quite simply, what makes one story better than another story? Listen for more!

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I have a really interesting book to share with you. It is the first-ever reference book. And so I know you're probably saying to yourself, this is in high school, this isn't college. What do you mean reference book? This can't be interesting, but I assure you that it is, and it falls into the philosophy genre, and it's an updated translation of the classic Aristotle work, Poetics. And also, it’s accompanied by the original Greek text for anybody who can read Greek. I can't, and I don't anticipate many listeners can, or maybe I'm wrong, but you don't have to worry about that because it's translated into English. And although there have been translations of this book out for quite some time, I really liked this updated translation.

(01:07)

And you might be wondering, well, how many times have you read this book or how many times have you read Poetics? And I've read it a few times. The first time I read it was back in 2018 or 2019, and then I read it again a couple years later. And then one more time, when I found this most recent translation that came out in 2022, I read it at the beginning of this year, and that's what cued me as to wanting to share it with you. So, one of the big challenges of all translation, especially with work that has survived over 2000 years, and that in itself is quite a feat, is that sometimes it is very hard to understand. It is not always straightforward. It's hard to decipher what things actually mean because the meaning of words has changed and the phrasing has changed.

(02:04)

And you have to really sift between what the author's intent is and what actually is being written. And so at times, that could be quite challenging. Why I love this translation because it really simplifies it and it really makes it casual enough for anybody to understand the important aspects of Poetics. And so you might be asking yourself, well, who is the translator? He is Philip Freeman, and he's a professor at Pepperdine of Western Culture and the Humanities. He's a PhD in classics and Celtic studies. He is written a ton of books on ancient studies biography of Julius Caesar and similar translations as this book of works of Cicero. So he's not somebody who doesn't have subject matter expertise, and that is really important with any kind of work that is translated so you could trust the source. And I just found again, this book to be a great addition to my bookshelf, even though I have other copies of poetic.

(03:16)

This one is far and above better for modern times, at least from my perspective. And so just to backtrack quickly before I jump into what poetic is and why it's so important, Aristotle, who is he, right? I mean, I know you've heard the name before, but who is Aristotle? So he's an ancient Greek philosopher. Basically, he was a polymath, somebody who wrote on pretty much everything, logic, ethics, aesthetics, politics, and all different sciences. And as I already mentioned, often hard to understand because again, this was written over 2000 years ago. And so what is Poetics? Well, it's really just his surviving philosophical work on the nature of drama and tragedy. What makes one story better than another story? The interesting thing about this book is that the second half of it is lost. So the comedy aspect. So in drama, there's tragedy and then there's comedy.

(04:20)

And this book actually ends by introducing that second part, which is lost. Now with that being said, this text has been heralded by so many storytellers, both modern and historical as being the rules of storytelling. And so I use air quotes when I say rules because depending on the type of story that you're telling, of course, these are flexible and this really covers drama. However, I've found that this is a great way or a great lens to look at almost all stories no matter what form they are in. Whether you're looking at someone writing a story in lyrical form, or whether you're looking at a movie or a television show or a novel or I don't know, pick your favorite. I feel like this book really encapsulates what makes stories great, and perhaps what doesn't make stories great. And don't take it from me because I'm largely self-taught in all of my storytelling knowledge.

(05:30)

I don't want to shortchange myself at the same time because I've read a considerable amount on the topic at hand, and I've also put it into practice a few times. And so this book has been largely influential to me and probably will continue to be for the rest of my life. Again, I think that this most updated translation is casual enough for any reader to really engage with, and I think that that's where the true power is. But when I had said before, don't take it from me, the book actually starts off with a quote from Aaron Sorkin and his masterclass on drama or storytelling, and he says, “Rules are what make art beautiful. These rules also apply to writing. The rule book is Poetics by Aristotle. All the rules are there.” And so that's why I had said, don't take it from me, because there are storytellers, both cinematic and otherwise, that use poets as a foundational text for how they approach their work.

(06:40)

And maybe because some of those individuals are also people that I look up to as artists, whether it's Sorkin or David Mamet, potentially why I landed on this work so early in my storytelling life. And so, I'm happy I did, and I'm happy to share it with you here. And so I think I've given you enough context. Now, let me tell you a little bit about what some of the high-level conclusions are of Aristotle's work and what you can expect in the actual text. The first one would be all storytelling is a kind of imitation. And what he's talking about there is that storytelling is the imitation of actions, and actions are the driver of all storytelling. So what a character says is always secondary to what a character does. That is really, really important. And they kind of get into that a little bit more.

(07:43)

The next piece is every story has an appropriate length. And so what defines a story's appropriate length while the time it takes for that character to arc, right? So all stories have a character, a protagonist that starts someplace arcs to another place. How long does that take? What is necessary to convey that? For me, this is one of the essential things that makes me, I don't want to say hate but dislike the TV format in that I feel like it's too elongated. And I love movies because another aspect of Aristotle's theory is that stories must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And although TV shows do they feel like they just go on and on and on and on. And why I say that is because most television shows are written as one season, and then if they've done well, they will extend them out.

(08:41)

So by its very nature, it doesn't have a true beginning, middle, and end. Maybe that first season does, maybe that episode first couple of episodes do, but then it's figured out as, well, what are we going to do next? And that’s fine. But for me, a lot of the time, I like that beginning, middle, and end. You could see the whole story in your mind’s eye. It takes two hours. I really miss the days of movies that do that extremely well. And this leads me to the next high-level conclusion of Aristotle is that spectacle is secondary to the storyline. And we've entered a time period now in modern culture where spectacle is almost the primary driver of storytelling. In Aristotle's theory, there are six aspects to it, which are spectacle, music, speech, character, plot, and reasoning. So those six aspects are the things that makeup drama or tragedy.

(09:42)

And as I had just mentioned, we've entered a time period where spectacle is the primary driver. So if you believe in the Aristotle method of storytelling, we are doing it in a very ineffective or not-so-great way. Maybe it's great for commercial viability, but it's not great for the story as a whole. As Aristotle says, one of the quotes from the book, “To create pity and fear with spectacle and special effects has little to do with the art of writing and more with how much money the producer spends on stagecraft.” And so maybe you're saying to yourself pity and fear, but in his theory, pity and fear are what tragedy evokes. And by evoking that in your audience, brings a catharsis or a purging of emotions for them, and that's why they like it so much. So they feel sorry for the protagonist, or they're afraid for the protagonist and they purge their own emotions because they feel that so viscerally.

(10:51)

And so I don't want to get bogged down in this aspect because I want to cover a couple more high-level conclusions from the work. One of 'em is that plot is more important than the characters. So I know this is a very big or widely debated thing across storytelling forms, and you're going to find people who really feel like characters are the more important aspect than the plot. Maybe some would suggest that this is the difference between a literary work of fiction versus a genre work of fiction. I think you could probably blend the two together. And I think that those terms, there's a lot more gray area in practicality or in reality than the actual industry wants to give it credit for. Certainly, there are things that are pure literary fiction or pure genre fiction, but I think there's a whole slew of books that are really blended between the two.

(11:51)

And for me, I am also a plot-over-character person, but I also love literary fiction. The reason why I feel like the plot is so important is because you get really bored of a character that does nothing, and there's nothing that's happening to that character. One of the essential aspects of Aristotle's method of storytelling is that you have a character who has something they want, and there's something that stands in their way of getting that thing. And how those two things intersect in every scene or every chapter or potentially every sentence or in the entire book, is essential to that character either overcoming that objection or not overcoming it. But that conflict of someone wanting something and something standing in their way is essential to what makes great drama. And again, there's going to be people who say, well, novels aren't drama. Drama is drama.

(12:52)

Again, I feel like this is a great lens for all storytelling forms because of how effective I think it is. But you don't have to believe me or listen to me or agree with me. And that's what makes life great. But I will say, you should definitely read this book. So two other things, just high-level stuff that Aristotle hits on in the book is that the best conflict occurs between friends and family, which I also happen to agree with because there's the most emotion that's involved with that. And then also the most satisfying, tragic stories are about good people who make a mistake. And so this really is the foundational element of all storytelling, right? It's somebody who even if they are morally ambiguous, they have something that makes them appealing and they have a flaw or a fundamental flaw that hinders them, and potentially they have made a very big mistake that will also hinder them.

(13:58)

And how that individual actually tackles that obstacle is what makes a great story. So I'm not going to keep going on and on here. I think I've done enough to explain a lot about this text and why I think it's important. What I will say is probably my favorite quote from the original translation that I read is, “Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill.” And so what he's saying there is that there is a complication and a resolution in every story. And some poets or authors or writers, are really good at making a complication, but they are really poor at resolving it. And I think that as a whole, that is just a great way or a great lens to look at how is this story being complicated and is this story being resolved? And what he would conclude is that all solutions to a plot are proven and come from the story itself. So there shouldn't be all these externalities that come in and affect the plot or the story. Everything should be baked right into that story itself.

(15:15)

Okay, I promise I'm done. I'm not going to keep going on and on here. I hope you've found this episode impactful or interesting or entertaining or any of the above. If you have, I always want to remind you to please, please share this with friends, family members, or other people who you think might like it. As I always say, word of mouth is everything to spreading awareness in what this podcast specifically, it's inspiring more men to read and bring together men who do. And for those of you who listen all the time, I'd love for you to double down on that support and like rate, review, subscribe, and follow on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. It goes a long way in increasing that awareness. And lastly, if you want more information, you could visit BooksforMen.org where you can also sign up for the monthly newsletter, which is a roundup of all the episodes that you hear on the podcast, complete with links in full book and author information, best quotes from every book, which there will be plenty for this title that you have listened to today, I can assure you that. And lastly, there is also newsletter-only book recommendations. So there's a lot baked into the newsletter. And again, if you're interested in it, you could sign up at BooksforMen.org.