How Stories Made, Then Broke, and Can Still Heal The World

I'm not going to lie, the last eight years, one month, and thirteen days of my life have been flat-out amazing.

During that time, I have had the incredible honour of learning with and then teaching hundreds of professional and aspiring storytellers, while I myself wrote (sometimes for money!) for comics, film, web series, and corporate advertising. 

My students have been screenwriters, novelist, actors, directors, producers, animators, video game designers, social media marketers, business professionals, moms and dads, grandmas and grampas. 

They've come in all shapes and sizes, all ages, genders, and stages of life, and arrived from different backgrounds and levels of experience with a diverse range of personal and professional goals. 

They are high school students, full-time employees, working moms, and retirees. Boomers, Xers, millennials, Zs, and eventually, whatever comes next. They’ve come from all over the world and somehow ended up around classroom tables and in convention rooms, offices, and labs where I have the crazy privilege of leading them on journeys that change their lives and mine.

Some just want to see if they’ve got a book in them. Others want to sell an award-winning script or best-selling novel. Some have had a story brewing inside for so long, they know they’ll explode if they don’t get it out, while others are like a blank page, ready to start completely from scratch. Some have been writing forever, others have never written a thing in their entire life. Some are ready to rock ‘n’ roll, others are terrified. 

But they all have one thing in common: they are extremely motivated to write. To begin (or continue) creating worlds and characters they hope will entertain and inspire their fellow human beings.

Oh, and almost all of them have one other thing in common: They don’t get how seismically, explosively, world-changingly powerful story is. Not yet, at least.

I know what you might be thinking. Really, Paul: world-changing? I mean, sure, I was moved by stories people read to me when I was a kid. And I've perused a few on my own. And, hey, who doesn’t love a great movie or TV show? But world-changing? That’s a bit much, isn’t it?

Nope. Don’t believe me?

Story Make (or Break) Our World

Answer this question: Do you believe that every human being is worthy of equal respect and opportunity, regardless of age, gender, orientation, or any other involuntary personal consideration? That everyone should have some say in the way society runs and the laws that govern daily life? 

If you live somewhere in the western hemisphere, I’m going to take a wild stab and guess your answer is “yes”. But does everyone in the world believe in the equal rights of all? Not by a long shot. In fact there are entire countries and regions of the world that don’t believe this, several in fact, with policies or practises that quite clearly express their belief that all people do not have equal rights. 

Meanwhile, our belief in universal equality is so deep, so automatic, such a given, that we call human rights “inherent” and “inalienable”, and shake our heads of the rest of the world for just not getting it.

But here’s a truth that may shock you: the only reason we believe in equal human rights is because that’s the story we’ve been telling each other in this part of the world for the past 350-ish years. The story is called “democracy”, and it’s attached to an even older story that goes back to the time of the ancient Greeks. There is clearly no globally-agreed-upon consensus regarding equal human rights or we wouldn’t have a thing called the United Nations trying so desperately to build one. Democracy is an idea, facilitated by a story (or more accurately, stories) proposing that nations, communities, families, and individuals live better, freer, happier lives with democracy than without it. It’s a story that motivates us, drives us, inspires us, propels us. . 

Pretty powerful for a story, right? 

And it's one we've been telling each other for a long time, so long in fact that we assume it's truth is universally accepted. The fact that it isn't embraced by all is a reminder that it is, in the end, just a story.

Adolph Hitler had a story. 

Mahatma Gandhi had a story. 

ISIS has a story. 

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a story. 

Martin Luther King had a story (fuelled by a dream). 

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, had a story. 

The current American President has a story. 

And that’s just the twentieth century! 

I could go on forever. And given the right conditions, the right crisis or opportunity, and the right marketing, the story of just one person can completely transform our world, tilt the social and political axis of the planet, for good or for evil. That’s no exaggeration, it’s a fact: stories change the world.

And unless mother nature gets us first, stories will either be what save us or finally destroy us. Heavy. Or empowering! Depends on your perspective.

(Almost) Everything is a Story

Next to eating, sleeping, and getting it on, telling stories is the one thing humans have been doing longer and more often than anything else. Before homo sapiens could put two intelligent words together, we were already sharing stories on cave walls and acting them out before enraptured hunters huddled around fires…in 3-D! 

Every single thing we do, say, and believe – good, bad, or indifferent - is based on stories:

The family unit is a story.

Money is a story.

The Middle Class is a story.

Every religion is a story.

Every political and business institution is a story.

Every news report, every blog post, every good ad - all stories.

Our notion of how life is supposed to work (go to school, get a job, retire) is a story.

Every joke is a story.

Every conversation is a story.

If I asked you right now how your day went, what would your first instinct be? To start telling me a story! “How was your day, Karly?” “Oh, it was crazy. I took the bus to work today and of course it was raining and of course I forgot my umbrella and then this crazy person got on one stop before mine and started yelling ‘Hallelujah!’ and the driver had to stop and…” See? We can’t help it. 

And here’s the coolest part: if we want to, we can revise these stories. Or create entirely new ones. It’s called change. It’s our choice. Just depends on how creative we’re willing to be!

Thankfully, having an influence as a storyteller doesn’t require the sky-high, megaton weight of an Oprah or Gandhi. 

A single mom named Joanne Rowling wrote a little series of books about a boy and his magical friends that inspired millions to discover and own their power and do good in the world. (They were also just freaking entertaining!) Justin Halpern turned a series of blog posts into a runaway bestseller called Sh*t My Dad Says. 

And there’s no reason to believe you can’t be next.