The Bin

One of my colleagues in the Master’s program brought my attention to an article about a group of researchers that used a computer to identify the six most common emotional arcs in storytelling. Even if you aren’t interested in computers or A.I., I highly recommend this piece. It proposes an interesting way in which to view our work and raises questions about the value of a human writer.

Here are the six most common emotional arcs in storytelling, according to this article:

1. Rags to Riches (rise)
2. Riches to Rags (fall)
3. Man in a Hole (fall then rise)
4. Icarus (rise then fall)
5. Cinderella (rise then fall then rise)
6. Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)

I’m not going to go into how they compiled this list; the article explains that well enough. I want to explore the implications for writers.

Needless to say, this structure is overly-simplified. Plots are made of mini-rises and falls, minor climaxes, sometimes an ending for a beginning. Plots are often more like mountain ranges than pyramids and some stories, particularly flash fiction and other short works, don’t have clearly-defined plots that match this model. That’s how I view the six emotional arcs.

On the one hand, it’s amusing and insightful to study the emotional arcs of your favorite stories in this light. If you determine that they fall under one or multiple of these arcs, you can try and apply that arc(s) to your own works. You can even turn this lens on your better-received works and try to pinpoint what made them successful emotionally.

Of course, such research would take the magic out of the process and play down the emotional arc of your work and the stories you love to read.

Emotional arcs are only this simple in things like fairy tales, which are purposefully simple in order to aid oral storytelling. In fact, Cinderella most caught the attention of Kurt Vonnegut, whose experiment inspired this computer-generated study. If you have anything more complicated and sophisticated than the original fairy tales, these “six most common emotional arcs” won’t fit your story exactly.

When discussing this issue with the longer and more-complicated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the researchers claim that “the emotional arc associated with each sub-narrative is clearly visible.” In that case, they separate the sub-narratives from the larger narrative, treating them as their own stories, and so one must wonder if these emotional arcs are truly the most common overall or just the most common for certain lengths of stories.

The opposite may also be true: very short fictional works don’t fit these arcs neatly, either. The study only concerns works between 10,000 and 200,000 words long. What, then, can we say about the relation between these common emotional arcs and flash fictions? Or even the traditional short story? Some may fit these arcs but the intricate weaving of narration, plot, character, structure, and form will make it harder to see which stories fit which arcs.

My personal issues with the results aside, the study raises an intriguing–and perhaps disturbing–topic for writers. Namely, can a machine/computer create original writings? The lead author of this study, Andy Reagan, Ph.D. candidate (as of the article’s July 2016 publication), indicates that there are still many problems to resolve before this idea can come to fruition. Nevertheless, many act as though this possibility is very strong. Competitions for writing bots have already started.

Should writers worry? Are we going to be replaced by writing bots that will produce more entertainment more quickly for less cost? No.

You can analyze all the stories in the English-speaking world–all the stories in any language–and compile a database of the most successful emotional arcs, plots, character types, etc. That doesn’t mean that you can then spin this data into a unique creation that people will want to read. Instead, the result will be cookie-cutter plots, stock characters, and predictable emotions. The structure will, more likely than not, be the run-of-the-mill linear structure as well.

How do human writers have the potential to avoid such problems? I phrase the question this way because even the best writers don’t avoid all of these faults in everything they write. To err is to human, after all. But how are we able to navigate these obstacles when we do?

The truth is, no one really knows. One story can keep readers’ attention while a similar story loses it. There’s something, however small and indistinguishable, that the writer puts into the story that helps it succeed. I think the advantage to human writers can be traced back to consciousness.

Consciousness makes us aware of the world around us. We’re able to think in ways that machines can’t, gain insights from seemingly nowhere, and feel a connection with fellow living beings that transcends animalistic instinct. It’s my belief that consciousness is also the result of the writer’s instinct. Whenever we have epiphanies, answers to problems with existing works or inspiration for new ones, whose source we cannot identify, we are experiencing something which machines cannot. We suddenly know what’s wrong with a story even though we can’t explain it. A plot, emotional arc, or scene appears fully-formed in our heads and even though we can’t rationalize it, we know it’s right. These instances demonstrate an awareness that far exceeds observation and analysis; it’s consciousness. Until someone can determine what consciousness is and bottle it, writing bots will never be able to do what human writers do.

In answering “why we write”, Robert Coover said that it is “because there is nothing new under the sun except its expression”. (Here’s a link to a video of his entire answer.) Coover’s words act as a double-edged sword: they support writing and other art because the only way to make things new is to express them in a new way but, at the same time, they imply that no idea is original. I agree with Coover in that every idea (for stories and poems) has already been said. What’s unique is our way of expressing these ideas. That is why no “writing bot” could ever truly replace a human writer. It’s not just what we say, it’s how we say it. And if a scientist does construct a computer which captures that inexplicable essence, the reproduction of consciousness won’t be far behind.

This June will mark nineteen years since my mother and I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. We read the book on a trip to Disneyland for my fifth birthday. Nineteen years. It’s hard to believe. I was so young that I don’t remember much about life before the books and I don’t want to imagine my life without them. Harry Potter has become an indispensable part of me and J.K. Rowling is my hero.

On Sunday I watched a special about Rowling on Reelz Channel. Memories flooded me, memories of the books, the movies, the midnight releases. I rediscovered that which I already knew about my role model and gained a little more insight into her life. Most importantly–and the point of this article–the special reminded me of how much J.K. Rowling has influenced me.

A lot of people say that Harry Potter got them or their children interested in reading. Honestly, that’s not the case with me. Even at five years old I loved to read. My oldest brother and I both started reading at a very young age, and my mother read to me every night. I can’t say that Harry Potter ignited my interest in fantasy, either. My mother and I read C.S. Lewis books together before we got our hands on Sorcerer’s Stone and my mother is an avid fantasy fan, so my love of the genre was inevitable. No, what J.K. Rowling has done for me runs deeper.

She didn’t inspire me to become a writer. That honor belongs to my seventh grade Literature teacher, my mother, and my deceased grandfather. Rowling did, however, help me believe that I could be a writer.

I’ve discovered multiple parallels between Ms. Rowling and myself. As children we were both bookish and smart and we felt like outsiders even with friends. Our dream colleges rejected us. (I wanted to attend Stanford originally but it was for the better that I went to U.C. Davis.) The death of Rowling’s mother changed her writing drastically. Similarly, my grandfather’s death pushed me to pursue this career path more fervently. We both have anxiety and we’ve suffered from depression at some point in our lives.

To see someone so much like me succeed gives me hope. I’ve always lacked self-confidence and I continuously oscillate between thinking I can do anything and thinking I can do nothing. The story of Rowling’s life–her struggles, her failures, her successes–reminds me that I can’t approach my life and career that way. I may triumph, I may fail, but the possible rewards outweigh the costs. Every time I read Very Good Lives or her Twitter feed, she reminds me that it’s worse to do nothing at all. I’ll get there someday and it will all be worth the risk. I have to keep trying or else it’ll never happen.

Of course, Rowling has influenced my career in a much more direct way recently. Remember that contest for which my story was longlisted? Well, I wouldn’t have entered if it weren’t for her.

My mother saw Rowling’s tweet about the contest a few months ago and forwarded it to me. At first I didn’t think I should enter. The Crime Writer’s Association runs the contest and the criteria is based on a quote by a famous detective fiction writer. I’ve never written this genre before. Frankly, I’ve barely read it before. The closest I’ve gotten is one book and a short story, each starring Sherlock Holmes. So why did I enter? I figured that if Rowling, someone known for her fantasy books, could succeed as crime writer Robert Galbraith, I could give it a whirl as well. What would be the harm in trying?

That’s the best thing that any role model can give you: the courage to try even when you’re doubting yourself.

Some of you may think it’s an exaggeration to say that Rowling made me. After all, I’ve had several other influences: other writers, other books, family, friends, teachers, movies, actors, singers, etc. I admit that she and Harry Potter are not all that made me. However, they’ve done a lot for me. From a bonding agent with potential friends to a boost of courage, I owe this writer and her works a lot.

Which writer has influenced you? Who makes you jump in when you know the odds of making it are slim? Tell us all about them in the comments.