Media pt.1 - The "Basic" media to tell stories
- Leo Marcorin
- Nov 8, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 7, 2023
(Guernica - Picasso - 1937)
Note 1: This is the continuation of my "How to write stories" series.
Note 2: This is the first part of this topic. I split not to have such a huge post. In part 2, we will talk about "complex" media.
WARNING!!! This is a long post.
Recently I wrote an article on the power of stories and how Fiction is wired into our DNA. Without it, we would still be raging against one another like the apes on the 2001 Space Odyssey. Fiction, meaningful stories, can move us beyond the limits of our physical capacities.
We live to fulfill our Fiction. Our societies function because of our Fiction.
So, wouldn't it be nice to be the one telling the story instead of sitting and listening?
If this is what you want, then...
Let's talk about Media!
The Message
Like any form of communication, a message is passed from a sender to a receiver through a medium. A good metaphor is to watch someone through a glass wall:
If the glass is small, you can't see it all;
If the glass is frosted, it's a blur, it's fogged;
If the glass is rose-colored, "all the red flags just look like flags" (Bojack "Yes and").
The bottom line here is: Be careful which glass you'll use. Keep in mind:
Every media has good and bad sides -> leverage the good and use the bad to your advantage;
The media determines the narrative.
So, here's my vision about "Basic" media (Media that rely on one sense to pass the message).
Visual Medium
Let's start with the obvious: The Image.
One of the first images of our ancestors is a handprint on a cave from over 40 thousand years ago in Argentina; Another example is a Draw of a bovine in Indonesia. Which stories did our ancestors try to pass on?
Things have evolved much since then, with a different focus on different cultures. Statues, pottery, and other forms of plastic art have been active for millennia: Greeks used pottery to tell stories, as did the Egyptian paintings and sculptures ("... My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" - Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias").
"A picture is worth a thousand words", right? Yet, how many words do you need to tell a story? Is 1000 enough?
Great artists tried to paint stories. See some examples below:
Picasso's Guernica tried to tell the horrors of war by depicting the bombing of Guernica by the Nazis. (Image on top)
 Frida's Two Fridas tell about duality. Each of us can be different people sometimes, two in this case. The question here is: how does each one survive a trauma? |  The Screaming Pope series by Francis Bacon is a perfect piece of horror, displaying a caged authority figure screaming in agony — a metaphor for suppressing Bacon's tabu sexuality. |
There are many examples, like Goya's "Black Series" or Caravaggio's religious paintings.
 |  |
This subject is simply impossible to only scratch the surface!
There are an infinite number of techniques and sizes, and shapes in which someone can do art. Yet, there are big narrative limitations:
The interpretation depends on the observer;
A picture is limited to 1000 words (Estimation) — How can one develop a plot or characters with only 1000 words?
I don't recommend painting for complex stories (unless it is an already known story). Yet, it is a perfect medium for fable, horror, and mysteries.
Sound
Next, Sound...
As described in my last post, since the Cognitive Revolution, humans have been socializing and telling stories. Voice and Músic were the main forms of passing on stories until the Press invention. How else would the common and illiterate citizen inform himself? Art and books were for the rich and the church.
Stories were told, sung, and played (scenic arts = Oral + Music).
Music was always a secular art, often stolen and controlled by the church. In Rome, part of the Olympiads, the performer competed by singing and playing the lyre. In dance, feelings are expressed in song and movement. Sound, voice, and body movement will always be connected.
It is hard to discuss the classical music tradition in a few paragraphs. Born in Paris (Leonin and Perotin 11th century - Medieval period), music evolved from reading sacred texts and rites like in any other culture.
The greek tradition was back in the renaissance. Monteverdi evolved madrigals into Operas (secular) and Cantatas (sacred), forms explored by Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach in the Baroque period.
Suffice it to say that the classical tradition evolved from Chants to Counterpoint to Harmony to Music Form (Sonata, Symphony, Nocturns, Fantasias...) to unform to inharmony to random to 12 tones to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, to cinema music to...
The same goes for the secular, who evolved independently and often influenced the classical tradition. New genres emerged over the years (Gnawa, Andalusia, Blues, Samba, Reggae, rock, rap, pop...).
How effective is Sound as a storyteller mean?
The human voice is gorgeous, and music is wonderful...
The right note or voice intonation can make you cry or creep; The right pause or crescendo can overwhelm you. No other media has the same power to touch one's soul as sound.
Still, the sound is a dying medium: it disappears as soon as you hear it. Every time you hear again a story, a play, or a song, your perception of it will change.
Why is that?
Answer: The human being is unreliable.
The Sender:
The quality relies on the performer (or performers). Every iteration one tells of a story can have altered details.
A fisherman's catch will always grow bigger to anyone he tells the tale. Information decays in every iteration. The best example is the "Chinese Whispers" game;
How many years does a musician practice only to be a single individual in a 100+ head orchestra to play a few notes of Beethoven's 9th symphony?
How many hours does an actor spend learning to deliver a single line perfectly?
Good music or play, if not recorded, will rely 100% on the health and spirit of the performer.
Besides, depending on the scope, how many minutes does one have to develop the characters and plot?
The Receiver:
Distractions, Religion/Political bias, weariness, lack of context... Many factors can alter one's perception of a story.
Think how often you lose energy hearing your wise and knowledgeable uncle tell all about politics.
Even if something is recorded, every time you hear the song over and over, you will have a different perception of the music. How much can your health and spirit influence your perception?
Many obvious lyrics simply lose meaning within a catchy and romantic rhythm. i.e., I Want to Break Free from Queen's 1984 album The Works was written by John Deacon. Still, due to the video clips and the refrain, everyone believes it is a Gay Hymn composed by Freddy Mercury, despite the Album cover crediting someone else.
There are many LARGE misunderstandings in the music world: Every Breath You take from the Police, Hey Ya from Outcast, etc.
So, when using sound as a medium?
I recommend using sound to tell the news, political and religious views, ethical concerns, teachings, and short stories (fables, family history, interesting facts).
I would not recommend telling epics and large complex plots with many details (unless you have a huge rehearsed crew and many hours in a theater).
Our brains are powerful machines, yet terrible at retaining and interpreting information. That's why we invented writing.
Writing
So, writing...
The Cuneiform was one of the first writing forms, invented by the Sumerians, a few millenniums ago. The goal was to record facts, such as:
Fred has 10 cows;
Maria died at age 34 and left her properties to her sons Hugo and Joseph.
The Epic of Gilgamesh was the first written story we know of - a legend by the time passed from father to son about the hero Gilgamesh's adventure in the Underworld and his learnings about mortality. Did you know that the Sumerians also wrote poems? Cool right?
So, writing was used to register traditional oral stories (Poems, legends).
Other ancient texts are no exception: The Greek Odyssey and Illiad by Homer, the Roman Aeneid by Virgil, The bible by many different authors, Greek philosophy books like The Republic by Plato (documenting Socrates' dialogs), Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, even accounts on war and politics like The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and history books like Herodotus: All oral traditions put into papers (or whatever they used to write things down that time).
After the press, more authors came to light, creating a market for storytellers. And the rest is history.
There are many (I mean, MANY) categories in writing:
Poems;
Short stories;
Treatise;
Biography;
Fiction;
Chronic...
Yet, is the written word the best way of telling stories?
There are, indeed, some negative aspects in this medium:
It can be boooring (but so rewarding =) );
The lack of dynamism is a burden that needs to be overcome;
It doesn't have the same spunk as an image or a song;
If your story relies on a lot of imagery, it will take a lot of words to tell what you want, making the text long (like this one);
Grammar is a barrier to the writer;
Vocabulary is a barrier to the reader.
For this reason, writing is not accessible to everyone and is labeled as an "intellectual" medium. Some authors don't help at all this "bad" image, forcing you to read with a Dictionary in hand (Clarice Lispector, I am talking about you!) or with a notepad (That's for you, James Joyce).
Still, written words are perfect for whatever story, disregarding the size or how fantastic and sci-fi it is. The immagination is the limit (different from other media). One can clearly state thoughts of characters, create large and infinite worlds of wander and technology, complex characters and plots, impossible situations, utopias, and make you cry and rage. Nothing beats a good book, which is why this media will never die.
So, we finished the "Basic" media. In short:
Visual Medium:
Advantages: Great for drama and shock imagery.
Weakness: It is limited to a single scene and relies on your audience's interpretation power.
Good for: Known stories and horror.
Bad for: Long, complex stories.
Sound:
Advantages: It is the perfect medium to touch the audience;
Weakness: It is unreliable if not recorded (even so...)
Good for: Short stories, debates, teaching.
Bad for: Long, complex stories.
Writing:
Advantages: Great for any story, independent of the scope and complexity.
Weakness: It is not accessible to everyone.
Good for: Anything, mainly impossible stories (Fantasy, Sci-fi).
Bad for: None readers?
Remember to choose the right medium for your story. Use the advantages wisely, and if you insist on a "non-appropriate media" (if that exists...), use the disadvantages as a narrative tool. (I recommend reading "The House of Leaves" to learn how to use a media limitation on your behalf).
In the next post, we will talk about "Complex" Media.
If you like this post, like and share :)
Comments