Name: What makes a good story? - 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2021-01-21T18:55:17.000Z
Duration: 6 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

Let me tell you a story, Georgina. Are you ready?

There was something strange about that mirror, she said.

How childish – to believe silly stories!

Later that night I heard a noise. I woke up, dark and alone.

The floorboards were creaking as I walked towards the mirror.

I looked into my face reflecting in the glass, when suddenly -

Oh sorry, Georgina! OK, let's try another story:

Once upon a time there was a beautiful servant girl

who lived with her wicked stepmother and two jealous stepsisters…

Ah, that's better, Neil, and I know this story – Cinderella –

telling stories is a powerful way to connect and communicate with people -

Stories help us make sense of the world, which is why we've been telling them

to each other for millennia – and why some of the earliest folk tales –

stories that parents have told and passed on to their children over

many years – are still being told today.

According to the novelist Sandra Newman, and other academics,

there are seven classic plotlines which are constantly being recycled

They include 'rags to riches' plots, like Cinderella…

'Defeating the monster' plots, like Dracula…

…and other plots such as 'comedies', 'adventures' and 'tragedies'.

So, my quiz question is this: which of the following well-known folk tales

Is it: a) Beowulf? b) Beauty and the Beast?

Well, they all have beasts, bears or wolves in the title,

OK, Georgina, we'll come back to that later.

It's interesting to ask how we can explain the lasting appeal of

Someone who might know is anthropologist and writer,

Here he is talking to BBC World Service's, The Why Factor.

Often the reason why we feel so motivated to pass on stories

is because the stories do tap into certain universal human

fantasies and fears that will often transcend

the concerns of particular times and places. […]

We are intensely moralistic – most of the time,

the bad guys have unhappy endings and the

We know that in the real world it doesn't actually work like that

so there's an element of wish-fulfillment

that somehow satisfies our moral appetite.

Stories from very different cultures often have plots

These human emotions are universal, meaning they exist

everywhere and relate to everyone in the world.

Classic stories work because they tap into basic human emotions –

they understand and express what it means to be human.

Unlike in the real world, stories can reinforce our sense of morality -

evil stepmothers get punished, Cinderella marries her

prince and everyone lives happily ever after.

In this way they create wish-fulfillment – the achievement

Well, so much for plotlines, Neil, but that still doesn't explain how

stories have the power to catch and hold our attention.

Let's hear from novelist Sandra Newman, author of

How Not To Write a Novel – a handbook of over 200 common mistakes.

Here she tells BBC World Service's, The Why Factor,

that her absolute number one storytelling rule

is comprehensibility – people need to understand your story.

There are some people who actually are so unfortunately

bad at communicating that even when they tell a story

to another person it becomes incomprehensible.

And gradually as they stop making sense and ramble

and digress and don't know where they're going,

you see everybody not only lose interest but become hostile –

when someone is not getting to the point.

According to Sandra, the biggest mistake is incomprehensibility

or not understanding the plot because the storyteller is rambling –

talking in a confused way, going off the subject or not making sense.

When listeners give a story their time and attention,

they want the storyteller to get to the point -

start talking about the most important and relevant information.

it's time to return to the quiz question.

Remember I asked you which famous folk tale had a

'defeating the monster' plot. What did you say?

I said the answer was b) Beauty and the Beast. Was I right?

…wrong! In fact, the answer is, a) Beowulf -

an Old English epic about the hero, Beowulf,

Well, Neil, there are two sides to every story,

So, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned,