I’m travelling around England, a country saturated in story at every turn.
There are patterns to the stories as they go back so many many centuries, and the stories layer one over another with such a deep and long history.
The patterns create many juxtapositions.
And there are always so many versions, efforts to verify, to prove, to disprove.
It is a great pursuit, but you do wonder when people will arrive at the absolute truth about moments in history.
And meanwhile, generations create and recreate their own history.
The story of a place and of people can shift shape over time.
There will always be room for the people who focus on the detail, seeking accuracy and accounts of a story. And then there are those that are moved by the feel of a place, of people. For them, the accuracy of account is not critical.
As a story teller, I must work to serve all those ways of receiving story and information.
Studying film making I learnt that even the most abstract films had a clear structure, and interestingly Robert McKee, film script expert says fantasy is the genre that has the most precise story structure.
Otherwise if the story is not plausible people will switch off.
So the great craft of the story is to serve those that want the facts and figures, however they might be manipulated, and to serve those that want the more emotive and primal elements that affect the senses.
There will always be multiple storylines, but the reason for sharing them will always be the most important element.