New Old Stories

When I read the Shahnameh, I noticed that the stories it told echoed many of the other stories I’ve read in ancient literature as I’ve toured around the ancient world with pieces from Epic of Gilgamesh to Dine Bahane.  Stories like the trials of Rostam, or the character of the Simorgh, could be equally at home in other cultures’ mythos.  Combined with a question I was asked about whether I believe there are more stories to write, it prompted me to dust off my thoughts on a concept that percolates periodically through the zeitgeist, that there are no new stories to tell, and that every story is just a retelling of a handful of stories that we’ve been telling as humans since the dawn of storytelling.

At the heart of this debate is really a matter of what constitutes a story.  When people talk about there being no new stories, they are often really referring to story archetypes.  Probably the most well-known of these is the Hero’s Journey, which consists of someone who is not a hero finding or receiving something that leads them away from home to become a hero.  We see this in the story of King Arthur, in Star Wars, in Eragon (which is really just Star Wars with dragons, even in the details, not just in being a hero’s journey), and more.  Considering the sheer number of stories captured in works like The Iliad, The Odyssey, and various religious texts, perhaps these types of stories really have already been told.  New types of stories probably exist…but they may not be story types that we would enjoy telling or hearing.

In other words, there is an aspect of expectation involved in storytelling, especially when it comes to considerations of story types and archetypes.  Those who receive stories have certain expectations for their structure, and stories that stray too far from those known structures are going to challenge those reading or listening to them, potentially to the point of being rejected.

If I truly believed that there are no new stories to tell, though, I don’t think I would be writing.  It’s not that I think that every story I write is going to be staggeringly original or break all molds – it’s that I think that stories lie in the details.  Character, plot, setting, even the writing and language itself change the story being told.  There is a reason that we care about how a story is told, and don’t settle for summaries of the plot or characters.  Most of us could tell the story of A Christmas Carol in just a sentence or two – but that doesn’t detract from our enjoyment of the Dickens version, or any of the numerous adaptations.  Is a story that can be expressed in a similar few sentences less original or new if we can enjoy it for itself, if it stands on its own and does even one thing that is different?

Hard science fiction is a perfect example of this idea.  Rocheworld doesn’t have unique plot or character, but it does have a unique setting, and that setting is considered and explored well enough to make the piece worth reading.  I could list numerous examples in other genres, but Dickens is another excellent example.  Most of his stories are, arguably, not “original” per se, but we read them and enjoy them because the way he presents them makes them fresh and new.

It is reductionist and unimaginative to contend that there are no new stories to tell, akin to the assertions that history is just a cycle that repeats itself.  History doesn’t repeat itself, although the past can have lessons for the present and we can find similarities when we look for them.  The same is true for stories.  Yes, stories have similarities, but that doesn’t mean that there are no new stories to tell.  As long as there are new people, as long as the world is changing and entropy hasn’t prevailed throughout the universe, there will be new stories.