Storytelling

 

As Time Goes By

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

What makes a good story?

My forecasting career has been about finding the most likely outcome/maximum entropy, that is the mesostate, outcome, that has the greatest number of microstates, possibilities.  Storytelling is about finding an improbable but desirable outcome and ensuring that that is believable, possible.  My career has been about finding the stories of Dog Bites Man, Goliath Beats David, etc.  But those stories do not fascinate us.  The improbable stories with an  outcome that we believe fascinates us, e.g. Man Bites Dog, David Beats Goliath.  I.e. a mesostate that is not the most probable but is fascinating. 

A billionaire winning a billion dollar lottery, improbable, but not very fascinating.  A pauper losing a million dollar lottery, probable, but not very fascinating.  A pauper winning a billion dollar lottery, improbable AND fascinating.

Goliath beating everyone, including David, probable, but not very interesting.  David beating Goliath, improbable AND interesting.

A good story is about getting from the beginning: David versus Goliath, a pauper and a billion dollar lottery, etc. believably through a middle, to that improbable but desirable, fascinating, interesting outcome or ending.

Forecasting is using believability to get to the most probable outcome

Storytelling is using believability to get to an IMprobable, desirable, and fascinating, outcome.

A problem is that the skills for convincing us about the believability can be misused to produce an outcome that we don’t desire, but is desired by the forecaster or storyteller.  The Boy Can Cry Wolf when there is No Wolf just to get attention for the Boy. Then we don’t believe or trust him when The Boy Cries Wolf and there really is a Wolf.

Just like you can appreciate a good forecast, you can appreciate a good story, but make sure it is believable and that its outcome is one that you desire. Not every good story is true.