Sunday, April 01, 2018

Storytelling

First cup of coffee of the morning. Now, I’m not, in principle, opposed to religion. It’s done some good, some bad, and some genocide, but in principle, whatever, it’s fine. In practice, however, it needs to learn how to tell a story better. The “greatest story ever told” has far too many pages written noncomteporaneously (is that a word? Spellcheck seems to think it isn’t but what the fuck does she know? Whatever the opposite of contemporaneously is, I need another cup of coffee) by some people of questionable training and trustworthiness. And even with more authors than a Bill and Ted’s reunion screenplay, it’s still a boring read. The kind of long winded diatribe of self-congratulatory reverence normally reserved for a Kardashian biography ghostwriter or a second year playwright.
The story matters, as does how you tell the story. And I can prove it:
 This cop on vacation from New York visits a new building during a Christmas party while it’s being taken by a bunch of terrorists. He kills them all. Oh, and there are Twinkies. That’s the story of Die Hard. But told like the church would tell it. Would you rather hear that story or make watching the movie a Christmas tradition? How you tell a story matters. And aside from molesting little kids and slaughtering an uncountable number of natives, if I had to pick one problem with the Christian church, that would be it. You don’t know how to tell a story well. Also you need to set ticket prices. Passing around a basket is fine and all but when I go to a concert I know what the door charge is. If your Messiah could weave a better narrative and pad the structure with a couple of decent one-liners every now and again maybe you wouldn’t have to flip my pockets inside out for the vig on whether I’m going up or down after death.
It’s not that hard. You don’t have to be Wallace Shawn or William Goldman, just make the journey compelling, put in some character development and hire a table of failed Harvard Lampoon nerds to do a couple of rounds of punch up before you subject a room full of the fearful to a Sunday morning of guilt and shame.

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