Telling a Story

nicstt

nDelphi said:

nicstt said:

Telling a story is - for me - not quite how it should happen.

I remember learning that we should show readers, not tell them. This is certainly true for the written word, if nothing else it is usually much more enjoyable to read, irrespective of the actual story type.

Well, I know from experience that telling is useful, especially for my attention span. I have read one too many novels where the author is using active voice so much that I feel like screaming. Some use a paragraph to describe an old person. Just tell me that the person is old already. Stop showing me! Please. LOL!

I remember someone trying to point out how I should write. I had written a story set in ancient Roman times of a girl out in the countryside and I described that there were cows and goats on a hillside and this person wanted me to tell the reader what they were doing. I was like "Really?" What do you think goats and cows are doing on a hillside? Geez! Unless the cows and goats are behaving out of the ordinary there is no need.

The active and passive voices should be used. Knowing when and how much is the tricky part.

 

True enough; tell us facts, show is what is interesting is how I try to balance it out, otherwise it does get a little too much. but I'd sooner have a too much show, than too much tell.

Oso3D

I was greatly pleased when I made this 'glamor shot' that conveyed shyness and suggested something about the character.

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Redhead-Betty-555945593

 

(Ah, you can see the comment to that effect). A fairly simple render, but... I like it.

 

daveleitz

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.  When you do something with DAZ Studio, you don't want your first line to go, "It was a dark and grainy render...." 

nicstt

daveleitz said:

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.  When you do something with DAZ Studio, you don't want your first line to go, "It was a dark and grainy render...." 

But what do you do, when you have more than a thousand words to say?

Oso3D

Webcomics!

fixmypcmike

nicstt said:

daveleitz said:

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.  When you do something with DAZ Studio, you don't want your first line to go, "It was a dark and grainy render...." 

But what do you do, when you have more than a thousand words to say?

Render farm

JOdel

Gedd said:

Etrigan said:

One of the problems from the creator side is that we KNOW the story and see it as we create the image. However, as it is a visual medium, not every viewer sees the same thing and interprets the back-story according to their own pretexts. The shared imagery referred to by DarkSpartan isn't a photocopy shared. So that the concept of a park bench is shared, what it actually looks like is not. That said, if I see a bench, in a park, with a couple sitting there, I say; "oh, a couple sitting on a park bench."

I have several images in my gallery that I 'thought' told a story. But, the responses to the image weren't always evidence I'd succeeded. 

I used to write poetry (still do on the rare occasion) and I remember getting flustered at how some people would come up with a totally different interpretation then what I had tried to instill in the poem. I would often find out because they would tell me how much the poem spoke to them and explain what they thought it said.

Finally one day out of frustration I told someone, "that's not at all what I meant..." and proceded to explain what the concept was behind the poem. I'll never forget their reaction. The person was very upset and said I ruined a poem that meant something to them and how dare I. This person then went on to explain that the moment I put art work out in the world it's no longer mine and I don't have exclusive rights to what it means.

I of course thought this was rediculous, after all I wrote it, it had a meaning... but then I thought about it.... nope, I was right. Then I thought about it again..

I revisited this concept many times and eventually came to the conclusion that the other person was right. Not only that, but it made me remember the various teachers I had in literature, some insisted there was one universal truth to be gleened ultimately from some author's work, others stressed it was more important to find our own meaning in it.

So, I guess all of this is a long winded way of saying I'm not so sure it's important that others get 'our story' as much as it touches them and evokes something in them.

The Author is dead. That's what that statement means. Once you let something escape you stop *being* the author. You remain having *been* the author. The work is still yours, but you no longer own it -- except in the sense that you are the only person legally entitled to profit from it, or have the authority to withdraw or modify it. If you let it out, it's on its own to find an audience on its own merits.

And, interpretation is not in the provenance of the author anyway. That is the Audience's job. An Author explaining what he "meant" by something is interesting in a historical sense, but irrelevant. What an Author may have meant is not going to either attract, grow, or retain the Audience. And, without the audience the work is dead.

Joe.Cotter

Yes, I guess the best an artist (author or otherwise) can hope/strive for is to give birth to something that in the end has a life of it's own. To do that, it has to have good genetics and to a certain extent, have relevence. So beyond just having a 'story to tell' art needs all the constructs of a story done in an extraordinary way. It's almost as if the story itself is less relevant often.

Joe.Cotter

Who here has heard of DJ Spooky?

He did a TEDx talk that pertains to this in which he looks at how he sees this evolving in the 21st century in pespective and technique in ways totally unlike what we've had in the past. One of the things I found interesting that he didn't address directly but was woven throughout the talk is the idea of what stories are worth telling in a modern society and how as an artist to approach the telling of them. DJ Spooky's base medium is of course music and sound but he also weaves imagery into his works.

One thing he does that I have seen a trend towards with some other artists is the concept of interactive storytelling media where the artist draws the audience, either on an individual basis or wholesale (as a group) into the performance to the point of interacting with the storytelling itself. I think that as we go forward this will be a very strong aspect for 3D art, especially as things like virtual reality evolve. (Part of what I'm referring to is from other presentations, not just this one.)

If you have 20 minutes, it's well worth the watch.

Hiro Protagonist

RawArt said:

I do not think the story has to be completely laid out in the image, but the image should have elements that make you lok at it and think "There is a story here...I wonder what it is"..and that keeps the viewer looking.

You are absolutey right. The "story" doesn't have to be what we would normally consider a story at all. I see it in photographs and other kinds of art—it can be the merest hint that there is more going on than meets the eye. Even an expression is enough (take Leonardo's La Gioconda, for example—we can learn a lot from the masters). And Gedd's examples are great—just a person, and maybe a simple prop, but the expressions make you wonder what has happened or is happening. If you can't get something of this in your renders then the viewer's eye will just pass it by and ultimately forget it.

Ken OBanion

Subtropic Pixel said:

I was amazed at the detail in H.G. Wells' books.  Just reading his description of a room bored the hell out of me.

Now, I know he is considered a classic and I respect that.  And of course I was an impatient teenager at the time, but I had read hundreds of books by the time I got to this one in the 10th grade, so I knew the difference between a story that moved and one that just muddled about.  So I felt that all the time and minutiae spent on minor details only served to take me "out of" the story.  If it weren't for school requirements, I might never have finished the first chapter of any of his books.

I had a similar distaste for Emily Bronte too.  From that entire tome, I only now just remember the part about a tragic sled ride.

Funny you should mention 10th grade....

Part of our English curriculum that year was a lengthy study of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities;  Three weeks, as I recall, and by the time it was completed, I absolutely hated that book!

Then, for reasons that still evade me, in my second semester of college, I got a wild hair up my @$$, and decided to read it again, just for kicks and giggles.  I fell in love with it!  It is now my absolute favorite of all of Dickens' novels (and Dickens is my all-time favorite author); and I make a point of re-reading it at least once a year.

Emily Dickinson suffered a similar fate as Dickens did in high school, from which she, unfortunately, has never recovered.  I still hate that treacly, maudlin crap!

My father once told me that, if you're reading classical literature, the one attribute of your character that you absolutely must have is patience.  Classic novels invariably start slowly; it takes at least the first hundred pages or so before you even begin to get a sense of what the story is about.  I have learned over the years that he was 100% correct.  (Sadly, that 'one attribute of my character' is one of several that I almost painfully lack!)

Joe.Cotter

One of the things not mentioned yet is that of relevance. There are many great examples of this and how it plays out in art history but I don't want to spend the amount of time it would require so I'll cut it short. It is my observation that the 'relevance' of a story can have more impact then any other aspect of the art piece. Art pieces that are technically brilliant but not relevant often get dismissed as not art but rather 'high level of craftsmanship' whereas pieces that are lacking in technical execution but hit a strong chord can be seen as revolutionary.

An aspect of relevance is that it is context sensitive in that the artists contemporaries may not see a relevance but if the artist is envisioning something that is in line with where society is moving, that piece will often gain another 'badge' of artistic value as many of the artists of various movements have.

So in summary, story is important, how well the art piece supports that story is valuable, but how relevant the story is, an often overlooked aspect by many artists is probably the trump card.

One last note on relevance. If something is relevant but obvious, out in the society, and has no real controversy, it tends to be weak. If the piece speaks to a side of a controversial topic, something that has not yet emerged in the larger society or is related to a group who's voice is not well represented and does it well in that a portion of society sees the piece as speaking for them in some way it will be a strong piece. How well it does this has correlation into how well it will find it's way into the iconic recording of society's reflection of self.

These are all just my own opinions and thoughts so take them for what they are worth, nothing more or less.

Oso3D

I learned more in World History of Art, in High School, then perhaps any other history course. Art is often tightly wound up in politics and social movements, from Egyptian Dynasties to the modern day.

j cade

See, I've always been a big fan of Aestheticism (well actualy more the Secession, but it was contemporary and had similar ideals, namely the seperation of art from the realm of politics or morals)

But "Art for Arts Sake" and all that.

I also love me some flattened perspective

Joe.Cotter

In respect to my previous comment on relevance, there are two points in relation to what you are presenting j cade.

1. Relevance doesn't have to be either political or moral it just has to speak to something inside people in some way that isn't purely topical or superficial.
2. Striping out any political or moral relationships to a piece is in fact a form of relevance of it's own. It is for many a reaction against something one might feel is meant to represent simple beauty (or some other aspect) without any exterior motivation. For some this can be particularly strong if one feels much of what they see around them is being used to further some cause and nothing seems to stand on it's own for the simple act of being. Make no mistake though, this in itself is a form of relevance.

There is another good point your comment alludes to (even if it wasn't one you yourself were thinking.) If the viewer feels that there is a purposeful intent to manipulate them, there is often a reaction against that. Manipulation though is a tricky subject that is very context sensitive both on a personal level and on a larger societal level and delves quickly into the very complex topic of propaganda and art.

I think it's important to understand the difference between trying to achieve some sort of connection with people through art, through potentially giving people a voice through that art and the manipulative aspect of art in the service of propoganda. There is a significant area of overlap here at times which complicates this.

SlimerJSpud

Sometimes I like wrapping a few paragraphs around an image to tell a story. Sometimes it was the story that came first. I see some images where the story, though well written is more like a novelette! In a lot of cases, the right picture needs no words, or perhaps all it needs is a clever title.

This render by rrward only needed one word, but it seems to have invited numerous extra captions (I added one too). The image is a hoot.

A few of mine (NSFW) with short stories to go with them. Maybe too many words?

http://slimerjspud.deviantart.com/art/The-Spear-of-Destiny-335583895

http://slimerjspud.deviantart.com/art/No-chains-can-hold-her-548746771

 

daveleitz

Gedd said:

In respect to my previous comment on relevance, there are two points in relation to what you are presenting j cade.

1. Relevance doesn't have to be either political or moral it just has to speak to something inside people in some way that isn't purely topical or superficial.
2. Striping out any political or moral relationships to a piece is in fact a form of relevance of it's own. It is for many a reaction against something one might feel is meant to represent simple beauty (or some other aspect) without any exterior motivation. For some this can be particularly strong if one feels much of what they see around them is being used to further some cause and nothing seems to stand on it's own for the simple act of being. Make no mistake though, this in itself is a form of relevance.

There is another good point your comment alludes to (even if it wasn't one you yourself were thinking.) If the viewer feels that there is a purposeful intent to manipulate them, there is often a reaction against that. Manipulation though is a tricky subject that is very context sensitive both on a personal level and on a larger societal level and delves quickly into the very complex topic of propaganda and art.

I think it's important to understand the difference between trying to achieve some sort of connection with people through art, through potentially giving people a voice through that art and the manipulative aspect of art in the service of propoganda. There is a significant area of overlap here at times which complicates this.

Manipulation assumes the premise and attempts to give the conclusion that the propagandist wants to convey.  Always question the premise and avoid hasty conclusions!

By using a visual medium, the artist can attempt to invoke emotions in the viewers that might otherwise be difficult to convey with mere words.  Good art, like good prose, requires an artist who actually feels something in the act of creation.  I suppose this might be the difference between blatant propaganda that is perceived as manipulation and the more subtle and effective "art" of persuasion.  That's my take on it, for what it's worth.

j cade

Oh I definitely am one to dislike attempts to manipulate my emotions. (Probably doesn't help that outside the realm of music, and the fox and the hound, it doesn't work on me) Does it help to mention I'm also a fan of Brecht's theatre of alienation? Well philosophically, practically I'm not sure how successful it was. But the Idea of stripping art of sentimentality and appealing purely to the viewer's intelligence appeals to me. A related topic for me is authenticity, generally when we feel manipulated it is because we feel the art is not authentic. I prefer something honestly soulless than dishonestly soulful.

 

Back to philosophy of art though, (and I'll try to avoid writing an essay or getting too disjointed) The Vienna Secession was definitely influenced   a feeling of disillusionment with politics. On the other hand Aestheticism was much more a straight academic movement based on art philosophy. Both are associated with the ideas of the arts and crafts movement, i.e that there was no separation between art and craft, high and low art. I think your definition of relevance is a bit broad, by that definition anything can be relevant, at which point striving for relevance becomes essentially meaningless. 

 

for an example I love this, despite it having nothing that can be considered story or relevance(or perspective for that matter)

 

tldr: I'm leery of suggesting that art has to have a point beyond being pretty (or even being pretty, I love Shiele and he's generally storyless and offputting)

Fishtales

Every image tells a thousand stories and every story paints a thousand images. Each viewer or reader produces his own as he views the image or reads the story, no two will ever be the same. It wont make a blind bit of difference how the artist or writer views his work as soon as he releases it to be viewed by others it changes.