Want to tell better stories? Study philosophy! 

Philosophy is a subject characterized by its study of the abstract. And, while at times puzzling, especially when confronted by a passage like, “...‘to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself’,” we may think twice before opening up a philosophy book.¹ However, we should remember that philosophy is filled with thousands of years of human wisdom. With the risk of confronting more obscure passages, who wouldn’t want to torch these mind-puzzling books, but before we light that fire á la Library of Alexandria, let’s consider how philosophy can help us become better storytellers. 

At its core, a screenplay is just a means by which a writer solves. As an aspiring screenwriter and a philosophy student, I’m going to provide three concepts that can help improve our storytelling abilities. These include: knowledge of the abstract; argumentative visualization; and empathic thinking. Together, these three concepts provide aspiring screenwriters a strong foundation that fosters an in-depth and satisfying understanding of storytelling. 

Abstract Thinking

Dealing with abstract concepts, as it is commonly done in philosophy courses, leads to a better understanding of storytelling. According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, an abstract thing exists outside of physical nature.² There are other, more complex definitions, but those deal with metaphysical topics in philosophy that we need not go into at this time. This definition suffices. So, a thing that is not physically present to our sense experience but exists is an abstract thing. These are things like ideas, concepts, notions, fictional characters, and so on. In other words, these are things that exist and which do not hold space in our physical world. Numbers are abstract things in the sense that you don’t tend to find a four out in the wild, as you would a tree, but you can find four trees. Storytelling, like numbers, lacks physical presence, but lack of physical presence does not make something less valuable. We use numbers on a daily basis, and society runs by abstract rules and principles, so if the simple function of a number is to designate quantity to something, and rules/laws to maintain order, then surely storytelling as an abstraction must also serve a function.   

Understanding storytelling as an abstract concept, allows us to discern its inherent function. Thinking like philosophers and asking what the function of storytelling is becomes our first step in the understanding process. Although I believe storytelling to be inherent in all of us, for some reason, only a small percentage of us tell stories well. We know what it’s like to watch or read a good story, yet when it comes to replicating our own stories, we are met with challenge and uncertainty. There are writers out there who have this innate ability to espouse great tales with minimal effort. They are gifted and such skill is probably unreachable. For the rest of us, we have to work a little harder. 

Because philosophy deals with the abstract, and stories are abstractions, practicing philosophy will open us up to understanding stories at a deeper and richer level, which in turn will make us better writers. Understanding the function of abstract things such as numbers helps us understand that other ideas like storytelling also have a function and when we understand this our depth of storytelling knowledge increases. If we are serious about improving our storytelling ability using philosophy, then here is our first philosophical question: why do I want to tell stories? The answer to this should serve as our creed for why we write. 

Argument as Structure

The visual representation of arguments is the bread and butter of philosophy. It’s the language philosophers use to make themselves understood—it’s logic. This is more geared toward analytic thinking than creative thinking, but I believe we need both to succeed as storytellers. After all, structure is creativity. Being able to understand arguments in relation to your idea is important in formulating concise structure. I know how much we aspiring screenwriters love the word structure, but I don’t mean it in the same sense. Structure should be used to organize your thoughts and ideas, not to organize your story because if we do the latter the former should result by default. Let me clear that up. We’ve been talking about story as an abstract idea, and structure is the means by which we organize our abstract ideas. This is what philosophy is about, and it is also what makes us more efficient storytellers. 

I mentioned earlier that storytelling is intrinsic, and I hold to that. In and of itself, story is something that we all understand—after all, it is language. The use of visual representation of arguments pairs well when dealing with storytelling. We understand a story as beginning, middle, and end, and what comes next, the hard part, is understanding that story is the composite of idea and argument.³ With this synthesis, it’s evident that the study of logic serves as a benefit to the screenwriter. According to Catarina Dutilh an argument is a complex symbolic structure with a conclusion supported by premises.⁴ The storytelling itself becomes more natural when we realize that we should be moving through it with an argument in mind and continuously feeding it premises. We ought to prove or fail to prove something, and hopefully, we can do it in an entertaining way and it resonates with as many people as possible. Think back to the first question I raised: why do I want to tell stories? The answer to this is our creed and what comes next, is: why does this specific story need to be told, and why am I the one to tell it? 

Let’s take the argument in the Disney movie Zootopia (2016) which follows the character Judy Hopps on her journey to confront society’s status quo as she seeks to become a cop. The argument made in Zootopia is that we shouldn’t Judge a book by its cover. Okay, but why? Well because if we judge a book by its cover, we are bound to overlook important things, just as Judy overlooked the fact that the villain was Mayor Bellwether, a seemingly meek prey. This adds depth and if we watch the movie, we will see that while Judy confronts the status quo particular to her personal strife, she fails to recognize the struggle of others that are not like her, including predators.  

Writing a story about not judging people for their external appearance or for their cultural and historical background, comes from a creed. A creed that tells us that the writer or writers want to tackle arguments that deal with acceptance and respect. Why? Again, because these are the arguments that are important to the writer/s. The better we understand arguments the easier it is to extrapolate what the story is trying to say, but more importantly, the better we will be able to construct stories that are important to us. We don’t need to go beyond symbolic logic to gain a good sense of arguments, unless we want to of course. 

Screenwriting with Empathy

It’s difficult to teach empathy, but philosophy provides students with the ability to see other perspectives, and that’s pretty close. This is evident through thought experiments and the stories found in philosophy. Sometimes, the empathy that can arise in philosophy is not empathy in the sense of feeling with someone but more so as a way to understand someone’s ideas so that we can better defend against them. It’s not the nice lovey dovey type of empathy; it's more of a self-centered approach of mutual respect among diverse thoughts. Philosophy teaches you not just how to think outside the box, but to question if the box even exists. Some philosophers may be Aristotelieans and some Platonists, but the sole purpose is to be open to these ideas because we can’t truly formulate an opinion on our neighbor’s life unless we’ve lived a day in his house—or is it walked a day in his life? No, it’s shoes, yes! We can’t truly formulate an opinion on our neighbor’s life unless we’ve lived in his shoes. Anyways, what I mean is that philosophy allows us to think in terms of our audience. 

For example, I’m picturing my reader as a person that is just interested in different perspectives. Empathic thinking is not just for the reader; it helps with character. If we have empathy, then we will be far better equipped to understand character needs and wants. We will see life through their eyes and know exactly why they intend to do such a thing and what gain they intend to get out of doing said thing. Even if despicable, we’ll have created characters that at the very least will have a reasonable understanding of their unreason. Much of this will result from serious study of philosophy or not so serious. Just read some philosophy. 

Conclusion

Because philosophy deals with the abstract, and stories are abstractions, studying philosophy is bound to help improve our writing. The visualization of arguments will help us organize our thoughts and break down the thoughts of others into comprehensible chunks so that we can focus on staying true to what we are trying to say. Finally, philosophy will instill in us a sense of empathy that comes from tapping into our curious mind. We’ll open ourselves to diverse thoughts and ideas and change our mind based on new information. This openness will allow us to have a better grasp of our readers and characters. So, if you are looking for ways to improve your storytelling abilities, give philosophy a try.