Comments on: Story shadows (and a quick Friday read)

By: Ads for Significant Objects | Significant Objects

Ads for Significant Objects | Significant Objects — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:32:23 +0000

[…] this reply to it), this Chicago Tribune article, this assessment by Grant McCrackin’, this essay by Robin Sloan (who later wrote a story for us) this writeup on Jawbone.TV, and this post on How To […]

By: anderson

anderson — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:30:18 +0000

Somewhere along the road in this discussion the premise of the short story changed.
I think it’s important to consider exactly what the purpose of the story; no the nature of the story is. If the story is a product in itself, for people to read and enjoy more because of the familiarity of its setting, this is very different than adding a story to add value to a purchased product. At least in my mind there’s a big difference.

By: Volume 2 update and recent reactions elsewhere | Significant Objects

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:11:39 +0000

[…] a SnarkMarket post, Robin Sloan writes about “story shadows,” and observes: “Probably the best example of story-shadow engineering today […]

By: Tim Carmody

Tim Carmody — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:10:59 +0000

Reminds me of Georges Perec's famous (and marvelous) novel Life: A User's Manual. (The French title, La vie mode d'emploi, is even better.)

By: Robin Sloan

Robin Sloan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:01:48 +0000

Jacob: Awesome comment! Mostly just wanted to say “thanks”—but also, I really like this phrase/idea in particular: “The story becomes a user’s guide.” Seems like there’s a lot you could do with that.

By: Jacob O

Jacob O — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 08:20:51 +0000

Really fascinating idea! In my understanding, the story becomes an instant myth that, just like other myths, gives us hints about how to act in relation to the world; I do this myself all the time, finding inspiration by how people relate to each other and the world around them in fiction and adopting similar viewpoints in my life. The story becomes a user’s guide, written in a more accessible form (“this is how these spaces have been used by others, this is how they’ve met here, this is what they made of this place”, although noone has been living there before).

If we do consider these texts advertising, I think that they can add to regular advertising by inviting audiences that are not part of the target audience. While regular advertising uses the established understanding of the target audience to evoke certain emotions and, most of all, make them open their pockets, the ability of written stories to place you inside the head of someone that does not necessarily think or value the same way you do makes it possible for them to place someone outside the target audience in the mind of someone who would be part of it. Ok, that wouldn’t always be efficient marketing, but I’d like to see it happen, life is too boring when you just buy on values that you already know that you embrace.

…and when thinking about it, written stories could be one of the best tools available to communicate completely new products to people. If I buy an apartment in a development with an ambition beyond the purely physical and aesthetical (well, perhaps that doesn’t happen very often but again, I wish it did :-) ), with ambitions that stretch into the remaking of how people relate with neighbors, for example, I’d need *stories*, not photos and soundbites, to understand if I want to fit into that context.

I guess my impression is that while traditional advertising can be good at communicating that a product fits into stories that you already know (such as stories of fitness (Nike, for example), social responsibility (Bodyshop, I guess) and so on), written stories can more powerfully communicate entirely new sets of values and ways of living, and how the products in question can fit into that life. In a world where values have diverged to create numerous evolving subcultures, I believe that short-story advertising has a much better chance at participating in the ongoing conversations in which these subcultures redefine themselves than traditional advertising.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:02:07 +0000

Let me just be clear — I’m not trying to denigrate Significant Objects or Robin’s Bonobos deal, but trying to elevate and evaluate advertising. Advertising DOES add value beyond the purchase, and at its best, it’s not merely instrumental, but operates on our mythic consciousness, existing somewhere on a continuum with film and literature.

So, what we can do in this rarefied market is to drift even closer to that mythic/literary pole, capitalizing on that possibility for consumers, writers, and businesses for whom the instrumental/informative poles of advertising have lost their charms.

What’s more — unlike painting or architecture or music, we never really had a pop art revolution in literature. This is what I think Kenny Goldsmith argues for in his advocacy of “uncreative writing” — this could be another way to get there. Not detatched and fame-driven like Warhol, but bespoke, humanist, local, as befits our times.

By: Matthew Battles

Matthew Battles — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:50:13 +0000

Tim, you’re right about the subsequent transactions—the story, traded for goods, has become an ad. But I still think that touches the system as a whole—in degree, as you say, and not in kind. But in worthwhile degree. It’s not a utopian promise, only sort of ferally ameliorative (the ugliest combination of words for 2009!).

It’s the black balloons that worry me. Nothing shakes me to the roots like the sight of a black balloon. Except maybe the sight of a white one.

By: tanushri

tanushri — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:56:54 +0000

love the idea of a story about the very space you're in. you're right, that's the real idea here, and it's awesome. more than just a novel set in paris but set in the very room of the very hotel you're in. maybe even a guide book in disguise. stories change the environments they're in and are changed by them in return. on a slightly extreme tangent here but what about a story that interacts with the very object it's shadowing? so say, for instance, i'm a furniture maker and i sell you a table. and on its surface is written the beginning of a story about that table, maybe about the things kept on it or where the wood came from or about the room it's in. and as the owner you get to finish writing that table's story on it, perhaps jump to its chairs or the floor it's on. or perhaps it's a dress or a shoe or a yoga mat. am reminded of miranda july's "the thing" project that does this to an extent. it's like the back-of-pack copy on your shampoo bottle times a hundred. it's advertising and art and literature and decoration all at the same time...

By: James Bent

James Bent — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:35:25 +0000

A closed black box.

It inherently sucks everything to it through a strange combinations of magnetisims. It is two inherent mysteries in one object — it is black, which is of course nothing; and it is a box, a closed box, and we all want to know what’s in the box.

It is also unfortunately evil, being both black and a box, which is very unfair. I think the black box became a scapegoat for the white box, which is out there attacking old ladies and causing global warming.

Like oranges, above, there is a sound attributed to a black box.

Grrrr.

A sound which really doesn’t assist playing down claims that it is evil.

Personally, I adore the black box. I am magnetised to it.

****

I keep a daily 1000+ word offbeat fiction short blog at http://jamesbent.com/blog.

Regards,

James Bent