Trapped by the Light
August 14, 2008
The Moth is a non-profit storytelling organisation that hosts regular storytelling events and competitions called StorySlams in New York. The main nights feature well known writers and the slams feature anyone who wants to compete by telling a story in 6 minutes.
I went down to one this week, having listened to a bunch of the podcasts, and it was awesome.
It's called The Moth in reference to their positive phototacticity - they move towards and are trapped by lights, which the founders felt was analogous to:
the characters in their best stories would often find themselves drawn to
some bright light—of adventure, ambition, knowledge—but then find
themselves burned or trapped, leaving them with some essential conflict
to face before the story could reach its conclusion.
It's a basic truth of storytelling - there needs to be conflict for there to be resolution: without that you've got a nonecdote at best.