Stories are complex things. They invite us to engage them on many levels at once. The rational mind will discover in them meanings which the emotional aspects of us may overlook, and vice versa. Focusing on this multivalence of stories is what lead me to begin using the phrase story-systems. It is an attempt to unite these various elements which make up and surround stories so that we may study them in new ways.

At the heart of any story-system, of course, is a story. The story is the central nucleus around which everything else orbits. We all have a very high level of sophistication when it comes to stories themselves, as we’ve spent our entire lives immersed in them. For the purposes of clarification though, my use of the word “story” fits closely with how the word “text” is used in cultural theory as in connoting a cultural artifact which may be “read” or somehow interpreted. Possible examples of this include not only contemporary media products, such as books, movies, songs, games, and television shows, but also more ephemeral things we create and hear on our own every day as part of ordinary communication: anecdotes, jokes, gossip, rumors and the like. Also to this list we should add historical and religious stories, tales, epics, romances, myths, legends – even things like fashions, trends and events. So a story may be fictional or non-fictional or a blend of both.

This is a necessarily broad definition. For a story-telling species such as ours, any and all of these items become stories as soon as we try to understand them in terms of actors, actions, sequences, causes and effects. The ways we choose to organize and communicate these things defines the type of story it becomes, as according to the examples listed above.

The sequence, emphasis and format we use to tell a story place it in a particular context or group of related stories. The word genre is commonly used to describe sets of stories which are closely related, or follow a particular pattern. I’m here using the word context though, so that we may also include exegetical “meta-” materials: things like commentary, criticism, and other types of analysis (Additionally, a story may draw upon materials from multiple genres, so context is a bit more elastic term for our usage.) Some stories may be seen more as a reaction against a particular genre or context, but no story exists in a vacuum. Cultural theorists like Julia Kristeva and Roland Barthes championed the notion of intertextuality, which suggests that all texts – all stories – are dependent on and even cobbled together from pieces of other texts. This places the author as more of an orchestrator of existing texts, than as an originator of something completely new.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand this though, is that any story can be seen as part of a larger story. It is both a whole unto itself, and a part of a larger whole – a holon. When you move upwards through this holonic chain of command, you get into context. Similarly, you may move down from the level of a story to look at subtexts: miniature stories, either explicit or implied which exist nested within a given story. The relationship of holons between context > story > subtext is roughly analogous to the relationship described by ecosystem > organism > cell.

Subtexts may be intentionally sketched out through plots and subplots by the author. Or we as the audience may experience subtexts as fragments when we read only a few scenes out of a three-act play. We further exercise our ability to read subtexts in this manner whenever we flip rapidly through television shows. We see individual shards of the larger story being told, and are either drawn in or move on. Most informational-style television shows are now structured in such a way as to take advantage of this behavior. After each commercial break, the preceding material, the context will be quickly sketched out for new viewers. Subtexts may also be thought of as unexplored avenues, assumptions or implications present but not fleshed out in a text. Additionally, the same story as it might be re-told from a different character or point of view could be a useful approach to revealing subtexts. Subtexts may also be used by authors as a means of transmitting sub- or counter-cultural messages undetected over mainstream channels of communication. Feminist cultural analysis, queer theory and other minority studies frequently approach the study of stories from these subtextual angles.

The structural choices that go into telling a story ultimately determine its context, as well as creating or suggesting different subtexts. But perhaps choices is the wrong word, as these myriad decisions may or may not occur on a conscious level on the part of the author. Examining these choices or the purpose behind them is another integral component of understanding story-systems. Media literacy is one of the fields of study which uses critical inquiry in this manner to dissect purposes behind the creation of media messages or stories. Questions such as, “Who created this message?” or “What could someone gain by creating this message?” become tools for interpreting important components of the story. This sort of inquiry may even lead to placing the story in an entirely different context, or realizing a different set of subtle subtextual cues.

Studying purpose - or what goes into the creation of a story – is only half the game. The flipside is studying effects, or what comes out of a story. The effect of a story may be something as simple as the entertainment or education of the audience. It may also be (and usually is) a much more complex and subtle psychological impact, possibly even leading to modifications of behavior. When considering the effects of stories, it’s important to keep in mind that, neurologically, actual experience and experience gained through perception of a story are closely linked. And we may further identify with and project ourselves into a story in such a way that it becomes even more real or relevant to us.

Religions and ideologies seem to have especially potent effects on people in this regard, but why? They offer systems of behavior which, if adopted, allow you to enter and live out a story even more fully. As noted, performance of an action, imitation of an action, and observation of an action all activate the same brain centers, in diminishing degrees. This means that simply hearing a story activates the same parts of your brain as actually experiencing it. But it also means that trying to imitate, or act out that story will bring you even closer to the sensation that you have actually physically experienced it. This is the essence of all ritual which allows us to physically as well as mentally take part into a story.

Story-systems, then, consist of these five elements: story, context, subtext, purpose and effect. In the following chapters, we’ll look more closely at the permutations of these elements in a variety of religious and cultural story-systems.