Stories that Move Mountains: Storytelling and Visual Design for Persuasive Presentations

The Cast of Characters

In the 1920s, a Russian scholar named Vladimir Propp analyzed 100 Russian fairy tales and identified seven typical characters, shown in the image opposite. They are the Hero, Villain, Princess, False Hero, Donor, Helper, and Dispatcher. These findings are relevant far beyond his original work and can be seen in many of the great stories. For visual stories, the concepts and ideas translate well into different roles because the simplicity of character definition and interaction means it's easy to follow the story.

A character can, in fact, take on a number of roles. For example one character, could take on the roles of donor, dispatcher, and helper over the sequence of the story. The two core roles are for the hero and villain, and unless you have a Jekyll and Hyde character, these will be two different characters in the story. It's not necessary to include all of them in a story, and in fact, many good stories are perfectly complete with just the hero and villain roles. The functions of the remaining roles play important parts in developing the conflict between the hero and the villain.

The roles can also move between characters. The hero may overcome the villain in the early part of the story and be celebrating success, only to find that the villain had a much more powerful figure behind the scenes, which takes the story into the false hope milestone, and the resulting conflict with the second villain taking the story to the climax. For example, the hero ...