Every story is populated by actors. There must be people – or figures – propelling the plot forward. There needs to be some form of active subject; a protagonist; a “hero.” There also needs to be some opposing force to this; in folk tales, this opposing force is personified as evil; the “villain” or the “Evil Witch” or something similar. In modern stories, this may take a more abstract form, such as the “state.” There are several types of actors; the helper is one of them. The helper can be The Good Fairy, or Sam Gamgee – without whose assistance poor Frodo would never have managed to drag himself up the lava-dripping Mount Doom.
Vladimir Propp identified the role distribution into seven different types of characters, “roles” that he believes are prevalent in all stories.
- The villain
- The donor (provider) (e.g., Bilbo) – responsible for the preparation for the transmission of a magical agent; provision of the Hero with the magical agent
- The helper
- Sought-for – person (princess)
- The dispatcher (communications personnel responsible for receiving and transmitting pure and reliable messages, tracking vehicles and equipment, and recording other important information)
- The hero
- The false hero
We can discern traits of these characters in most modern stories today.
And for you, who plans to use storytelling as a method or a tool in your professional communication operation, you need to identify which characters populate your story. Of course, you don’t need to overload your story with a multiple character-setup (unless this is something you strategically choose to – depending on what story and for which purpose you produce it). But you need a protagonist and some kind of antagonist. Of course, your operation could play the part of the hero, which might seem as the obvious choice. And this can certainly be a good choice, and a successful one. It might be the CEO who bravely fought on in the midst of a massive storm to protect her client’s properties from damage. It could be your plant manager who personally undertook the potentially hazardous chemical investigation to make sure no detail was left out. Or a janitor who by his daily routes and routines in the unsafe neighborhood built longterm trust and relations and a sense of community among the residents.
But I have often found that the character of the Helper is a more fitting part for a lot of businesses and organizations I have worked for. In those cases, the Hero has been the client, the member, or the benefactor of the operation.
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