The Bee as a Metaphor for Storytelling

Stories are the flowers that attract readers and customers and keep them glued. Unfortunately, the reverse is true and a bad story can repel readers and customers alike. I find the bee-flower metaphor a living and dynamic one in helping writing an attractive story.

You need a conflict to write a story- a conflict with yourself, the family or the society. I wrote a 20-slide presentation on how to build a conflict. This presentation won the status of Presentation of the Day and so far has attracted more the forty thousand views. You may wish to read it.

http://www.slideshare.net/hudali15/visual-storytelling-32366375

The bee-flower metaphor is strikingly helpful. The 3-Act story structure is just right for this metaphor. The lock finds its key by using it.

 In Act 1 we have the setup for the story. Bees leading their normal life till an issue appear. The place (hive) is crowded, communication with the queen is interrupted, crowdedness stress makes the bees unable to perform their dance well or the weather becomes too chilly for the bees to stay.

The 2-Act starts with the bees deciding to find a better place. A place that gives them plenty of flowers to suck, warm weather, water to drink and a place that keeps the bees away from creeping ants. The bees realize that they need to fly together as a swarm because they make their buzz more heard this way. They have a common purpose and fly together. The queen gets tired and they have to find a temporary place to rest. They find a tree and their numbers in thousands make a huge mass on the tree. They need to send scouts to find a permanent place. Many things can happen, which allow for increasing the challenges for the bees. The humans may try to kick away the bees from their temporary hive. Or, the scouts find different suitable locations for a new hive, but have a conflict on which one to select. Or, the scout bees get cheated. They forage for nectar in flowers that were caffeinated so that the scouting bees get stimulated. Their prime concern is diverted from finding good nectar to finding stimulation. Struggle starts between the stimulated scouts on where to live. Their normal decision-making process is deformed and the struggle continues. Instead of solving this conflict, the antagonist enriches the flower with a caffeine-enriched liquid so that instead of the bees buzzing him, the antagonist is buzzing them with nicotine. The conflict heightens.

Act-3 solves the conflict. A pharmaceutical company finds a product that removes the effect of nicotine from flowers. Or, the bees change the scouts.

Businesses look for locations to expand and start new ventures or branches. Isn't that relevant to what the bees do. The story of bees is also our story. Donna-Luisa Eversley commented on my last buzz "The Sting of Habits" by writing:

My new-found habit is facilitated by various social media publishing platforms. The hosting platform that encourages engagement and welcomes the sharing of my words to an international market meets my needs. Habits can generate loyal followers, and the hosting platform should develop its own habits or culture to encourage this. Though I was stung by the bookstores I moved on, not unhappy with their service, but their relevance in my life changed. Maybe I need to be continuously stung, as a reminder that change can create disloyal followers, but keeping abreast of customer needs, requires paying attention – hence stinging yourself and the customer. Thanks Ali Anani for your thought provoking post! Isn't this transformation a story by itself? Yes and the comment of Donna-Luisa is a mini-story on its own.

beBee- you are the new location for many writers and readers. I know you shall keep your flowers nicotine-free.