The Universal Structure of Storytelling

All storytelling has a common arc, and a common set of purposes.

Storytelling is then—in every era and every culture—a dramatization of the everlasting war between the princesses and the tigers. Protagonists struggle to lay down the stitching that binds families, friends, and communities together. Antagonists seek to find those seams and rip them apart. Stories unfold as races: Who can do their work better and faster, the princesses or the tigers? The weavers or the cleavers?

Pulls in a reference to Dunbar's "Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language" as well. Stories are such a powerful human capability.