1 4. On scientific fabulation: Storytelling in the more-than-human-world Emily Höckert PRE-PRINT Published in Ethics and Politics of Space for the Anthropocene 2020 Edited by Anu Valtonen, Outi Rantala & Paolo D. Farah The three little pigs and the big bad wolf Once upon a time, our family was invited to eat dinner at our neighbours’ house. After a while, my daughter became tired and was ready to sleep, while we adults wished to continue our discussions by the cosy fireplace. I took her to the guest room, hoping that she would be able to feel at home and fall asleep. However, as we had no book with us, I had to try to memorise or improvise a goodnight story by myself. The problem was that I could not think of any. I started to mutter something about three little pigs that lived in the woods. My daughter interrupted me and said, “Mum, remember that a good storyline consists of the beginning, the problem that occurs, solving the problem and the end”. The main purpose of describing this moment is not only to brag how smart my then six-year- old child was: although I was impressed and amused by her knowledge of a coherent plotline, I was most of all disappointed by my own inability to engage in spontaneous and creative storytelling. By that time, I had been writing academic books, articles, chapters and short stories, which should have meant that I had been developing my storytelling skills for a while. Many years ago, I had also come across Ari Hiltunen’s (2002) illuminating book Aristotle in Hollywood: The anatomy of successful storytelling, which reveals the secrets of popular storytelling in contemporary bestselling novels, films, series and video games. In the Poetics, Aristotle suggested that the function of a successful plot is to arouse emotions of pity and fear, and then produce emotions of pleasure and catharsis (Hiltunen, 2002, p. 27). While every story includes a problem that is then solved, as my daughter had learned in school, Aristotle’s theory of drama underlines how crucial it is that the audience feels sympathy