Name: Wired for Story
Rating: 4.4 (124 reviews)
Author: Lisa Cron

What’s in it for me? Use the findings of neuroscience to write better stories.

We all love a good story and for generations writers have attempted to craft stories which intrigue us, shock us and excite us. Yet the writers of today have an advantage over those who have lived before: they have the power of brain science.

Studies into the human brain can show us why we like a good story and what type of narratives grab our attention the most. These blinks provide an outline to these findings. They show budding writers what they need to do to become successful.

In these blinks you will learn:

why Hamlet “works” as a story;
just how many pieces of information the human brain needs to remember every second; and
why your first draft is always terrible.

Humanity’s love for stories evolved out of our need to survive.

Our TV stations are programmed full of dramas and soap operas and our bestselling book lists overflow with fiction. What is it about stories that we love so much?

Stories appeal to us so much because they are hardwired into our brains. They actually allow us to picture the future and prepare for it.

When a good story captivates us, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released in the brain, which causes our concentration and interest to heighten.

We can actually thank our evolution for this process. Exchanging stories was the most effective way for our ancestors to transfer lifesaving information to one another, so we learned to pay attention to them.

Picture a Stone Age man sitting in his the cave one night, listening to his friend’s story about how his daughter ate some red berries and nearly died. From that story, our ancestor would have learned crucial information about how to keep his own children out of danger.

Modern neuroscience can help us strip this evolutionary practice down further for a deeper understanding. We’ve now discovered that when we listen to a story, our brains process the information just like they process real life. This tells us that stories developed as a simulated learning experience, giving us a safe way of understanding how to deal with danger, without having to actually face it.

For example, if your ancient self wanted to know why you shouldn’t approach a saber-tooth tiger, it was a better idea to listen to a friend's story, rather than go and find out what might happen for yourself. Both methods would teach the lesson, but the story is unlikely to result in your death.

In our modern world, our chances of facing a saber-tooth tiger are pretty low. Yet, the power of stories to engage and educate us endures.

The wonderful thing is, writers can take advantage of this. But a story alone is not enough. Engaging stories need to contain particular characteristics, which we will discover in the following blinks.

A good story needs a focus which filters out unnecessary information.

Ever read a great story without a decent plot? Probably not! When we listen to a narrative which meanders aimlessly, we are likely to lose interest in it rapidly. This is because all good stories need an explicit focus consisting of three factors in order to create an engaging story.

The first factor is the protagonist's issue, meaning the desire of your main character. If we look at Hamlet, the issue would be his father’s murder and his investigation to find out what happened.

Empathizing with the protagonist’s emotions engages the reader with the story.

We tend to think there are two separate sides to our personalities. One side is responsible for reason, rationality and decision-making and the other rules our emotions, our knee-jerk reactions and judgments.

We believe that in order to make smart decisions, we can simply ignore our emotional side and concentrate on the rational one. But this is incorrect.

To engage with a story, we need specifics to draw us in and help us imagine.

Stories would be dull without central concepts and abstract ideas. The problem is that you can’t actually see them. Ever tried visualizing the duality of man with no imagery to help you?

Images are everything, owing to the fact that our brains have evolved with an extraordinary ability to create mental pictures.

With long term practice, knowledge of what makes a good story becomes intuitive.

Say someone asks you how many of the letter “e” are in the word “entrepreneur.” You quickly try to visualize it, but you can’t come up with the right answer. We’ve all been there, that disconcerting feeling of forgetting how to spell a certain word, and the more you try to figure it out, the more unsure you become.

This happens because our brains function at their best when we act using our intuition; thinking too hard about something often decreases our performance.

Key ideas in Wired for Story