Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence

Cognitive psychology professor and novelist Keith Oatley puts it this way: “In literature we feel the pain of the downtrodden, the anguish of defeat, or the joy of victory, but in a safe space.… We can refine our human capacities of emotional understanding. We can hone our ability to feel with other people who, in ordinary life, might seem too foreign—or too threatening—to elicit our sympathies. Perhaps, then, when we return to our real lives, we can better understand why people act the way they do.”9 Or put more simply, as the aggravated newsreel producer barked at the beginning of Citizen Kane, “Nothing is ever better than finding out what makes people tick.” Because with that comes the predictive power of knowing when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to run for cover.

Remember, it is the job of a story to dig beneath the surface and decipher life, not just to present it. Stories illuminate the meaning the protagonist reads into events that, in real life, would not be so easy to understand. Julian Barnes sums it up nicely: “Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren’t.”8

from the text and integrated with personal knowledge from past experiences. These data are then run through mental simulations using brain regions that closely mirror those involved when people perform, imagine, or observe similar real-world activities.”5

lead author of the study Nicole Speer points out, the “findings demonstrate that reading is by no means a passive exercise. Rather, readers mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative. Details about actions and sensation are captured

Here’s what Jeffrey M. Zacks, coauthor of the study, has to say about the physical effect a story has on us: “Psychologists and neuroscientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that when we read a story and really understand it, we create a mental simulation of the events described by the story.”

Make us feel, and believe me, we’ll know who’s right and who’s probably not. Tell us what to feel, on the other hand, and what we’ll feel is bullied.

The most common mistake writers make is using body language to tell us something we already know. If we know Ann is sad, why would we need a paragraph describing what she looks like when she’s crying? Rather, body language should tell us something we don’t know. At its most effective, it tells us what’s really going on inside the character’s head. This is why body language works best when it’s at odds with what’s happening—either by telling us something that the character doesn’t want known

Lest the significance of this be lost, bear in mind that our brain evolved with just that goal—to see into the minds of others in order to intuit their motives, thoughts, and thus, true colors.6

This is what gives narrative story its unique power. What sets prose apart from plays, movies, and life itself is that it provides direct access to the most alluring and otherwise inaccessible realm imaginable: someone else’s mind

Gone with the Wind is about a headstrong southern belle whose unflinching gumption causes her to spurn the only man who is her equal, as she ruthlessly bucks crumbling social norms in order to survive during the Civil War by keeping the one thing she mistakenly believes matters most: her family estate, Tara.