You have to read ‘Wired For Story‘ by Lisa Cron.

It’s the writer’s guide to using brain science to hook readers from the very first sentence. Download it, or go right out and buy it at a brick & mortar place. It’s just that good. Even if you aren’t a writer – as a reader it’ll make you appreciate what a story is.

And, as Lisa tells us, we’re all wired for story.

We’re humans. Story is crucial to our evolution – more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs lets us hang on; story tells us what to hang on to. Story is what enables us to imagine what might happen and prepare for it. Story is what makes us human.

Brain science and story. Right brain. Left brain. Common sense.

No matter how you cut it, we’re hardwired for story. We need story to make sense of things. We need story to tell us things. We need story so we don’t have to find out things by ourselves.

TV. Facebook. Twitter. Emails.

They’re all story.

Just like letters, and print books, and smoke signals used to be.

Technology changes, but the human attraction to story doesn’t. That’s because we’re hardwired by our creator to tell and listen to stories.

We get a dopamine rush from wanting to know what happens next… and that dopamine rush lets us learn. It keeps us up late at night… turning the page. It’s the rush of intoxication. Being captivated by a good read. Meeting our hardwired expectations that the story will tell us something about life that we don’t have to risk learning on our own.

Hey Lisa, I’m gonna quote you without permission…

‘Evolution dictates that the first job of any good story is to completely anesthetize the part of our brain that questions how it is creating such a compelling illusion of reality. After all, a good story doesn’t feel like an illusion. What it feels like is life. Literally. A recent brain-imaging study reported in Psychology Science reveals that the regions of the brain that process the sights, sounds, tastes, and movement of real life are activated when we’re engrossed in a compelling narrative. That’s what accounts for the vivid mental images and the visceral reactions we feel when we can’t stop reading, even though it’s past midnight and we have to be up at dawn. When a story enthralls us, we are inside of it, feeling what the protagonist feels, experiencing it as it were indeed happening to us, and the last thing we’re focussing on is the mechanics of the thing.”

A good story engrosses us so much that we forget it’s a story at all.

Check out wiredforstory.com

It’s what we’re hardwired to hear.

The secret of good death writing is keeping the reader alive throughout.

To do that, you must first raise a question which begs to be answered by the end of the story.

In Thrillers, it’s something like ‘WTF’s gonna happen to the protagonist?’

In Murder-Mysteries, it’s ‘Who dunnit or Why’d they do it?’

In Sci-Fi… “Is this even possible?’

In Romance… ‘Is she gonna get laid?’

In Literary… ‘How elegant is the prose and what new Scrabble words can I pick up?’ (No wonder Literary is fading fast.)

I’m going to use an example from my novel, No Witnesses To Nothing.

And, No, I’m not trying to sell you Blog-subscribers the book. I’ll give you a free digital copy if you sign my mailing list, because that way you’ll sell it for me by WOM. (That used to be Word-Of-Mouth. Now it’s Word-Of-Mouse. I like that term!)

The central question in No Witnesses is ‘Why did the informants have to be murdered?’ Not who. It’s obvious from the opening that the ghost dunnit, because it’s a ghost story. It’s based on a real ghost story that actually happened to me when I was a police officer and it scared the living shit out of me. But then ghost stories are supposed to do that and it makes for a good hook.

So the question keeps getting raised. ‘Why did the informants HAVE to be murdered?’ And it’s answered at the end of the book, which you have to keep reading in order to find out.

So far, readers have been very positive; most turning around and reading it a second time. The best compliment that a fiction writer could ever have is ‘I couldn’t put it down!’ and I’ve got that from even those who don’t know me.

So that’s how to put life into a death story – raise the question of who or why they did it – which is what Murder Mysteries are about.

Do it repeatedly and delay the answer by throwing in red herrings with twists & turns. Like Agatha Christie did.

Blend this with some of the basics of story-telling; a good opening hook, realistic dialogue, limited use of adjective & adverbs, carefully placed descriptors, interesting characters, the suspension of disbelief, and that old thing of show & tell.

**Remember… You tell a story, not show it… and that’s for a whole other blog.**

What do you think brings a story to life?

I’m dying to hear your words.

Dying Words

Provoking Thoughts on Life, Death, and Writing

Tag Archives: Story

YOUR BRAIN IS WIRED FOR STORY