Review: Wired for Story by Lisa Cron (Part 2)

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

Genre: Nonfiction/Fiction Writing Skills

Publication Date: July 10, 2012

Source: paperback purchase

| Amazon | |Barnes &Noble |

Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets—and it’s a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper.

The vast majority of writing advice focuses on “writing well” as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail—they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain’s hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won’t hold anyone’s interest.

Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.

 

In case you're unaware, I wrote the first part (Part 1) of this book review last week and now I'm continuing on with Part 2 today....

My Review – Part 2

Last week, my review of Wired for Story got into what a story should revolve around in order to consider it an actual story and not just a set of random events. This week's review covers the information in Chapters 3 through 4 about what elements your story needs to have to make it connect with readers.

Emotions are the glue that makes your story and characters stick to the roof of your reader's mouth as he or she laps them up like peanut butter. If your reader isn't having an emotional response to your story, chances are he/she will deem it as unimportant and move on to the next one. Brain science reveals that we cannot even make simple decisions in our lives without emotions driving us to pick a blue shirt over a brown one to wear because it's a nice, sunny day today.

So, how do you make meaningful emotional connections with the reader? Show how what happens to your protagonist affects them and what they do as a result. In every scene you write, your protagonist must react in some way the reader can understand in that moment. The reaction must have an effect on how the protagonist will achieve her goal, which will draw out a very visceral reaction in the protagonist.

Brain scientists have discovered that everything we experience pulls on our emotional heartstrings because, as a species, we are wired to ask ourselves, unconsciously, “Will this help me or hurt me?” We real folks feel everything and when we read about fictional people kind of feeling stuff, but not really, we check out of that story in a hurry. But, why? Because it bores us. We have no interest in anything we cannot feel. We end up not knowing what to think of it and that makes it hard for us to process.

Okay, now we understand this because it does make sense, after all, doesn't it? When you think it about, yes. But, don't we need to delve a little deeper into story to tell a story? Of course. Now, it's time to write characters that have ambitions, or goals to achieve. A protagonist without something to achieve is flowndering and leaves the reader feeling nothing. But, why do protagonists need goals to achieve? Because we real people are always driven to achieve goals, be they the kind in which we want to eat pancakes for breakfast to the kind in which we want to become the next president of the United States.

The thing is, when we read, we slip into the skin of the protagonist for that time and become them. What they want, we want. What makes them happy, makes us happy. Our brains light up on fMRI scans the exact same way when we read about a story happening to somebody else as when it actually happens to us, literally. Basically, our brains can't tell the difference.

So, we cannot find meaning in anything that happens to a character if we don't know what she wants. Was that slap on the butt flirtation or harassment? If your character is a stalwart feminist aiming to take down “the man” and all his “boys,” and the man slapping her is her coworker, then, yes that was harassment. If he is her playful husband teasing her about her new Buns of Steel workout and how hot she looks, then it's flirtation. See how knowing the character and what drives her, you can find the meaning in everything that happens to her?

And, everything that happens to her will be colored by her story goal. It will strengthen in the reader's mind what she is focused on and how what she must go through to achieve her goal will emotionally impact her. But, is it enough to just know what the character wants? Inevitably, the reader will ask, “Why does she want this?” Give your character a reason why they want what they want—a motivation behind it because it will resonate better. Nothing in a story happens in a vacuum just as in real life.

There's so much more that I can't even get into from Chapter 4 because it reaches some serious depths, but this is a tasty sample of what you'll find therein. Next time, for Part 3 in two weeks, I'll get into the chapters on how to probe into your protagonist's inner issue and the importance of writing specifics into your story.

To be continued in Part 3....

Did you ever think story was so complex? It really goes so far beyond our awareness because when we slip into story, that part of our brain that analyzes things shuts off, thus keeping us blind to why the story is resonating with us. Funny, isn't it?