Wired for Story

Lisa Cron

81 annotations • Sep 2023 – Dec 2023 • data

Introduction

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.

Chapter 1

Here's how neuroscientist Antonio Damasio sums it up: "The problem of how to make all this wisdom understandable, transmissible, persuasive, enforceable—in a word, of how to make it stick—was faced and a solution found. Storytelling was the solution—storytelling is something brains do, naturally and implicitly.… [I]t should be no surprise that it pervades the entire fabric of human societies and cultures."
Story evolved as a way to explore our own mind and the minds of others, as a sort of dress rehearsal for the future.
The real answer is rather counterintuitive: our expectations have everything to do with the story's ability to provide information on how we might safely navigate this earthly plane. To that end, we run them through our own very sophisticated subconscious sense of what a story is supposed to do: plunk someone with a clear goal into an increasingly difficult situation they then have to navigate. When a story meets our brain's criteria, we relax and slip into the protagonist's skin, eager to experience what his or her struggle feels like, without having to leave the comfort of home.
"What happens" is the plot. "Someone" is the protagonist. The "goal" is what's known as the story question. And "how he or she changes" is what the story itself is actually about.
And, as neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer says, nothing focuses the mind like surprise. That means when we pick up a book, we're jonesing for the feeling that something out of the ordinary is happening. We crave the notion that we've come in at a crucial juncture in someone's life, and not a moment too soon. What intoxicates us is the hint that not only is trouble brewing, but it's longstanding and about to reach critical mass. This means that from the first sentence we need to catch sight of the breadcrumb trail that will lure us deeper into the thicket. I've heard it said that fiction (all stories, for that matter) can be summed up by a single sentence—All is not as it seems—which means that what we're hoping for in that opening sentence is the sense that something is about to change (and not necessarily for the better).
It's a biological imperative: we are always on the hunt for meaning—not in the metaphysical "What is the true nature of reality?"
If we don't have a sense of what's happening and why it matters to the protagonist, we're not going to read it. After
And to that end, here are the three basic things readers relentlessly hunt for as they read that first page: 1. Whose story is it? 2. What's happening here? 3. What's at stake?
It stands to reason, then, that something must be happening—beginning on the first page—that the protagonist is affected by. Something that gives us a glimpse of the "big picture." As John Irving once said, "Whenever possible, tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence."
Here is the winner, from Elizabeth George's What Came Before He Shot Her: "Joel Campbell, eleven years old at the time, began his descent into murder with a bus ride."
Imagine that: all three questions were answered in a single sentence. 1. Whose story is it? Joel Campbell's. 2. What's happening here? He's on a bus, which has somehow triggered what will result in murder. (Talk about "all is not as it seems"!) 3. What is at stake? Joel's life, someone else's life, and who knows what else.
Because, as neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak writes, "Within the brain, things are always evaluated within a specific context." It is context that bestows meaning, and it is meaning that your brain is wired to sniff out. After all, if stories are simulations that our brains plumb for useful information in case we ever find ourselves in a similar situation, we sort of need to know what the situation is.
Elmore Leonard famously said that a story is real life with the boring parts left out
So why is The Da Vinci Code one of the best-selling novels of all time? Because, from the very first page, readers are dying to know what happens next. And that's what matters most. A story must have the ability to engender a sense of urgency from the first sentence. Everything else—fabulous characters, great dialogue, vivid imagery, luscious language—is gravy.
As Steven Pinker points out, "Gossip is a favorite pastime in all human societies because knowledge is power."

Chapter 2

A story is designed, from beginning to end, to answer a single overarching question. As readers we instinctively know this, so we expect every word, every line, every character, every image, every action to move us closer to the answer. Will Romeo and Juliet run off together? Will Scarlett realize Rhett's the man for her before it's too late? Will we find out enough about Charles Foster Kane to know what the hell Rosebud means?
Here are just a few telltale signs that a story is going off the rails: • We have no idea who the protagonist is, so we have no way to gauge the relevance or meaning of anything that happens. • We know who the protagonist is, but she doesn't seem to have a goal, so we don't know what the point is or where the story is going. • We know what the protagonist's goal is, but have no clue what inner issue it forces him to deal with, so everything feels superficial and rather dull. • We know who the protagonist is and what both her goal and her issue are, but suddenly she gets what she wants, arbitrarily changes her mind, or gets hit by a bus, and now someone else seems to be the main character. • We're aware of the protagonist's goal, but what happens doesn't seem to affect him or whether he achieves it. • The things that happen don't affect the protagonist in a believable way (if at all), so not only doesn't she seem like a real person, but we have no idea why she does what she does, which makes it impossible to anticipate what she'll do next.
So, what is this thing called focus? It's the synthesis of three elements that work in unison to create a story: the protagonist's issue, the theme, and the plot.
The story isn't about whether or not the protagonist achieves her goal per se; it's about what she has to overcome internally to do it. This is what drives the story forward. I call it the protagonist's issue.
Happily, theme actually boils down to something incredibly simple: • What does the story tell us about what it means to be human? • What does it say about how humans react to circumstances beyond their control?
Theme often reveals your take on how an element of human nature—loyalty, suspicion, grit, love—defines human behavior.
As corporate consultants Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman say in their book The Elements of Persuasion, "For those of us whose business depends on being able to persuade others—which is all of us in business—the key to survival is being able to cut through all the clutter and make the sale. The good news is that the secret of selling is what it has always been—a good story."
The universal is a feeling, emotion, or truth that resonates with us all. For instance, "the raw power of true love" is something everyone (okay, almost everyone) can tap into, whether the story is about a saloon owner in Casablanca, a mermaid under the sea, or a knight in Arthur's court. The universal is the portal that allows us to climb into the skin of characters completely different from us and miraculously feel what they feel.
Your story's tone reflects how you see your characters and helps define the world you've set them loose in. Tone is often how theme is conveyed, by cueing your readers to the emotional prism through which you want them to view your story—like a soundtrack in a movie.
Unchecked, theme is a bully, a know-it-all. And no one likes to be told what to do, which is why reverse psychology works so well. What this means is that the more passionate you are about making your point, the more you have to trust your story to convey it. As Evelyn Waugh says, "All literature implies moral standards and criticisms, the less explicit the better."
Here's the litmus test: the central theme must provide a point of view precise enough to give us specific insight into the protagonist and her internal issue, yet be broad enough to take into account everything that happens (again: the plot).
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.
One way to help identify a story's defining theme is to ask yourself: is it possible to filter the story's other themes through it? In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's gumption came first, so—for better or worse—it affects everything else: her love life, her refusal to be constrained by the mores of the day, and her insatiable need to take action when she doesn't get what she wants. Take action? Ah yes, the plot.
But wait; it still feels like something's missing in our description of the novel. Sure, fatal flaw or not, Scarlett wants to survive. But don't we all? Indeed we do, which makes survival, in and of itself, generic—one of those abstract universals. In other words, the same would be true of everyone, so it doesn't tell us a thing about Scarlett herself and adds nothing to the story. The question is: What does survival mean to Scarlett? Plot-wise (that is, on the corporeal plane where the action unfolds) this translates to: What does Scarlett need in order to feel she's survived what life has thrown at her? The answer is her family's plantation, Tara. Meaning, land.
Knowing what the focus of your story is allows you to do for your story what your cognitive unconscious does for you: filter out everything extraneous, everything that doesn't matter. You can use it to test each proposed twist, turn, and character reaction for story relevance.
Writers who focus on "their truth" tend to forget that as far as the reader is concerned, writing is about communication, not self-expression
The places where something isn't working are not hard to spot. What's hard is explaining exactly why it isn't working.

Chapter 3

It is exactly the same when it comes to story. If the reader can't feel what matters and what doesn't, then nothing matters, including finishing the story.
According to Damasio, "No set of conscious images of any kind on any topic ever fails to be accompanied by an obedient choir of emotions and consequent feelings." If we're not feeling, we're not breathing. A neutral protagonist is an automaton.
Your protagonist's reaction can come across in one of three ways: 1. Externally: Fred is late; Sue paces nervously, stubbing her toe. It hurts. She hops on one foot, swearing like a sailor, hoping she didn't chip the ruby red polish Fred loves so much. 2. Via our intuition: We know Sue's in love with Fred, so when we discover that the reason he's late is because he's with her BFF, Joan, we instantly feel Sue's upcoming pain, although at the moment she has no idea Fred even knows Joan. 3. Via the protagonist's internal thought: When Sue introduces Fred to Joan, she instantly senses something is going on between them. Watching them pretend to be strangers, Sue begins to plot the intricate details of their grisly demise.
Instead, the way to convey that he's in denial is to show how he interprets all those hints Sue's giving him. In other words, how does he rationalize them? Being in denial isn't as easy as it sounds. It's not a "blank" state; rather, it takes a good bit of work. When it comes to maintaining our coveted sense of well-being, each of us is a quintessential spin doctor. This means that Fred will work overtime to make sense of things that, to the reader, clearly have an altogether different meaning than the one he's just assigned to them.
To sum up, when writing in the first person, it helps to keep these things in mind: • Every word the narrator says must in some way reflect his point of view. • The narrator never mentions anything that doesn't affect him in some way. • The narrator draws a conclusion about everything he mentions. • The narrator is never neutral; he always has an agenda. • The narrator can never tell us what anyone else is thinking or feeling.
Body language is the one language it's impossible to really lie in. As Steven Pinker says, "Intentions come from emotions, and emotions have evolved displays on the face and body. Unless you are a master of the Stanislavsky method, you will have trouble faking them; in fact, they probably evolved because they were hard to fake." In other words, body language is the first thing we humans learned to decode, because even back in the Stone Age we knew that what a person grunts and what he really means might be two very different things.
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.
Equally treacherous is the common misconception that just because something "really happened" it's believable (read: makes sense). That's why it's always helpful to have Mark Twain's pithy observation close at hand: "It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense."

Chapter 4

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.
No one ever does anything for no reason, whether or not they're aware of the reason. Nothing happens in a vacuum, or "just because"—especially in a story. The whole point of a story is to explore this "why" and the underlying issue that, in real life, dear old Susan never let on she was struggling with.
This is all good. The problem was, these authors had merely plunked their protagonist into a dicey situation to see what would happen next. But because the protagonist didn't have a long-standing need that was then put to the test, her "goal" was nothing more than getting out of the horrible position she unexpectedly found herself in. Thus the spotlight remained on the problem rather than the protagonist.
Because we had no clue what her specific desires, fears, or needs were beyond the very obvious one-dimensional need to get out of the current situation ASAP, we couldn't anticipate how she would react to the things that happened, except in a generic, that's-what-any-person-would-do sense. And that, my friends, is boring. Why? Because we all have a pretty good idea of what "any person" would do. Where's the suspense in that? We turn to story to tell us something we don't know. So while we don't care a whit about what "any person" would do, we care passionately about what your protagonist would do—as long as we know why.
Our goal is to make the reader feel like they know her, and—this is essential—to care enough about her to want to find out what will happen to her. Which means we've also got to establish two things—that big changes are coming and all is not as it seems—and we have to do it as quickly as possible.
It is this kind of glimpse into someone else's hopes and fears that makes stories so compelling—and so much more than mere entertainment. It's hard to understand what other people want from us. It's hard to know what we truly want for ourselves (well, besides another piece of that salted caramel chocolate). Stories not only give us much-needed practice in figuring out what makes people tick, they give us insight into how we tick.

Chapter 5

Being wrong changes how we see—or don't see—the world.
T. S. Eliot so aptly noted, "The end of our exploring will be to arrive at where we started, and to know the place for the first time."
Stories are about people dealing with problems they can't avoid—sounds so elementary, doesn't it? Why, then, do writers so often leap in without knowing what, exactly, the protagonist's problem actually is?
This concept is elegantly summed up by, ahem, the Oracle to Optimus Prime in the animated TV show The Transformers: Beast Machines: "The seeds of the future lie buried in the past."
The most common problem with stories that haven't been outlined is that they don't build. How can they? Without a premeditated destination based on the battle between the protagonist's inner issue and his longstanding desire, they wander, taking the scenic route to who-knows-where. Thus, when the writer begins revising, something seminal needs to happen on, oh, about page two. And once it does, everything that follows becomes largely irrelevant. Which basically translates to what's known as a "page-one rewrite"—think of it as pretty much starting from scratch.
Hey, many writers think, no biggie. I expect to rewrite. Everyone says that's a huge part of the process anyway. Very true. But in this case there's a much bigger problem. It's extremely difficult to acknowledge that the first draft has been rendered largely moot. It's one of those hard-to-admit mistakes we were talking about, the kind we tend to work overtime rationalizing down to size. Thus new material is crafted first and foremost with an eye toward how it will fit into what's already there, because our unconscious allegiance is to what we've already written, rather than to the story itself. Ironically, the "new" draft is often a big step backward—what was flat in the prior version remains flat, now it just makes less sense.
That's why, when writing your protagonist's bio, the goal is to pinpoint two things: the event in his past that knocked his worldview out of alignment, triggering the internal issue that keeps him from achieving his goal; and the inception of his desire for the goal itself. Sometimes
Your goal is to allow them to be full, complete flesh-and-blood characters who, like us, are doing their best to muddle through against all odds. The essence of a story lies in revealing the things that in real life we don't say out loud. This is why, as cruel as it may feel, you can't allow your characters any privacy or mercy when exploring their past.
It's what Fitzgerald meant when he so famously said, "Character is action"—meaning the things we do reveal who we are, especially because, as Gazzaniga reminds us, "Our actions tend to reflect our automatic intuitive thinking or beliefs." Story is often about a protagonist coming to realize what's really causing him to do the things he does, at which point he either celebrates, because he's better than he thought, or begins making amends, because he's worse.
If you can't picture it, it's general. If you can see it, it's specific. As we'll explore in depth in chapter 6, you must be able to see it. The general, at best, conveys an objective idea that just sits there, idling in neutral; the specific personifies that idea, giving it a context that brings it to life.

Chapter 6

Here's how Einstein explained his own mental process: "My particular ability does not lie in mathematical calculation, but rather in visualizing effects, possibilities, and consequences."
Abstract concepts, generalities, and conceptual notions have a hard time engaging us. Because we can't see them, feel them, or otherwise experience them, we have to focus on them really, really hard, consciously—and even then our brain is not happy about it. We tend to find abstract concepts thumpingly boring.
As Damasio says, "Smart brains are also extremely lazy. Anytime they can do less instead of more, they will, a minimalist philosophy they follow religiously."
The point is, if I ask you to think about something, you can decide not to. But if I make you feel something? Now I have your attention. Feeling is a reaction; our feelings let us know what matters to us, and our thoughts have no choice but to follow. Facts that don't affect us—either directly or because we can't imagine how the facts affect someone else—don't matter to us.
George Lakoff points out, although we may not always know it, we also think in metaphor. Metaphor is how the mind "couches the abstract concepts in concrete terms."
To quote Aristotle's perfect definition: a "metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else."
Too many specifics can overwhelm the reader. Our brain can hold only about seven facts at a time. If we're given too many details too quickly, we begin to shut down
For instance, can you make it to the bottom of the following paragraph? Jane glanced into the yellow room, her gaze quickly taking in the massive four-poster bed with the fluffy blue-and-green paisley quilt, the craftsman rocker, the matching oak end table, laden with books, dust, and a huge brass lamp with flickering flame-shaped bulbs, ominously teetering next to sixteen unpacked fraying brown boxes, the one nearest to the door full of old clothes from the sixties—leather mini-skirts, muslin halter tops, skin-tight knee-high crinkly white patent leather boots, yellow Mary Janes, bellbottom jeans, and a floppy purple suede cowboy hat—the other fifteen boxes containing everything that Matilda had collected during her very long life, and if Matilda was anything, she was a packrat, so there was.…
As Steven Pinker says, "Mood depends on surroundings: think of being in a bus terminal waiting room or a lakeside cottage." So if you go to great pains to describe the scenery—be it a room, a setting, an elaborate meal, or what your protagonist is wearing—you'd better actually be communicating something else. The description of a room should reveal something about the person who lives in it or hint at the whereabouts of the missing diamond or tell us something crucial about the zeitgeist of the community in which the story unfolds—or better yet, all three.

Chapter 7

And as neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer points out in How We Decide, "Confidence is comforting. The lure of certainty is built into the brain at a very basic level."
We don't like change, and we don't like conflict, either. So most of the time we do our best to avoid both. This isn't easy, since the only real constant is change, and change is driven by conflict. This or that? Me or you? Chocolate or vanilla?
And there's the paradox: we survived because we're risk takers, but our goal is to stay safe by not changing an iota unless we absolutely have to.
That's probably why we try to defuse conflict as quickly as possible. We are made to understand at a very early age that we bring conflict into relationships at our own peril, and we are rewarded—by both society and the chemicals in our brain—for finding ways to nip it in the bud before it escalates. As the old song goes, the idea is to focus on the positive rather than the negative and—whatever you do—"don't mess with Mr. In-Between.
Again, the tension is palpable, isn't it? Because conflict, as it turns out, isn't ephemeral at all. It's visceral. It's the space you leave for the reader, allowing her to leap into the fray and imagine the possibilities. Never forget that story unfolds in the space between two opposing forces. If you make sure the reader's always aware of the conflicting realities the protagonist finds herself trapped between, you'll be off to the races—together.

Chapter 8

As philosopher David Hume pointed out, as far as we're concerned, causality is "the cement of the universe."
The good news is, when it comes to keeping your story on track, it boils down to the mantra if, then, therefore. If I put my hand in the fire (action), then I'll get burned (reaction). Therefore, I'd better not put my hand in the fire (decision)
By obeying the basic laws of the physical universe. Thus the key thing to remember is, naturally, Newton's first law of thermodynamics: you can't get something from nothing. Or as the equally brainy Albert Einstein reportedly quipped, "Nothing happens until something moves."
According to author Jonathan Franzen, books like Ulysses "send this message to the common reader: Literature is horribly hard to read. And this message to the aspiring young writer: Extreme difficulty is the way to earn respect."

Chapter 9

Character-driven novels rely a lot less on sinking ships, falling meteors, and tidal waves, and a lot more on a missed gesture, a quick nod, a moment's hesitation—which in the hands of a great writer can feel more earth shattering than a nine-point earthquake.
As the saying goes, "No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted."
After all, as Emily Dickinson points out, "A wounded deer leaps the highest." If you want your protagonist to be up to the test when he gets to that last hurrah, you've got to toughen him up along the way.
Don't let your characters admit anything they aren't forced to, even to themselves. Remember when you were a kid, and someone was trying to get you to do something you didn't want to do? You'd yell, "Oh yeah? Make me!" Well, in a story, when it comes to admitting anything, ever, that's your characters' mantra. No one in your story should ever divulge anything they aren't forced to—either by a gun to the head or, far more likely, circumstances beyond their control. Information is currency. It has to be earned. No one gives it away for free—and everything has a price. Your protagonist needs a compelling reason to admit anything. It either gains him something or keeps something bad from happening. It's never neutral
This is a perfect example of screenwriter Norman Krasna's maxim "Surprise 'em with what they expect."

Chapter 0

RED ABOVE THERE JOKES GRAVEL, instant might round most. Hard to read, huh? It feels like a train wreck inside your skull. With each new word it further defies the linguistic pattern you innately expect, which means no extra dopamine for you; instead, your neurotransmitters give you less of it than normal, in an effort to express their—that is, your—displeasure