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

by Lisa Cron

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.

Stories allow us to simulate intense experiences without actually having to live through them.

what a story is supposed to do: plunk someone with a clear goal into an increasingly difficult situation they then have to navigate.

A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.

nothing focuses the mind like surprise.

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—

Simply put, we are looking for a reason to care.

story to grab us, not only must something be happening, but also there must be a consequence we can anticipate.

This means that whether it’s an actual event unfolding or we meet the protagonist in the midst of an internal quandary or there’s merely a hint that something’s slightly “off” on the first page, there has to be a ball already in play. Not the preamble to the ball. Not all the stuff you have to know to really understand the ball. The ball itself. This is not to say the first ball must be the main ball—it can be the initial ball or even a starter ball. But on that first page, it has to feel like the only ball and it has to have our complete attention.

in a story, what the reader feels is driven by what the protagonist feels.

We climb inside the protagonist’s skin and become sensate, feeling what he feels.

“Whenever possible, tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence.”

The big picture cues us to the problem the protagonist will spend the story struggling with.

“Joel Campbell, eleven years old at the time, began his descent into murder with a bus

story is real life with the boring parts left out.

Every single thing in a story—including subplots, weather, setting, even tone—must have a clear impact on what the reader is dying to know:

Storytelling Trumps Beautiful Writing, Every Time

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.

they start with something writers often never even think about—the point their story will make.

Armed with that knowledge, they then craft a tale in which every word, every image, every nuance leads directly to it.

Thus your first job is to zero in on the point your story is making.

A story is designed, from beginning to end, to answer a single overarching question.

What was missing in all those failed manuscripts is focus. Without it, the reader has no way to gauge the meaning

of anything,

and since we’re wired to hunt for meaning in everything—wel...

what is this thing called focus? It’s the synthesis of three elements that work in unison to create a story: the protagonis...

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.

The second element, the theme, is what your story says about human nature.

What is it I want my readers to walk away thinking about? What point does my story make? How do I want to change the way my reader sees the world?

REALITY: A Story Is About How the Plot Affects the Protagonist

Plot facilitates story by forcing the protagonist to confront and deal with the issue that keeps him from achieving his goal.

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.

It’s another way of sharpening your focus, highlighting what your reader really needs to know.

Instead, tone makes us feel it, by evoking a particular mood.

Tone belongs to the author; mood to the reader.

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?

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 everyth...

The narrator is never neutral; he always has an agenda. • The narrator can never tell us w...

Your job is not to judge your characters, no matter how despicable or wonderful they may be. Your job is to lay out what happens, as clearly and dispassionately as possible, show how it affects the protagonist, and then get the hell out of the way.

“Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.”

Write What You Know Emotionally

On the other, it’s way too easy for the writer to get caught up in the minutiae of how things “really work” and lose sight of the story itself. This is something that, for some reason, lawyers seem particularly prone to. Over the years, I’ve read myriad manuscripts in which the story comes to a screeching halt while the writer outlines the legal ramifications of every single thing, as if the reader might sue, should some fine point of jurisprudence be overlooked.

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”17

How do you make it make sense? By tapping into what you know about human nature and how people interact, and then consistently showing us the emotional and psychological “why” behind everything that happens.

Write about what you need to know, in an effort to understand.”

the bigger the word, the less emotion it conveys.

our real goal is to understand the action.