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

by Lisa Cron

Neuroscientists believe the reason our already overloaded brain devotes so much precious time and space to allowing us to get lost in a story is that without stories, we’d be toast. Stories allow us to simulate intense experiences without actually having to live through them. This was a matter of life and death back in the Stone Age, when if you waited for experience to teach you that the rustling in the bushes was actually a lion looking for lunch, you’d end up the main course.

As counterintuitive as it may sound, a story is not about the plot or even what happens in it. Stories are about how we, rather than the world around us, change.

“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. Who wouldn’t read on to find out?

after that first sentence, the novel follows the hapless, brave, poverty-stricken Joel through inner-city London for well over six hundred pages before the murder in question. But along the way we’re riveted, weighing everything against what we know is going to happen, always wondering if this is the event that will catapult Joel into his fate, and analyzing why each twist and turn pushes him toward the inevitable murder.

Here’s something even more interesting: without that opening sentence, What Came Before He Shot Her would be a very, very different story. Things would happen, but we’d have no real idea what they were building toward. So, regardless of how well written it is (and it is), it wouldn’t be nearly as engaging. Why?

Have I convinced you to give outlining a chance? Good. But before visions of rigid Roman numeral outlines fill your head—or worse, the thought of plowing through one of those endless one-size-fits-all “character questionnaires”—let me reassure you that outlining can be an intuitive, creative, and inspiring process. Not to mention one that’s often surprisingly shorter than you might think. Let’s take a look at why. MYTH: You Can Get to Know Your Characters Only by Writing Complete Bios REALITY: Character Bios Should Concentrate Solely on Information Relevant to Your Story When it comes to getting to know your characters, there is definitely such a thing as Too Much Information.

There is a school of writing that holds that it’s the reader’s responsibility to “get it,” rather than the author’s job to communicate it. Many writers of experimental fiction graduated from this particular school with advanced degrees. Thus, when we readers don’t “get it,” the fault is not assumed to be theirs, but ours. This attitude can foster an unconscious contempt for the reader, while freeing the writer from any responsibility beyond his or her own self-expression. It also tends to presuppose the reader’s interest and earnest dedication from word one—as if somehow the reader owes it to the author to choke down every single word.

MYTH: “Show, Don’t Tell” Is Literal—Don’t Tell Me John Is Sad, Show Him Crying REALITY: “Show, Don’t Tell” Is Figurative—Don’t Tell Me John Is Sad, Show Me Why He’s Sad