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

by Lisa Cron

Robert Frost concurs: “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”7 Ditto Robert B. Parker, who says he has no idea where the story is going when he starts writing.8

REALITY: Character Bios Should Concentrate Solely on Information Relevant to Your Story

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

automatic intuitive thinking or beliefs.”13 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.

ASKING OURSELVES, “WHY?”

HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE THE GENERAL FROM THE SPECIFIC IN A STORY

you can’t picture it, it’s general. If you

can see it, it’s specific. As we’ll explore in de...

Now we have Why, Where, How, When, and Who.

about facing who you are and taking the consequences, not to mention the perks, one of which just might be finding your true love. Just saying.

Have we set the stage to find out? Yep. So you see, outlining doesn’t have to take the spontaneity out of writing. You don’t need to know exactly how the story is going to end, but you do need to know what the protagonist will have to learn along the way—that is, what her “aha!” moment will be. And even if you do have a precise scene-by-scene outline? As we

Do you know why your story begins when it does?

Have you uncovered the roots of your protagonist’s specific fears and desires? Do you know what her inner issue is?

Have you made your characters reveal their deepest, darkest secrets to you? I don’t want to go all Big Brother on you,

When writing character bios, are

you being specific enough?

Do you know where the story is going? This isn’t to say you need

Story, on the other hand, takes mind-numbing generalities and makes them specific so we can try them on for size. Remember, we’re hardwired to instantly evaluate everything in life on the basis of is it safe or not? Thus the whole point of a story is to translate the general into a specific, so we can see what it really means, just in case we ever come face to face with it in a dark alley.

Antonio Damasio says, “The entire fabric of a conscious mind is created from the same cloth—images.”4

Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran agrees: “Humans excel at visual imagery. Our brains evolved this ability to create an internal mental picture or model of the world in which we can rehearse forthcoming actions, without the risks or penalties of doing them in the real world.”

Feel first. Think second.

The Specifics About Specifics

point is, generalities are not capable of producing specific consequences, and so the story has nowhere to go. Instead, more vague things happen, compounding the confusion, until the reader realizes that she has far more questions than the story will ever answer and heads to the refrigerator for a snack.

George Lakoff points out, although we may not always know it, we also think in metaphor.8 Metaphor is how the mind “couches the abstract concepts in concrete terms.”

Aristotle’s perfect definition: a “metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else.”

in mind that the story isn’t in what happens; it’s in how your characters react to it.

the ones that do. There are three main reasons for any sensory detail

to be in a story: 1. It’s part of a cause-and-effect trajectory that relates to the plot—Lucy drinks the shake, she passes out. 2. It gives us insight into the character—Lucy’s an unapologetic hedonist headed for trouble. 3. It’s a metaphor—Lucy’s flavor choice represents how she sees the world.

As Elmore Leonard so shrewdly advised, “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”15

“Mood depends on surroundings: think of being in a bus terminal waiting room or a lakeside cottage.”16 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.

you need to root through your story and make sure you’ve translated anything brain-numbingly vague, abstract, or generic into something that’s surprisingly specific, deliciously tangible, and grippingly visceral.

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?

We evolved as risk takers,

Story’s job is to tackle exactly how we handle that conflict, which boils down to this: the battle between fear and desire.

explore how to harness impending conflict to mounting suspense from the very first sentence; where the specific avenues of conflict and suspense are often found; and why holding back crucial information for a big reveal later ironically tends to ensure that readers will never get there.

Understanding Our Conflict with Conflict

“Since we are social creatures, a need to belong is as basic to our survival as our need for food and oxygen,” says neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak.

Conflict hurts.

We get to try on trouble, pretty much risk-free.

Suspense Is the Handmaiden of Conflict

What the protagonist believes is true versus what is actually true • What the protagonist wants versus what the protagonist actually has • What the protagonist wants versus what’s expected of her • The protagonist versus herself • The protagonist’s inner goal versus the protagonist’s external goal • The protagonist’s fear versus the protagonist’s goal (external, internal, or both) • The protagonist versus the antagonist • The antagonist versus mercy (or the appearance thereof)

The protagonist versus the antagonist • The antagonist versus mercy (or the appearance thereof)

1. As we’ll explore in chapter 10, the brain is wired to hunt for meaningful patterns in everything, the better to predict what will happen next based on the repetition or the alteration of the pattern (which means, first and foremost, that there need to be meaningful patterns for the reader to find).8 2. We run the scenario on the page through our own personal experience of similar events, whether real or imagined, to see whether it’s believable (which gives us the ability to infer more information than is on the page—or go mad when there isn’t enough information for us to infer anything at all).9 3. We’re hardwired to love problem solving; when we figure something out, the brain releases an intoxicating rush of neurotransmitters that say, “Good job!”10 The pleasure of story is trying to figure out what’s really going on (which means that stories that ignore the first two facts tend to offer the reader no pleasure at all).

On the external level we have what Rita wants (Marco) versus what Rita has (Marco’s promises). On the internal plane, the conflict is between what Rita believes (that Marco is her soul mate) versus what is actually true (Marco is soulless).

One way to tell if what the protagonist wants in the beginning is her genuine goal is to ask yourself: will she have to face her biggest fear, and so resolve her inner issue, to achieve said goal? If the answer is no, then

MYTH: Withholding Information for the Big Reveal Is What Keeps Readers Hooked REALITY: Withholding Information Very Often Robs the Story of What Really Hooks Readers