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

by Lisa Cron

There must have been a pattern of specific “hints” or “tells” along the way, alerting us that all was not as it seems, which the new twist now illuminates and explains. 2. These “hints” and “tells” need to stand out (and make sense) in their own right before the reveal.

An Irony: Reveals Often Obscure

The Beauty in Showing Your Hand

Have you made sure that the basis of future conflict is sprouting, beginning on page one?

Have you established the “versus” so that the reader is aware of the specific rock and hard place the protagonist is wedged between? Can

Does the conflict force the protagonist to take action, whether it’s to rationalize it away or actually change?

you were your protagonist—and then make her face it. Have you made sure that the story gains something by withholding specific facts for a big reveal later? Don’t be afraid of giving too much away; you can always pare back later. Showing your hand is often a very good thing indeed. Once the reveal is known, will everything that happened up to that point still make sense in light of this new information? Remember, the story must make complete sense without the reveal, but in light of the reveal, the story must make even more sense.

Have you made sure that the story gains something by withholding specific facts...

Once the reveal is known, will everything that happened up to that point still make sense in light of this new information?

other words, our assumptions are based on the consequences of our prior experiences. But we don’t stop there. While a few other

Story arises from the conflict between “this one thing we thought was going to happen” and “what happened instead.”

The Logic of If, Then, Therefore

pattern of telltale signs, which she’ll now see with dizzying clarity, as if they were dominoes neatly lined up to fall just so.

REALITY: Novels That Are Hard to Read Aren’t Read

The Two Levels of Cause and Effect

Whether experimental, traditional, or somewhere in between, we know a story plays out on two levels at once—the protagonist’s internal struggle (what the story is actually about) and the external events (the plot)—so it’s no surprise that cause and effect governs both, allowing them to dovetail and thus create a seamless narrative thread.

Think of it as a pecking order: the why comes first, because it drives the what; the why is the cause; the what is the effect.

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

in, don’t tell me Brian changed his mind; show me how he arrived at the decision.

visual: As Chekhov so famously said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”12

Cause and Effect Doesn’t Mean Predictable

The Consequences of a Cause Without an Effect

Each thing you add to your story is like a drop of paint falling into a bowl of clear water. It spreads and colors everything.

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out.”17

Does your story follow a cause-and-effect trajectory beginning on page one, so that each scene is triggered by the one that preceded it?

Does everything in your story’s cause-and-effect trajectory revolve around the protagonist’s quest (the

When your protagonist makes a decision, is it always clear how she arrived at it, especially when she’s changing her mind about something?

Does each scene follow the action, reaction, decision pattern?

MYTH: Literary Novels Are Character

Driven, So They Don’t Need a Plot REALITY: A Literary Novel Has Just As Much Plot As a Mass Market Potboiler, If Not More

Remember: a story revolves around events that force the protagonist to come to grips with a difficult inner issue—which, ironically, is something literary novels are far more geared to convey.

From the moment we leave the womb, it begins charting the patterns around us, always with the same agenda: What’s safe, and what had I better keep my eye on?4

Stories are about the things we need to keep an eye on.

“The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern.”

In order to break a pattern, we need to know what the pattern is. And

Setups seduce us with the granddaddy of all sensations: engagement.

So keep in mind that to the reader, everything in a story is either a setup, a payoff, or the road in between.

Are there any inadvertent setups lurking in your story?

Is there a clear series of events—a pattern—that begins with the setup and culminates in the payoff?

Do the “dots” build?

Is the payoff of each of your setups logistically possible?

We use the past as a yardstick against which we size up the present in order to make it to tomorrow.