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

by Lisa Cron

Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution—more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.

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.

The reader’s goal is to experience the story on her own terms, not to have it explained to her or be herded toward a specific hard-and-fast conclusion.

As lead author of the study Nicole Speer points out, the “findings demonstrate that reading is by no means a passive exercise. Rather, readers mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative. Details about actions and sensation are captured from the text and integrated with personal knowledge from past experiences. These data are then run through mental simulations using brain regions that closely mirror those involved when people perform, imagine, or observe similar real-world activities.”

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

If there is one thing every successful writer’s process includes, it’s rewriting.