The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better

First, this is a great book about the connection between consciousness and narrative. Not quite as neurocognitively scientific as I hoped, but the research conclusions and principles are clearly stated. The content gets 5 stars! The audiobook and narration gets 4+ stars (a little slow in the cadence for my ears, but otherwise candy for the ears).
The Kindle gets 2 stars. I got the Kindle with the discounted audible book and boy am I glad I did! There are entire pages apparently absent from the Kindle version that are clearly narrated in the audiobook. At first I thought my hallucinated version of the real world was to blame, but the words I hear are simply not in print - and the context verifies that something is missing. C'mon Amazon! Just because it's less expensive and electronic doesn't mean the book has to be incomplete! Please do better!

1. ATTENTIONAL BIAS

Attention is focused on things that have personal meaning, not things that simply stand out.

2. CO-OPERATION

Individualism started in the hilly landscape of ancient Greece where group activities like farming were difficult and self-reliance more common. This led to personal glory and the creation of the Olympics and democracy. Collectivism started in the East and it arose because the land was flat and ideal for group farming.

3. CURIOSITY INSTINCT

There are 4 ways of creating curiosity:

(i) The presentation of a question or puzzle.
(ii) A sequence of events with anticipated but unknown resolution.
(iii) The violation of expectations, triggering a search for an answer.
(iv) Surprise with red hearings and seduce with someone else knowing the secret.

Maximum curiosity is when the reader has an idea but they are not quite sure and must resolve that itch of curiosity.

Dogs live in a world of smells, humans live in a social world. As the social world is so important to us, we have a heightened curiosity about it.

4. EMOTIONS

Who is the character in your story? This is a very hard question because we don't know who we are. We are led astray by our inner voice that tells us we are good and justifies everything we do. We think our inner voice is "us". It feels like the voice has direct access to who we are but it doesn't. It is simply generated by speech circuitry in the left hemisphere of our brain, "we" are our neural models. We model everything we know in the world. We also have different models of ourselves, which are continually fighting over who we are. Our behavior is the result of this fight. "Because the narrator exists separately from the circuits that are the true cause of our emotions and behaviors, it's forced to rapidly hash together anything that makes sense, a (usually heroic) story about what we are up to and why ."

Our narrator organizes everything we see into a story that says who we are, why we did or felt something. It's designed to help us feel in control. It looks for an explanation for cause and effect, any explanation will do, facts are a bonus. In a study, split-brain patients had their right eye covered and were shown a sign that read "walk". Their brain sent this message to the right side of their brain, hidden from their narrator. The subjects got up and walked but when asked what they were doing they would make an excuse to justify their actions.

4.1 - EMOTIONS: JEALOUSY

Reading about wealth, popularity, and the good looks of others causes pain regions to be activated.

4.2 - EMOTIONS: MORAL SUPERIORITY

Violence and cruelty have 4 causes:

(i) Greed and ambition
(ii) Sadism
(iii) High self-esteem
(iv) Moral superiority

Popular opinion and stories tend to presume 'greed' and 'dominance' are key. In fact, it is moral superiority that causes most acts of evil.

4.3 - EMOTIONS: SCHADENFREUDE

Reading about misfortune causes the reward system to be activated.

5. EVOLUATIUON: ADAPTATION

Every dramatic scene is a test for the protagonist, asking them: who are they going to be? The same flawed version of themselves or a reborn new version?

6. FRICTION

Brains have friction for "and then". Scenes should have a "because" between them, not "and then".

7. IKEA EFFECT

Allow the reader to anticipate the unfolding of the scene. This lets them input their own feelings, interpretation, and narrative into why the scene happened. Show rather than tell, suggest instead of explaining.

8. IRRATIONALITY

'Follow the sacredness. Find out what people find sacred and when you do you'll find irrationality'.

9. MOMENTUM

The protagonist should be active. Books that appear in the NYT bestseller list contain 2x more of the following words:

(i) 'do'
(ii) 'need'
(iii) 'want'

10. NARRATIVE INSTINCT

All plots embrace a 3 act shape:

(i) Crisis
(ii) Struggle - Every dramatic scene will pose the fundamental question "who am I?" Am I going to be the flawed version of myself or the new version?
(iii) Resolution

Some of the best examples include:

Joseph Campbell:

+ A hero gets a call to adventure.
+ They initially refuse.
+ A mentor arrives and changes their mind.
+ The hero crosses a transformational precipice, causing dark forces to chase them.
+ A near-death battle with the dark forces unfolds.
+ The hero returns to their community with a moral.

Christopher Booker 7 recurring plots:

+Rags to Riches
+The Quest
+Voyage and Return
+Rebirth
+Comedy
+Tragedy

Each with a 5 stage structure:

(i) Call to action
(ii) The dream/Goldilocks stage
(iii) Frustration
(iv) Conflict
(v) Resolution

Pixar

+ The protagonist, living a settled life, has a goal.
+A challenge appears.
+ Resulting in a cause-and-effect sequence of events.
+ The story builds to a climax.
+ Good wins over evil.
+ The moral of the story is revealed.

Jung

The protagonist will be out of balance, either too strong or weak in:

+ Strength/order (masculine)
+ Feeling/understanding (feminine)
+ The story concludes with the hero achieving the perfect balance of the 4 traits.

11. NEWTON'S 3RD LAW: ACTION AND REACTION

'As we interact with the world in our own characteristic way, so the world pushes back in ways which reflect it, setting us off in our own particular cause and effect journey - a plot-specific to us'.

12. RESISTANCE

When we are young our brains are constantly changing, developing models of the world, but we quickly reach a turning point where we go from being model builders to model defenders. This is where human conflict and drama are born. The character is at war not only with the external world but primarily with themselves. The reward of this war is the answer of: Who am I?

13. STATUS

Evolutionary biologists state that humans have 2 incompatible goals:

(i) To connect - To be liked and seen as non-selfish members of the tribe.
(ii) To dominate

Alpha male chimps must balance dominance with the appearance of protecting lower ranks as chimps often support the underdog, providing an opportunity for revolution. Is this why we support the underdog in stories? At the start of a story the hero is: (1) low status (2) reluctant (3) vulnerable. At the happy ending of a story, they combine the 4 values of (1) strength (2) order (3) feeling (4) understanding.

14. VIVIDNESS BIAS

To make stories vivid, one study found that 3 specific traits should be mentioned, for example: A shiny, black coffee pot or A furry, little cat

Evoke the senses by pairing sensory information (touch/smell/taste/hearing) + visual. For example: Lemony, fresh hands or cabbagey, brown socks.

Instead of telling the reader something was "terrible", describe it so they will be terrified.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Presents a great physchological understanding for story telling and what makes a great story resonate .

I have read a multitude of books about the subject of storytelling and writing. I’ve also published several books and have spent decades in the process of writing, working with writing networking groups, attending conferences, etc. So, I found myself surprised to have this source of unique and insightful information about the process of creating compelling storylines and found myself stopping to reflect on the lessons the author provided innumerable times.

I plan to refer to this highly useful and engaging book often. Great resource.

Will Storr takes neuroscience and writing concepts and weaves them into a fine product. He uses examples from some of the great writers to explain and expound on his points. I discovered multiple relevant but unexpected writing concepts in this book. This is a great book!

It's well written, but didn't contain much that was not already evident. Still, I did like it.

Unlike the mountain of other books providing writing advice and story structures, this one actually answers the question we're all asking: What makes a story good?

The Science of Storytelling almost reads like a research paper, and you can feel the author's near obsession in bringing you through the quest for the answer to storytelling. Like most good instructions, we are taken through large amounts of examples and research leading us to just a handful of all-important epiphanies.

I can now start my stories with confidence, knowing that the framework I'm building on is solid. No more realizing 100 pages in that the concept isn't as interesting as I thought, or that maybe the characters are just too weak.

Never mind whether you’re a writer or not… this is a sweeping inquiry into what it means to be human, too.