Introduction
1 HOW TO HOOK THE READER
COGNITIVE SECRET: We think in story, which allows us to envision the future.
STORY SECRET: From the very first sentence, the reader must want to know what happens next.
2 HOW TO ZERO IN ON YOUR POINT
COGNITIVE SECRET: When the brain focuses its full attention on something, it filters out all unnecessary information.
STORY SECRET: To hold the brain's attention, everything in a story must be there on a need-to-know basis.
3 I'LL FEEL WHAT HE'S FEELING
COGNITIVE SECRET: Emotion determines the meaning of everything--if we're not feeling, we're not conscious.
STORY SECRET: All story is emotion based--if we're not feeling, we're not reading.
4 WHAT DOES YOUR PROTAGONIST REALLY WANT?
COGNITIVE SECRET: Everything we do is goal directed, and our biggest goal is figuring out everyone else's agenda, the better to achieve our own.
STORY SECRET: A protagonist without a clear goal has nothing to figure out and nowhere to go.
5 DIGGING UP YOUR PROTAGONIST'S INNER... ISSUE
COGNITIVE SECRET: We see the world not as it is, but as we believe it to be.
STORY SECRET: You must know precisely when, and why, your protagonist's worldview was knocked out of alignment.
6 THE STORY IS IN THE SPECIFICS
COGNITIVE SECRET: We don't think in the abstract; we think in specific images.
STORY SECRET: Anything conceptual, abstract, or general must be made tangible in the protagonist's specific struggle.
7 COURTING CONFLICT, THE AGENT OF CHANGE
COGNITIVE SECRET: The brain is wired to stubbornly resist change, even good change.
STORY SECRET: Story is about change, which results only from unavoidable conflict.
8 CAUSE AND EFFECT
COGNITIVE SECRET: From birth, our brain's primary goal is to make causal connections--if this, then that.
STORY SECRET: A story follows a cause-and-effect trajectory from start
to finish.
9 WHAT CAN GO WRONG, MUST GO WRONG--AND THEN SOME
COGNITIVE SECRET: The brain uses stories to simulate how we might navigate difficult situations in the future.
STORY SECRET: A story's job is to put the protagonist through tests that, even in her wildest dreams, she doesn't think she can pass.
10 THE ROAD FROM SETUP TO PAY OFF
COGNITIVE SECRET: Since the brain abhors randomness, it's always converting raw data into meaningful patterns, the better to anticipate what might happen next.
STORY SECRET: Readers are always on the lookout for patterns; to your reader, everything is either a setup, a payoff, or the road in between.
11 MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH
COGNITIVE SECRET: The brain summons past memories to evaluate what's happening in the moment in order to make sense of it.
STORY SECRET: Foreshadowing, flashbacks, and subplots must instantly give readers insight into what's happening in the main storyline, even if the meaning shifts as the story unfolds.
12 THE WRITER'S BRAIN ON STORY
COGNITIVE SECRET: It takes long-term, conscious effort to hone a skill before the brain assigns it to the cognitive unconscious.
STORY SECRET: There's no writing; there's only rewriting.
Endnotes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.
―Flannery O’Connor
In the second it takes you to read this sentence, your senses are showering you with over 11,000,000 pieces of information. Your conscious mind is capable of registering about forty of them. And when it comes to actually paying attention? On a good day, you can process seven bits of data at a time. On a bad day, five.(1) On one of those days? More like minus three.
And yet, you’re not only making your way in a complex world just fine, you’re preparing to write a story about someone navigating a world of your creation. So how important can any of those other 10,999,960 bits of information really be?
Very, as it turns out―which is why, although we don’t register them consciously, our brain is busy noting, analyzing, and deciding whether they’re something irrelevant (like the fact that the sky is still blue) or something we need to pay attention to (like the sound of a horn blaring as we meander across the street, lost in thought about the hunky guy who just moved in next door).
What’s your brain’s criterion for either leaving you in peace to daydream or demanding your immediate and total attention? It’s simple. Your brain, along with every other living organism down to the humble amoeba, has one main goal: survival. Your subconscious brain―which neuroscientists refer to as the adaptive or cognitive unconscious―is a finely tuned instrument, instantly aware of what matters, what doesn’t, why, and, hopefully, what you should do about it.(2) It knows you don’t have the time to think, “Gee, what’s that loud noise? Oh, it’s a horn honking; it must be coming from that great big SUV that’s barreling straight at me. The driver was probably texting and didn’t notice me until it was too late to stop. Maybe I should get out of the―”
Splat.
And so, to keep us from ending up as road kill, our brain devised a method of sifting through and interpreting all that information much, much faster than our slowpoke conscious mind is capable of. Although for most other animals that sort of innate reflex is where evolution called it a day, thus relegating their reactions to what neuroscientists aptly refer to as zombie systems, we humans got a little something extra.(3) Our brain developed a way to consciously navigate information so that, provided we have the time, we can decide on our own what to do next.
Story.
Here’s how neuroscientist Antonio Damasio sums it up: “The problem of how to make all this wisdom understandable, transmissible, persuasive, enforceable―in a word, of how to make it stick―was faced and a solution found. Storytelling was the solution―storytelling is something brains do, naturally and implicitly. . . . [I]t should be no surprise that it pervades the entire fabric of human societies and cultures.”(4)
We think in story. It’s hardwired in our brain. It’s how we make strategic sense of the otherwise overwhelming world around us. ...Simply put, the brain constantly seeks meaning from all the input thrown at it, yanks out what’s important for our survival on a need-to-know basis, and tells us a story about it, based on what it knows of our past experience with it, how we feel about it, and how it might affect us. Rather than recording everything on a first come, first served basis, our brain casts us as “the protagonist” and then edits our experience with cinema-like precision, creating logical interrelations, mapping connections between memories, ideas, and events for future reference.(5)
Story is the language of experience, whether it’s ours, someone else’s, or that of fictional characters. Other people’s stories are as important as the stories we tell ourselves. Because if all we ever had to go on was our own experience, we wouldn’t make it out of onesies.
Now for the really important question―what does all this mean for us writers? It means that we can now decode what the brain (aka the reader) is really looking for in every story, beginning with the two key concepts that underlie all the cognitive secrets in this book:
1. 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. It’s even more crucial now, because once we mastered the physical world, our brain evolved to tackle something far trickier: the social realm. Story evolved as a way to explore our own mind and the minds of others, as a sort of dress rehearsal for the future.(6) As a result, story helps us survive not only in the life-and-death physical sense but also in a life-well-lived social sense. Renowned cognitive scientist and Harvard professor Steven Pinker explains our need for story this way:
Fictional narratives supply us with a mental catalogue of the fatal conundrums we might face someday and the outcomes of strategies we could deploy in them. What are the options if I were to suspect that my uncle killed my father, took his position, and married my mother? If my hapless older brother got no respect in the family, are there circumstances that might lead him to betray me? What’s the worst that could happen if I were seduced by a client while my wife and daughter were away for the weekend? What’s the worst that could happen if I had an affair to spice up my boring life as the wife of a country doctor? How can I avoid a suicidal confrontation with raiders who want my land today without looking like a coward and thereby ceding it to them tomorrow? The answers are to be found in any bookstore or any video store. The cliche that life imitates art is true because the function of some kinds of art is for life to imitate it.(7)
2. Not only do we crave story, but we have very specific hardwired expectations for every story we read, even though―and here’s the kicker―chances are next to nil that the average reader could tell you what those expectations are. If pressed, she’d be far more likely to refer to the magic of story, that certain je ne sais quoi that can’t be quantified. And who could blame her? The real answer is rather counterintuitive: our expectations have everything to do with the story’s ability to provide information on how we might safely navigate this earthly plane. To that end, we run them through our own very sophisticated subconscious sense of what a story is supposed to do: plunk someone with a clear goal into an increasingly difficult situation they then have to navigate. When a story meets our brain’s criteria, we relax and slip into the protagonist’s skin, eager to experience what his or her struggle feels like, without having to leave the comfort of home.
All this is incredibly useful for writers because it neatly defines what a story is―and what it’s not. In this chapter, that’s exactly what we’ll examine: the four elements that make up what a story is; what we, as readers, are wired to expect when we dive into the first page of a book and try it on for size; and why even the most lyrical, beautiful writing by itself is as inviting as a big bowl of wax fruit.
리사 크론 [저]
출판, 방송, 영화, 광고계를 망라하는 세계적인 스토리 컨설턴트이자 전문 연사다. UC버클리를 졸업하고 유명 출판사 W. W. 노턴과 존 뮤어 출판사에서 문학 에디터로 근무하며 유능한 편집자로 명성을 쌓았다. 베테랑 편집자 경력을 바탕으로 방송계의 러브콜을 받아 폭스TV, 미러맥스, 코트TV, 쇼타임 등에서 스토리 에디터와 선임 프로듀서로 활약했다. 이후 스토리텔링의 전쟁터인 할리우드로 넘어가, 미국 최대 영화사 워너브라더스를 비롯하여, 윌리엄 모리스 에이전시, 빌리지 로드쇼 등 굵직한 영화사에서 시나리오 각색을 돕는 스토리 컨설턴트로 일했다. 또한 안젤라 리날디 문학 에이전시에서 출판 에이전트로 활동하며 수많은 작가와 협업했다. 이러한 경험을 바탕으로 강연을 이어 나가며, 작가 지망생은 물론, 광고, 비즈니스, 마케팅 분야 종사자, 크리에이터들 사이에서 최고의 스토리텔링 강사로 인정받고 있다.
전체 0개의 구매후기가 있습니다.
인터파크도서는 고객님의 단순 변심에 의한 교환과 반품에 드는 비용은 고객님이 지불케 됩니다.
단, 상품이나 서비스 자체의 하자로 인한 교환 및 반품은 무료로 반품 됩니다.
교환 및 반품이 가능한 경우
상품을 공급 받은 날로부터 7일이내 가능 공급받으신 상품의 내용이 표시, 광고 내용과 다르거나 다르게 이행된 경우에는 공급받은 날로부터 3개월 이내, 혹은 그사실을 알게 된 날 또는 알 수 있었던 날로부터 30일 이내 상품에 아무런 하자가 없는 경우 소비자의 고객변심에 의한 교환은 상품의 포장상태 등이 전혀 손상되지 않은 경우에 한하여 가능
교환 및 반품이 불가능한 경우
구매확정 이후(오픈마켓상품에 한함) 고객님의 책임 있는 사유로 상품 등이 멸실 또는 훼손된 경우
(단, 상품의 내용을 확인하기 위하여 포장 등을 훼손한 경우는 제외) 시간이 지남에 따라 재판매가 곤란할 정도로 물품의 가치가 떨어진 경우 포장 개봉되어 상품 가치가 훼손된 경우
다배송지의 경우 반품 환불
다배송지의 경우 다른 지역의 반품을 동시에 진행할 수 없습니다. 1개 지역의 반품이 완료된 후 다른 지역 반품을 진행할 수 있으므로, 이점 양해해 주시기 바랍니다.
중고상품의 교환
중고상품은 제한된 재고 내에서 판매가 이루어지므로, 교환은 불가능합니다.
오픈마켓 상품의 환불
오픈마켓상품에 대한 책임은 원칙적으로 업체에게 있으므로, 교환/반품 접수시 반드시 판매자와 협의 후 반품 접수를 하셔야하며, 반품접수 없이 반송하거나, 우편으로 보낼 경우 상품 확인이 어려워 환불이 불가능할 수 있으니 유의하시기 바랍니다.
배송예정일 안내
인터파크 도서는 모든 상품에 대해 배송완료예정일을 웹사이트에 표시하고 있습니다.
<인터파크 직배송 상품>
상품은 월~토요일 오전 10시 이전 주문분에 대하여 당일 출고/당일 배송완료를 보장하는 상품입니다.
상품은 서울지역/평일 주문분은 당일 출고/익일 배송완료를 보장하며, 서울외지역/평일 주문분의 경우는 오후 6시까지 주문분에 대하여 익일 배송완료를 보장하는 상품입니다. (단, 월요일은 12시까지 주문에 한함)
상품은, 입고예정일(제품출시일)+택배사배송일(1일)에 배송완료를 보장합니다.
~
상품은 유통특성상 인터파크에서 재고를 보유하지 않은 상품으로 주문일+기준출고일+택배사배송일(1일)에 배송완료를 보장합니다.(토/공휴일은 배송기간에 포함되지 않습니다.) ※기준출고일:인터파크가 상품을 수급하여 물류창고에서 포장/출고하기까지 소요되는 시간
<업체 직접배송/오픈마켓 상품>
~
상품은 업체가 주문을 확인하고, 출고하기까지 걸리는 시간입니다. 주문일+기준출고일+택배사배송일(2일)에 배송완료를 보장합니다.(토/공휴일은 배송기간에 포함되지 않습니다.) ※5일이내 출고가 시작되지 않을시, 오픈마켓 상품은 자동으로 주문이 취소되며, 고객님께 품절보상금을 지급해 드립니다.
배송비 안내
도서(중고도서 포함)만 구매하시면 : 배송비 2,000원 (1만원이상 구매 시 무료배송) 음반/DVD만 구매하시면 : 배송비 1,500원 (2만원이상 구매 시 무료배송) 잡지/만화/기프트만 구매하시면 : 배송비 2,000원 (2만원이상 구매 시 무료배송) 도서와 음반/DVD를 함께 구매하시면 : 배송비 1,500원 1만원이상 구매 시 무료배송) 도서와 잡지/만화/기프트/중고직배송상품을 함께 구매하시면 : 2,000원 (1만원이상 구매 시 무료배송) 업체직접배송상품을 구매시 : 업체별로 상이한 배송비 적용
* 세트상품의 경우 부분취소 시 추가 배송비가 부과될 수 있습니다.
* 북카트에서 배송비없애기 버튼을 클릭하셔서, 동일업체상품을 조금 더 구매하시면, 배송비를 절약하실 수 있습니다.
해외배송 안내
인터파크도서에서는 국내에서 주문하시거나 해외에서 주문하여 해외로 배송을 원하실 경우 DHL과 특약으로 책정된 요금표에
의해 개인이 이용하는 경우보다 배송요금을 크게 낮추며 DHL(www.dhl.co.kr)로 해외배송 서비스를 제공합니다. 해외배송은 도서/CD/DVD 상품에 한해 서비스하고 있으며, 다른 상품을 북카트에 함께 담으실 경우 해외배송이 불가합니다.
해외주문배송 서비스는 인터파크 도서 회원 가입을 하셔야만 신청 가능합니다.
알아두세요!!!
도매상 및 제작사 사정에 따라 품절/절판 등의 사유로 취소될 수 있습니다. 오픈마켓업체의 배송지연시 주문이 자동으로 취소될 수 있습니다. 출고가능 시간이 서로 다른 상품을 함께 주문할 경우 출고가능 시간이 가장 긴 기준으로 배송됩니다. 유통의 특성상 출고기간은 예정보다 앞당겨지거나 늦춰질 수 있습니다. 택배사 배송일인 서울 및 수도권은 1~2일, 지방은 2~3일, 도서, 산간, 군부대는 3일 이상의 시간이 소요됩니다.
;)
전체 0개의 구매후기가 있습니다.
교환 및 반품이 가능한 경우 
상품을 공급 받은 날로부터 7일이내 가능 
상품은 월~토요일 오전 10시 이전 주문분에 대하여 당일 출고/당일 배송완료를 보장하는 상품입니다.
상품은 서울지역/평일 주문분은 당일 출고/익일 배송완료를 보장하며,
상품은, 입고예정일(제품출시일)+택배사배송일(1일)에 배송완료를 보장합니다.
~ 
상품은 유통특성상 인터파크에서 재고를 보유하지 않은 상품으로
상품은 업체가 주문을 확인하고, 출고하기까지 걸리는 시간입니다.
