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

by Lisa Cron

  2. If we watch the stockholder’s meeting, chances are we’ll learn why John was fired, what John’s father actually said, and how John reacted in the moment, which will give us fresh insight into their dynamic and who they are when the chips are down. This is where a lot of those missing specifics we were talking about in chapter 6 tend to be hidden.

  In short, “telling” tends to refer to conclusions drawn from information we aren’t privy to; “showing,” to how the characters arrived at those conclusions in the first place. Thus “show, don’t tell” often means show us a character’s train of thought. I once worked with a writer whose protagonist, Brian, had a habit of swearing he’d never do something and then, for no apparent reason, doing it. Because this completely undermined Brian’s credibility, I advised the writer to show him making each decision. What I got back was a manuscript full of passages like this:

  “Please, Brian dear, I know you said you’d never ever have a dog again, after what happened to Rover, but I saw the cutest cocka-poo at the pound. What do you say?”

  Brian sat on the couch, staring pensively out the window, stroking his chin. Seconds ticked by. Finally, heaving a sigh, he said, “Okay, honey, let’s go to the pound.”

  It wasn’t until I read the sixth or seventh such passage that it dawned on me the writer had indeed taken my advice. Sure enough, he was “showing” Brian making decisions. Which, of course, was not at all what I meant. I was talking about Brian’s train of thought, the reasoning that led him to change his mind. Very often “show, don’t tell” refers to the progression of the character’s inner logic. As in, don’t tell me Brian changed his mind; show me how he arrived at the decision.

  So, does “show, don’t tell” ever refer to showing something physical? It absolutely does, primarily in two instances:

  1. When we already know the “why”: After a harrowing scene in which Brenda cruelly breaks it off with an unsuspecting Newman, the writer would definitely want to swap, “Newman was sad,” for a visual image that telegraphs his sorrow. It might be his tears, it might be the way his voice catches, it might be in the slump of his shoulders, it might even be the way he’s curled up on the floor in the fetal position, whimpering. But, and this is crucial, whatever Newman does must also tell us something we don’t already know. Maybe we’re shocked that a big strapping guy like Newman would cry at all; he must be more sensitive than we thought. Or perhaps Newman had been pretending that he didn’t really care, so when we catch sight of his slumped shoulders, we realize he does.

  2. When the subject at hand is purely visual: As Chekhov so famously said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”12 However, I’d venture to say that if there is a glint of light on broken glass, that broken glass had better be there for a story reason. Either literally, because someone is about to step on it, or metaphorically, as in, Brenda’s announcement is about to cut Newman to ribbons.

  The “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” Test

  Since story, both internally and externally, revolves around whether the protagonist achieves his goal, each turn of the cause-and-effect wheel, large and small, must bring him closer to the answer. How? By relentlessly winnowing away everything that stands in his way—legitimate reasons and far-fetched rationalizations alike—until the clock runs down to “now or never.” It’s sort of like musical chairs, except each chair, and the reason it’s yanked out of play, is unique. There’s a method to the madness, because each cause-and-effect pairing specifically—and logically—spurs the next. Each scene’s decision point is tested by the next scene’s action. In other words, each scene makes the next scene inevitable.

  Think of it as the “put your money where your mouth is” test. Every time the protagonist makes a decision, saying to herself, Yep, this is the right choice, and here’s why … the story then sits back with a great big grin and says, Oh yeah? Prove it.

  Here’s an example most of us can relate to: It’s Thanksgiving, and once again you overate, big time. As you peel off your formerly loose clothes, still stuffed to the gills and feeling a wee bit sick, you vow to forgo so much as a single bite of the leftovers tomorrow—who says you don’t have will power? You feel pretty confident about your ability to reach this goal, especially since, at the moment, even the thought of food makes you queasy. And there you have it: action, reaction, decision.

  Cut to the next morning. Your plan works really, really well—for a while. And then, as if the possibility never crossed your mind, you get hungry. Thus today’s action puts last night’s decision to the test. What do you do? If you’re anything like me, you tell yourself that being a little chubby is your way of resisting restrictive societal norms, and you chow down with gusto until even your elastic-waist fat pants are tight. Which leads you to the decision that first thing tomorrow, you’re going to find out what a lap band procedure is and whether or not your insurance covers it. Which ups the ante nicely, don’t you think?

  Maximizing the Catapult

  To guarantee that the stakes ratchet ever upward, you want to make sure you’ve infused each cause with enough firepower to trigger an effect that packs an unexpected, yet perfectly logical, wallop. For instance, in the movie The Graduate, the last thing Benjamin Braddock wants to do is date Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. So when his parents force the issue, he comes up with a plan: he’ll take Elaine out and be such a cad she’ll never want to see him again. Problem solved. Confidently armed with this decision, he takes action. His plan works perfectly, except for one rather large, unexpected wallop: he falls for Elaine, whom he has now completely alienated. In short, by solving one problem he’s created an even bigger one. Which catapults him into a new decision: find a way to win Elaine’s love (without dwelling too much on what he’ll say, should she ever ask about how he lost his virginity).

  In the same way, your goal is to be sure each individual scene effectively uses its specific “action, reaction, decision” to evoke maximum tension and to up the odds. At the beginning of the scene, it helps to ask yourself, What does my protagonist want to have happen during this scene? That established, ask yourself, “What is at stake here?” What will it cost her to get what she wants? Armed with this info, you’re ready to write the scene. When you finish it, before diving into the next scene, ask yourself these questions:

  • Has the protagonist changed? He should start out feeling one way and end up feeling another—often the exact opposite of how he originally felt.

  • Having weighed his options, given what was at stake, and then made a decision, does he now see things differently than he did when the scene opened?

  • Do we know why he made the decision he did? Do we understand how he arrived at that particular conclusion, even—make that especially—if his reasoning is flawed? Can we see how this changed his assessment of what’s going on and how he’s adjusted his game plan accordingly?

  Notice that once again it’s the protagonist’s internal reaction to what happens that not only dictates what happens next but also gives it meaning. I hit on this so hard because this tends to be a spot where many stories go irrevocably south. Something happens, but we have no idea how it affects the protagonist or what he makes of it, thus it has no emotional impact—and so no firepower. Since the reason for his external reaction is therefore opaque—we have no idea what it is or how he arrived at it—although things definitely happen, the story itself coasts to a standstill.

  Cause and Effect Doesn’t Mean Predictable

  Lest you think all this will make your story hopelessly unsurprising, take heart. Although your story’s course may be fated from the moment that first domino teeters and falls, that doesn’t mean it’s predictable. Mastering the relationship between internal and external cause and effect allows you to tease the reader in ways she will actually enjoy. Here are four areas of delicious unpredictability:

  1. A clear cause-and-effect pattern is what allows us to focus on the story’s continual wild c
ard: what the protagonist will actually do, given what he has to overcome. Remember the power of the “versus”? There are always competing desires, fears, and thus, choices. Just like in life, nothing’s easy.

  2. There’s an appearance of free will. Just because someone might do something, it doesn’t mean she will. There are lots of different reactions, and subsequent decisions, that a particular action might evoke—even though in the end, when all is revealed, said reactions and decisions will, in retrospect, be the only ones the character could have made. In short, what looks like free will going in turns out to be fate, when looking back.

  3. Just like the rest of us, characters are famous for utterly misreading signs and rushing headlong in the absolute wrong direction (witness just about any episode of the classic TV series I Love Lucy).

  4. Remember those cards that writers love to keep up their sleeves? Strategically revealed new information can change how the protagonist interprets everything that’s happened up to then, not to mention change how the reader interprets the protagonist’s motives from that point on.

  Note that because story is driven by the protagonist’s internal struggle, all these possible plot twists tend to stem from her attempt to get the most by giving up the least. And just like in real life, as we’ll explore in depth in the next chapter, this usually only succeeds in making the situation worse. After all, there are so many really creative ways the protagonist can shoot herself in the foot. The goal is to establish her motivation beforehand so that the instant she pulls the trigger, readers will be both surprised and sheepish. Of course! we say to ourselves. I should have seen it coming.

  What happens when a story isn’t governed by the laws of cause and effect? The answer is quite sobering.

  The Consequences of a Cause Without an Effect

  Let’s say the writer needs to get his protagonist, Barbara, out of an unexpected tight spot. So he devises a scenario that saves her in the moment and then promptly forgets all about it without stopping to consider that introducing a fact or character to solve a problem in one scene generates ongoing expectations in the reader’s mind that never go away. As we’ll discuss in detail in chapter 10, we’re wired to predict what will happen next, and the way we do this is by charting patterns. Familiar patterns are safe. Deviate from a pattern, and bingo, like the robot in Lost in Space, it’s “Danger, Will Robinson!” and you have our attention. The deviation then becomes the lens through which we filter the action.13

  For instance, let’s say Ronald, Barbara’s condescending womanizer of a boss, insists on driving her home after they’ve worked into the wee hours. Her heart sinks, but she accepts—she needs the job. She breathes a sigh of relief as he pulls into her driveway, but when he quickly hops down from his huge black SUV and trots around to open her door, she knows she’s in trouble. Noticing his lecherous grin, she assures him that she can see herself in. But Ronald stands firm; he wouldn’t dream of leaving a defenseless woman alone until he’s absolutely sure her home is intruder free. With that, he slips his arm snugly around her waist, and Barbara knows she’d better act fast or she’ll be in big trouble.

  This means the writer now has to get Barbara out of the situation, without offending Ronald. So he has Barbara turn to Ronald with a sufficiently demure smile and purr, “Not to worry, I’m packing. Sure, I may be a bit rusty since my stint as a sharpshooter in special ops back in ’06, but I’m pretty sure I can still hit a moving target dead on anywhere from, say, right about where you’re standing to a half mile in any direction.” And with that she purposefully reaches into her purse. Not waiting to see whether she’s going for a snubnose .38 or her house keys, Ronald dashes back to the safety of his massive Hummer, climbs inside, and screeches away. Problem solved.

  Except that from there on out, the reader will be actively wondering when something is going to happen that will make Barbara have to either whip out a gun and save the day or fess up that she doesn’t actually know what special ops is; it just sounded like something she read once in a Tom Clancy novel. But the damage doesn’t stop there. The fact is, raising expectations that have nothing to do with the story we’re reading changes the way we interpret absolutely everything that happens from that moment on.

  Let’s say Babs’s story is meant to be a lighthearted chick lit romance in which her biggest problem is convincing Kyle, the idealistic young doctor she is trying to land, that she is not having an affair with her sleazy boss, Ronald. Trouble is, the minute she mentions her special ops background, we’re in an entirely different story. One far less lighthearted. Since a huge part of the pleasure of reading is trying to figure out what’s going to happen, readers will be spinning possible scenarios all on their own—and you want those scenarios to relate to the actual story you’re telling. The last thing you want the reader wondering is, Gee, if Babs really is a member of special ops, then why is she working as a receptionist in a fertilizer factory in Des Moines for a low-class creep like Ronald? Hmmm, don’t they make bombs out of fertilizer, and isn’t her boyfriend Kyle just a little too cagey about his past? Sure, he says he worked for Doctors Without Borders, but who’s to say he didn’t do a little drug running on the side? Could it be … and with that, the reader is off and running in a story that the writer never in his wildest dreams envisioned.

  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. As with life, new information causes us to reevaluate the meaning and emotional weight of all that preceded it, and to see the future with fresh eyes.14 In a story, it influences how we interpret every single thing that happens—how we read every nuance—and in so doing raises specific expectations about what might occur in the future. Since what makes stories so compelling is the thrill of actually making these connections (we’re all dopamine addicts!), the connections must actually be there. When they’re not—when the writer inadvertently plants a piece of information that has nothing whatsoever to do with the narrative itself—the story in the reader’s mind veers in an entirely different direction than where the story is actually headed. So although the author may have completely forgotten about Babs’s supposed special ops training the minute Ronald drove away, the reader won’t. This is exactly the sort of situation that prompted Chekhov to note to S. Shchukin, “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”15

  It’s Like Math—But in a Good Way

  The cause-and-effect imperative can feel daunting to a writer. How do you keep track of everything? How can you be sure that you aren’t accidentally leading the reader astray? Since, as Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert says, “every action has a cause and a consequence,”16 perhaps we can transform it into a good old-fashioned, genuinely simple math test.

  But first, let’s recap what we already know about the laws of cause and effect as they apply to story. To wit, every scene must

  • In some way be caused by the “decision” made in the scene that preceded it

  • Move the story forward via the characters’ reaction to what is happening

  • Make the scene that follows it inevitable

  • Provide insight into the characters that enables us to grasp the motive behind their actions

  This means you can gauge whether a particular scene is part of the great chain of cause and effect by asking yourself these questions:

  • Does this scene impart a crucial piece of information, without which some future scene won’t make sense?

  • Does it have a clear cause the reader can see (even if the “real reason” it happened will be revealed later)?

  • Does it provide insight into why the characters acted as they did?

  • Does it raise the reader’s expectation of specific, imminent action?

  Now, for the math test: when evaluating the relevance of each scene in your story, ask
yourself, If I cut it out, would anything that happens afterward change? To paraphrase the late Johnny Cochrane, “If the answer’s no, it’s got to go.” Hey, I didn’t say it was easy—but neither is pouring your heart and soul into a story only to have it waylaid by a couple of sweet-talking digressions.

  Why Digressions Are Deadly

  Think back to the last time you read a novel that had you hooked. Remember the sensation in your stomach as you turned page after page, anxious to find out what happens next? That’s the feeling of momentum, and it’s visceral—it’s your brain’s way of keeping you hooked, the better to crib info that might come in handy later.

  Okay, now imagine the story is a car and it’s zooming ahead at sixty miles an hour. You’ve completely surrendered to its momentum; you’re one with the story. Then a real nice field of flowers off to the left catches the writer’s eye. So he slams on the brakes, and you slam your head against the windshield as he hops out and frolics in the meadow. Just for a lovely, lyrical second. Then he’s ready to get back on the road. But will the story still be going sixty? No, because he just brought it to a dead stop, which means—provided he can coax you back into it—the story is now going zero. There’s a good chance it won’t ever get back up to speed, especially since you don’t quite trust the writer anymore. He stopped the story once for no reason at all; who’s to say he won’t do it again? Plus, since the digression broke the chain of cause and effect, you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on anymore. In fact, you’re probably still trying to figure out how frolicking in the meadow fits into the story, which of course it doesn’t. This means you’re now paying less attention to what’s actually happening on the page, so you might miss the very thing that would otherwise get the story back on track.