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

by Lisa Cron

  At some point between the aborted submarine ride and when she has to head into the closet, Steph might reflect on her need to overcome her fear of small spaces. And so each time she trudges up the thirty flights of stairs to her office she thinks, Geez, if only that elevator wasn’t so small. That way, when at last she has to squeeze in amid the brooms, mops, and dust rags, instead of its being a groaner, it’s another of those well-established hurdles that we’re rooting she’ll make it over.

  WAIT—I MUST HAVE MISSED SOMETHING

  Don’t underestimate the damage even a short-lived logic glitch can inflict. For instance, let’s say we know that Rhonda loves Todd with all her heart. It’s their anniversary, and she’s on her way to the market to buy ingredients for the romantic dinner she’s planning to make him, when she catches a glimpse of Todd kissing a mysterious stranger. But instead of fireworks, or waterworks, Rhonda doesn’t give it a second thought. However, the reader does. Because suddenly Rhonda is acting completely out of character. We’re dying to call the author and ask him what the hell is going on.

  Were we to do just that, chances are he’d chuckle and tell us not to worry. Rhonda has a perfectly good (albeit currently unfathomable) reason for it, which he’d point out is right there in the very next paragraph, if only we’d had the patience to read another measly line or two.

  So, who’s right, the writer or the reader?

  The reader, every time. Here’s why: as far as the reader is concerned, the second Rhonda sees Todd smooching someone else and doesn’t react, the story comes to a screeching halt. Suddenly it doesn’t make sense, catapulting the reader out of the story and into her conscious mind. The result? She pauses, right then and there, and thinks about it. She wonders whether she’s missed something along the way. Was Todd the one who had occasional bouts of amnesia, maybe? And although that pause may last only a nanosecond, it stops the story’s momentum cold. That’s why, even if the answer is in the very next sentence, it won’t do a thing to remedy the problem. How could it? Because it’s already happened.

  Don’t let it.

  HOW TO MAKE THE READER BELIEVE YOUR PROTAGONIST CAN, IN FACT, FLY

  The flip side is that there’s absolutely nothing your protagonist can’t do—be it fly, walk through walls, or recite the dictionary backward—provided you’ve foreshadowed this unusual talent long before it becomes the only way out of a sticky situation. So if you’re going to shatter, bend, or reinterpret any of the laws of the universe—established laws we take for granted—you need to give us fair warning. This is especially crucial when you’re dabbling in science fiction, fantasy, or magical realism. While you’re utterly free to turn your characters loose in a world completely of your own creation, this gives you the added responsibility of not only establishing the rules of logic by which that world operates, but also of rigorously sticking to them. That way, when you foreshadow a change, the reader will have a good idea what it’s a change from.

  The same is true when you want your characters to deviate from the norm. We all know that if you don’t eat, you get hungry; if you don’t drink, you get thirsty; and if you don’t look both ways before you cross the street, you might get mowed down by a twit texting a tweet. As a result, when your protagonist does not conform to our basic cause-and-effect expectations, we get grouchy. We don’t have a choice; our brain uses its knowledge of how the world works as a default base to judge the credibility of characters.12 We don’t like having to ask (with apologies to Shakespeare), “Hey, when the protagonist gets mowed down, does he not bleed?”

  This is not to say he has to bleed. Far from it. It means if he isn’t going to bleed, you better have already given us a pretty good reason why. It doesn’t cut it to tell us, as he lies there on the pavement, giggling: “Oh, by the way, John is really a Martian, and did I mention that they’re made of rubber, so when that car hit him it didn’t hurt; it tickled?”

  Thus when characters are going to do something decidedly out of the ordinary, we need to already know one of two things:

  1. They have the ability to do it, because we’ve seen them in action. For instance, we don’t want to learn that Donna can walk through reinforced steel walls at the very moment Wendy locks her in an airtight basement and flips the switch to suck all the remaining oxygen out of the room. But if we’ve watched Donna walk through a wall or two before, preferably when nothing big hung in the balance, then we’re right there with her, breathing a sigh of relief as Wendy turns the lock, knowing that Donna has outsmarted her again.

  2. If we haven’t actually seen Donna walk through walls, we must have been given enough “tells” along the way that once she does, it’s not only believable, but also satisfying. No wonder Donna was so good at hide-and-seek as a kid! And that time she leaned against the wall and almost fell through it? Now I get it! (Of course, the caveat is that back when those things happened, they must have made sense in and of themselves, rather than standing out like a sore thumb with a neon tattoo reading: “Don’t worry, this will be explained later.”)

  Even so, it can still be very tempting to goad a character into doing things they’d never do in a million years because the plot needs them to. This is something you see in movies a whole lot. Edgar has a double PhD in rocket science and applied psychology from Stanford, speaks six languages, is a black belt, and writes best-selling mystery novels in his spare time, yet when a nervous stranger breathlessly asks him to take a crudely sealed package across the border from Mexico into El Paso, he agrees without a moment’s hesitation. Because if Edgar isn’t arrested crossing the border, well, the entire third act would go up in smoke.

  Resist this temptation. Listen to your characters, who will implore you to give them a believable reason for everything they do, every reaction they have, every word they say, and every memory that suddenly pops into their head and changes how they see everything. This is exactly what, when done right, foreshadowing, flashbacks, and subplots do for your reader. Readers go willingly on these seeming side trips because they know from their own lives that the remembrance of things past often offers up nuggets of wisdom they can’t afford to ignore.

  CHAPTER 11: CHECKPOINT

  Do all your subplots affect the protagonist, either externally or internally, as he struggles with the story question? Readers don’t want subplots just because they’re interesting or lyrical or provide a nice break from the intensity of the main action. Although they may be all these things, first and foremost, the reader expects they’ll be there for a story reason. So ask yourself: Even if it’s tangential, how does this subplot affect the protagonist’s pursuit of his goal? What specific information does it give your reader that she needs to know in order to really grasp what’s happening to the protagonist?

  When you leap into a subplot or flashback, can the reader sense why it was necessary at that very moment? Make sure the logic is on the page, not just in your head. When you leave the main storyline, you want the reader to follow you willingly, not kicking and screaming.

  When returning to the main storyline, will your reader see things with new eyes from that moment on? You want her to come back to the main storyline feeling as though she has new insight that gives her the inside track on what’s going on.

  When the protagonist does something out of character, has it been foreshadowed? Make sure you’ve given the reader solid tells along the way, so her reaction will be “Aha!” rather than “Give me a break!”

  Have you given your reader enough information to understand what’s happening, so that nothing a character does or says leaves her wondering whether she missed something? You never want your reader to have to pause, trying to figure out what she’s missed, and then—god forbid—leaf back through the book to try to figure it out.

  WE’VE SPENT A LOT OF TIME looking at story through the reader’s hardwired expectations. What about ours? How does the writer’s brain fit into the equation when it comes to creating a story that leaps off the page? Turnabout being fair play,
perhaps it’s time we slid our own DNA under the microscope for a quick look-see. I’ll go first.

  I noticed a strange thing not too long ago. When I misspell a word, the more I try to figure out how to spell it, the more mangled it gets. If, instead, I simply retype it without thinking—fast, like pulling off a Band-Aid—nine times out of ten it’s spelled correctly. For a while I went around telling people that my brain doesn’t know how to spell but my fingers do. Turns out it’s my brain, after all, which knows more than I think it does—provided I don’t think about it.

  As neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak says, “In many cases we decrease accuracy and efficiency by thinking too hard.”1 He points to an example many of us remember with chagrin: taking multiple-choice tests back in school and constantly second-guessing our answers. According to studies, if we’d just stuck with our original gut instinct and moved on to the next question like the instructions suggested, we would have gotten that A we knew we deserved, instead of—well, never mind. The one lesson we can still take away from that frustrating experience is that often the harder we try, the worse we do.2

  So, does that mean winging it really is the best bet? Should you forget everything we’ve been talking about and join the ranks of the “pantsers”—that is, writers who write solely by the seat of their pants?

  Probably not before you read the fine print: Restak goes on to say that following your gut works only if you’ve prepared for the test and know the material.3

  That notion might have been what prompted seventeenth-century writer Thomas Fuller to observe that all things are difficult before they are easy. Indeed, Nobel laureate Herbert Simon estimates that it takes about ten years to really master a subject. By then we’ve gathered upward of fifty thousand “chunks” of knowledge, which the brain has deftly indexed so our cognitive unconscious can access each chunk on its own whenever necessary. Simon goes on to explain that this is “why experts can … respond to many situations ‘intuitively’—that is, very rapidly, and often without being able to specify the process they have used to reach their answers. Intuition is no longer a mystery.”4

  Antonio Damasio agrees: “Outsourcing expertise to the unconscious space is what we do when we hone a skill so finely that we are no longer aware of the technical steps needed to be skillful. We develop skills in the clear light of consciousness, but then we let them go underground, into the roomy basement of our minds.…”5

  It’s through this process that story becomes intuitive for writers and that muscle memory is built. The good news is, the clock probably started ticking on your ten-year apprenticeship a long time ago. You likely already know—at least somewhere in your cognitive subconscious—that a huge part of the writing process is rewriting, with gusto, if possible.

  That’s why in this chapter we’ll examine the deceptive thrill of finishing a first draft; discuss why seeking no-holds-barred criticism is crucial; explore why rewriting is an essential part of the writing process; consider the pros and cons of writers’ groups; look at the benefits of professional literary consultants; and finally discover a painless way to toughen your hide before heartless strangers begin mercilessly attacking the very essence of your being (read: critiquing your work).

  First, the High of Crossing the Finish Line

  You’ve finished your first draft. You’re elated. Giddy. You can’t believe it’s actually done. You wanted to give up a million times, but you didn’t. You slogged from the terrifying emptiness of the blank page to the two most beautiful words in a writer’s vocabulary: “The End.” You do exactly what you should: go out and celebrate.

  The next morning, basking in the afterglow of this genuinely magnificent accomplishment, you decide it might be a good idea to reread your manuscript before submitting it to literary agents, just in case there are typos. But within a page or two, you’re facing the mystery of the ages: how can scenes that seemed so insanely suspenseful when you wrote them, so completely engaging, so downright profound, suddenly sound so flat and banal? Did monkeys get into your computer while you slept?

  Before you hit the Delete key and decide to take up interpretive dance instead, you should know that this happens to everyone. It’s important (not to mention reassuring) to keep in mind that writing is a process. It is rarely possible to address all of a story’s trouble spots in a single draft, so don’t be hard on yourself. It’s not you; it’s the nature of the beast. If there is one thing every successful writer’s process includes, it’s rewriting. Talent aside, in my experience, what separates writers who break through from those who don’t is perseverance mixed with the wholehearted desire of a zealot to zero in on what isn’t working and fix it.

  Don’t believe me? What about John Irving, who said, “Half my life is an act of revision.”6 Or Dorothy Parker, who said, “I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”7

  Or Caroline Leavitt, author of Girls in Trouble, who rewrote her ninth novel several times before showing it to her agent, then rewrote it four more times based on the agent’s notes. The book sold immediately. And then she wrote another four drafts, this time for her editor.

  Or literary young adult author John H. Ritter, who estimates he rewrites each novel fifteen times before publication. Or UCLA screen-writing chairman Richard Walter, who reports that former student and exceedingly successful screenwriter David Koepp will happily rewrite for the studios until about the seventeenth draft, at which point he gets a little cranky.

  To sum up the point these writers are making, let’s turn to Ernest Hemingway, who, with characteristic blunt eloquence, so famously said, “All first drafts are shit.” Which doesn’t let you off the hook. It’s not a license for unbridled self-expression, or not to try hard from word one because it doesn’t really “count.” It does, big time—because from here on out, it’s the raw material you’ll be working with, straying from, reshaping, paring, parsing, and then lovingly polishing. First drafts count, even if they’re usually pretty bad. But remember, there’s a huge difference between “trying hard” (which you want to do) and “trying to make it perfect from the first word on” (which is impossible and just might shut you down). The goal isn’t beautiful writing; it’s to come as close as you can to identifying the underlying story you’re trying to tell.

  So whether it’s your first draft or your fifteenth, relax. Instead of thinking each draft has to be “it,” just try to make your story a little bit better than it was in the previous draft. After all, stories are layered, and everything that happens affects everything else—and on every level, no less. That means when you remedy one problem, you’ll most likely have shifted something somewhere else that will then need to be addressed, and so on. The point is, it’s impossible to address every trouble spot in a single draft, so why make yourself crazy trying?

  However, writers have a hardwired advantage when it comes to keeping track of who does what to whom and why. It may not be a super power, but it comes in pretty handy, especially as you begin your rewrite. Let me explain.…

  The Writer’s Brain Advantage

  Recently, evolutionary psychologist Robin I. M. Dunbar asked himself the question we’ve been wrestling with from the beginning: considering that the ability to appreciate a story is universal, why are good writers so rare? His research reveals that one of the key factors revolves around something called “intentionality.” This boils down to our ability to infer what someone else is thinking. In a pinch, most people can keep track of five states of mind at once. Says Dunbar, “When the audience ponders Shakespeare’s Othello, for example, they are obliged to work at fourth order intentional levels: I (the audience) believe that Iago intends that Othello supposes that Desdemona wants [to love someone else]. When Shakespeare puts the play on stage before us, he will, in critical scenes, have four individuals interacting, thus obliging us to work at fifth order level—the very limits to which most of us can cope.”8

  What makes good writers different? We can hold in our minds what we know and what our c
haracters believe and at the same time keep track of what our readers believe, sometimes to the sixth or seventh level. Sounds like a video game, doesn’t it?

  So, especially during a rewrite when you’re digging deep, it helps to keep track of each character’s version of reality.

  Like a Circle in a Spiral, Like a Wheel within a Wheel

  As the author, you know the big picture. You know what’s really going on. You know where the treasure is buried and where, no matter how diligently the protagonist searches, she’ll come up empty. You know who’s lied to the hero and who’s told the truth. You know which facts are true and which are not.

  Your characters, on the other hand, often have no idea of what’s actually going on, which means that they’ll do things that presuppose an entirely different world than the one they’re living in.

  As writers, this is something we sometimes lose sight of. Because we know what the truth is, and what the future will be, we forget that our characters don’t. And no wonder—considering that at any one time there may be four or five worlds in play.

  What does that mean, exactly?

  Well, there’s the real world, meaning the objective world within the story. That’s the actual, overarching world in which everything takes place, where things are as they are, sans interpretation or spin. Chances are none of your characters is completely familiar with this particular world. In fact, they couldn’t be, since it is impossible to know absolutely everything about everything (even in a fictional world). Thus each character knows only a portion of what is “really” happening. What’s more, some of what they “know” is probably very wrong—and this is often where the conflict comes from. On top of that, each character then puts her or his own personal spin on everything.