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

by Will Storr

Overview

The compelling, groundbreaking guide to creative writing that reveals how the brain responds to storytelling, based on the wildly popular creative writing class.

Stories shape who we are. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mold our beliefs. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. So, how do master storytellers compel us? In The Science of Storytelling, award-winning writer and acclaimed teacher of creative writing Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can write better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and also our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change.

Will Storr’s superbly chosen examples range from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to Alice Walker, Greek drama to Russian novels to Native American folk tales, King Lear to Breaking Bad to children’s stories. With sections such as “The Dramatic Question,” “Creating a World,” and “Plot, Endings, and Meaning,” as well as a practical, step-by-step appendix dedicated to “The Sacred Flaw Approach,” The Science of Storytelling reveals just what makes stories work, placing it alongside such creative writing classics as John Yorke’s Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing.

Enlightening and empowering, The Science of Storytelling is destined to become an invaluable resource for writers of all stripes, whether novelist, screenwriter, playwright, children’s writer, or writer of creative or traditional nonfiction.

“If you want to write a novel or a script, read this book. It is clear, compelling, and tightly shaped.” ―Sunday Times (London)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419747953
Publisher:	Abrams Press
Publication date:	04/20/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	85,561
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Will Storr is an award-winning journalist and novelist whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Sunday Times, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. His books include Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed and The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science (The Overlook Press/Abrams Press). His writing courses are among the most in-demand offerings of the Guardian Masterclasses and the Faber Academy. He lives in Kent, England.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Creating a World

1.0 Where does a story begin? 11

1.1 Moments of change; the control-seeking brain 11

1.2 Curiosity 17

1.3 The model-making brain; how we read; grammar; filmic word order; simplicity; active versus passive language; specific detail; show-not-tell 20

1.4 World-making in fantasy and science fiction 31

1.5 The domesticated brain; theory of mind in animism and religion; how theory-of-mind mistakes create drama 33

1.6 Salience; creating tension with detail 39

1.7 Neural models; poetry; metaphor 41

1.8 Cause and effect; literary versus mass-market storytelling 48

1.9 Change is not enough 56

Chapter 2 The Flawed Self

2.0 The flawed self; the theory of control 61

2.1 Personality and plot 68

2.2 Personality and setting 72

2.3 Personality and point of view 76

2.4 Culture and character; Western versus Eastern story 78

2.5 Anatomy of a flawed self; the ignition point 84

2.6 Fictional memories; moral delusions; antagonists and moral idealism; antagonists and toxic self-esteem; the hero-maker narrative 92

2.7 David and Goliath 98

2.8 How flawed characters create meaning 100

Chapter 3 The Dramatic Question

3.0 Confabulation and the deluded character; the dramatic question 107

3.1 Multiple selves; the three-dimensional character 114

3.2 The two levels of story; how subconscious character struggle creates plot 119

3.3 Modernist stories 128

3.4 Wanting and needing 131

3.5 Dialogue 132

3.6 The roots of the dramatic question; social emotions; heroes and villains; moral outrage 136

3.7 Status play 143

3.8 King Lear; humiliation 149

3.9 Stories as tribal propaganda 153

3.10 Antiheroes; empathy 163

3.11 Origin damage 169

Chapter 4 Plots, Endings and Meaning

4.0 Goal directedness; constriction and release; video games; personal projects; eudaemonia 183

4.1 The story event; the standard five-act plot; plot as recipe versus plot as symphony of change 190

4.2 The final battle 198

4.3 Endings; control; the God moment 201

4.4 Story as a simulacrum of consciousness; transportation 206

4.5 The power of story 208

4.6 The value of story 211

4.7 The lesson of story 212

4.8 The consolation of story 212

Appendix: The Sacred Flaw Approach 215

A Note on the Text 257

Acknowledgments 259

Notes and Sources 261

Index 284

Editorial Reviews

If you want to write a novel or a script, read this book. It is clear, compelling, and tightly shaped.”—Sunday Times

“For writers, Will Storr’s book is mandatory reading. A truly revolutionary look at the how and why of storytelling.”—Craig Pearce, cowriter with Baz Luhrmann of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, and The Great Gatsby

"Rarely has a book engrossed me more, and forced me to question everything I’ve ever read, seen, or written. A masterpiece.”—Adam Rutherford, bestselling author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived

“The best book on the craft of storytelling I’ve ever read.”—Matt Haig, bestselling author of How to Stop Time

“A hugely compelling reading experience. Storr weaves brilliantly between high and low culture—in the space of a few pages we go from Mrs. Dalloway to Gone Girl.”—Observer

“Both veteran and budding storytellers will learn a great deal from Storr’s pages, which themselves add up to a meaty yarn.”—Kirkus

“The book is key in understanding why some stories sell and why some go long forgotten. Storr’s examination of myth and the mind has something to offer anyone curious enough to pick it up.” —Booklist

"Will Storr has written a masterful guide to writing with The Science of Storytelling. . . As with any good read, Storr takes the advice he's spent years studying and teaching. He's an excellent writer. Reading The Science of Storytelling is in itself a pleasure. . . For the time being, while we're here, we're storytelling animals. Will Storr has contributed a wonderful guide of how to master the craft of invention. To pull a random quote from the formative years of my childhood, as Axl Rose sang, use your illusion."—The Big Think

From the Publisher

If you want to write a novel or a script, read this book. It is clear, compelling, and tightly shaped.

Sunday Times

A hugely compelling reading experience. Storr weaves brilliantly between high and low culture—in the space of a few pages we go from Mrs. Dalloway to Gone Girl.

Observer

For writers, Will Storr’s book is mandatory reading. A truly revolutionary look at the how and why of storytelling.

cowriter with Baz Luhrmann of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, and The Great Gatsby - Craig Pearce

The best book on the craft of storytelling I’ve ever read.

bestselling author of How to Stop Time - Matt Haig

"Will Storr has written a masterful guide to writing with The Science of Storytelling. . . As with any good read, Storr takes the advice he's spent years studying and teaching. He's an excellent writer. Reading The Science of Storytelling is in itself a pleasure. . . For the time being, while we're here, we're storytelling animals. Will Storr has contributed a wonderful guide of how to master the craft of invention. To pull a random quote from the formative years of my childhood, as Axl Rose sang, use your illusion."

The Big Think

The book is key in understanding why some stories sell and why some go long forgotten. Storr’s examination of myth and the mind has something to offer anyone curious enough to pick it up.

Booklist

"Rarely has a book engrossed me more, and forced me to question everything I’ve ever read, seen, or written. A masterpiece.

bestselling author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived - Adam Rutherford

2019-12-22
British novelist and science journalist Storr (Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us, 2018, etc.) peels back the neuroscience of what makes stories work.

A good story—Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, say, or Dracula—operates on rules that its makers may have internalized but may not be able to enumerate. One is that the creator of a story builds a model world that readers then colonize and rebuild. In one study, subjects "watched" stories as they were being related by casting their eyes upward when events occurred above the line of horizon, and "when they heard ‘downward' stories, that's where their eyes went too." Tracking saccades when stories land on a person is one thing, but there are fundamental observations that storytellers have long known: Character is more important than plot, for instance, and, as Storr puts it, "every story you'll ever hear amounts to ‘something changed.' " A skillful storyteller will then build the promise of change close to the beginning, as with E.B. White's opening to Charlotte's Web: "Where's Papa going with that ax?" Humans being self-centered if social critters, another fundamental element is that we all like to be the hero of our own epics—our lives, that is—which helps explain our attraction to other such heroes and the journeys they face, which involve at least a couple of failures before getting it right. Moreover, we like the vicarious experience of chaos while yearning for stability in our own lives, which explains the value of a good tale full of reversals. As for that old rule about avoiding clichés like the plague? It turns out that the brain doesn't fire quite so blazingly when it hears a familiar phrase as when it hears a fresh new metaphor, reason enough for the careful writer to try to find a new way of turning a phrase.

Both veteran and budding storytellers will learn a great deal from Storr's pages, which themselves add up to a meaty yarn.

Kirkus Reviews