Wired for Story - Lisa Cron

Wired for Story

By Lisa Cron

  • Release Date: 2012-07-10
  • Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 26 Ratings

Description

This guide reveals how writers can utilize cognitive storytelling strategies to craft stories that ignite readers’ brains and captivate them through each plot element.

Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets—and it’s a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper.

The vast majority of writing advice focuses on “writing well” as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail—they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain’s hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won’t hold anyone’s interest.

Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.

Reviews

  • Gets into the foxholes of the writing and rewriting process

    5
    By BertReiter
    Lisa Cron's Wired for Story really gets into the foxholes of the writing and rewriting process. Her own writing is gritty and hilarious, tough, but in service to the greater kindness of getting us to the tightest story we've got in us, exactly what we need. She never stints on honesty, and shines light on our deepest instinct for Story, our survival instincts, as well as every blind spot in our neural arsenal. Thank you Lisa Cron.
  • Review

    3
    By Diane Dess
    Great book