Wired for Story

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A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.

“What happens” is the plot. “Someone” is the protagonist. The “goal” is what’s known as the story question. And “how he or she changes” is what the story itself is actually about.

As counterintuitive as it may sound, a story is not about the plot or even what happens in it. Stories are about how we, rather than the world around us, change. They grab us only when they allow us to experience how it would feel to navigate the plot. Thus story, as we’ll see throughout, is an internal journey, not an external one.

All the elements of a story are anchored in this very simple premise, and they work in unison to create what appears to the reader as reality, only sharper, clearer, and far more entertaining, because stories do what our cognitive unconscious does: filter out everything that would distract us from the situation at hand. In fact, stories do it better, because while in real life it’s nearly impossible to filter out all the annoying little interruptions—like leaky faucets, dithering bosses, and cranky spouses—a story can tune them out entirely as it focuses in on the task at hand: What does your protagonist have to confront in order to solve the problem you’ve so cleverly set up for her?

Simply put, we are looking for a reason to care. So for a story to grab us, not only must something be happening, but also there must be a consequence we can anticipate.

As neuroscience reveals, what draws us into a story and keeps us there is the firing of our dopamine neurons, signaling that intriguing information is on its way.

As readers we eagerly probe each piece of information for significance, constantly wondering, “What is this meant to tell me?”

It’s a biological imperative: we are always on the hunt for meaning—not in the metaphysical “What is the true nature of reality?” sense but in the far more primal, very specific sense of: Joe left without his usual morning coffee; I wonder why? Betty is always on time; how come she’s half an hour late? That annoying dog next door barks its head off every morning; why is it so quiet today?

We are always looking for the why beneath what’s happening on the surface. Not only because our survival might depend on it, but because it’s exhilarating. It makes us feel something—namely, curiosity. Having our curiosity piqued is visceral. And it leads to something even more potent: the anticipation of knowledge we’re now hungry for, a sensation caused by that pleasurable rush of dopamine. Because being curious is necessary for survival (What’s that rustling in the bushes?), nature encourages it. And what better way to encourage curiosity than to make it feel good? This is why, once your curiosity is roused as a reader, you have an emotional, vested interest in finding out what happens next. And bingo! You feel that delicious sense of urgency (hello dopamine!) that all good stories instantly ignite.

here are the three basic things readers relentlessly hunt for as they read that first page: 
Whose story is it? 
What’s happening here? 
What’s at stake?

in a story, what the reader feels is driven by what the protagonist feels. Story is visceral. We climb inside the protagonist’s skin and become sensate, feeling what he feels. Otherwise we have no port of entry, no point of view through which to see, evaluate, and experience the world the author has plunked us into.

It stands to reason, then, that something must be happening—beginning on the first page—that the protagonist is affected by. Something that gives us a glimpse of the “big picture.” As John Irving once said, “Whenever possible, tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence.”12 Glib? Yeah, okay. But a worthy goal to shoot for. The big picture cues us to the problem the protagonist will spend the story struggling with.

What hangs in the balance? Where’s the conflict? Conflict is story’s lifeblood—another seeming no-brainer. But there’s a bit of helpful fine print that often goes unread. We’re not talking about just any conflict, but conflict that is specific to the protagonist’s quest. From the first sentence, readers morph into bloodhounds, relentlessly trying to sniff out what is at stake here and how will it impact the protagonist. Sure, they’re not quite certain what his or her quest is yet, but that’s what they’re hoping to find out by asking these questions. Point being—something must be at stake, beginning on the first page.

MYTH: Beautiful Writing Trumps All 
REALITY: Storytelling Trumps Beautiful Writing, Every Time

But make no mistake: learning to “write well” is not synonymous with learning to write a story. And of the two, writing well is secondary. Because if the reader doesn’t want to know what happens next, so what if it’s well written?

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 21). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 20). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 18). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 17). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (pp. 16-17). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (pp. 14-15). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 14). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 13). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 12). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (pp. 11-12). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story (p. 11). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Look around your house. Chances are you bought just about everything you see (even Fido) because while you weren’t looking, a clever story snuck in and persuaded you to.

writers would do well to embrace this counterintuitive fact: the defining element of a story is something that has little to do with writing. Rather, it underlies the story itself and is what renowned linguist William Labov has dubbed “evaluation” because it allows readers to evaluate the meaning of the story’s events. Think of it as the “So what?” factor.2 It’s what lets readers in on the point of the story, cluing them in to the relevance of everything that happens in it. Put plainly, it tells them what the story is about.

Thus your first job is to zero in on the point your story is making. The good news is that this is one of the few things that can actually cut down on time spent rewriting. Why? Because from the get-go it allows you to do for your story what your cognitive unconscious automatically does for you: filter out unnecessary and distracting information.

A story is designed, from beginning to end, to answer a single overarching question. As readers we instinctively know this, so we expect every word, every line, every character, every image, every action to move us closer to the answer.

Thus it would seem that when you’re writing a story, defining what it’s about should be simple—obvious, almost—yet it often proves to be maddeningly elusive. Despite our best intention, the narrative meanders, spending way too much time wandering aimlessly down back roads. So in the end, although a lot of interesting events take place, they don’t add up to anything. No question is asked, let alone answered. The story is so full of things the reader doesn’t need to know that it has no focus, so it isn’t really a story. It’s just a collection of things that happen.

As one editor put it, “If you can’t summarize your book in a few sentences, rewrite the book until you can.”

We have no idea who the protagonist is, so we have no way to gauge the relevance or meaning of anything that happens. • 
We know who the protagonist is, but she doesn’t seem to have a goal, so we don’t know what the point is or where the story is going. • 
We know what the protagonist’s goal is, but have no clue what inner issue it forces him to deal with, so everything feels superficial and rather dull. • 
We know who the protagonist is and what both her goal and her issue are, but suddenly she gets what she wants, arbitrarily changes her mind, or gets hit by a bus, and now someone else seems to be the main character. • 
We’re aware of the protagonist’s goal, but what happens doesn’t seem to affect him or whether he achieves it. • 
The things that happen don’t affect the protagonist in a believable way (if at all), so not only doesn’t she seem like a real person, but we have no idea why she does what she does, which makes it impossible to anticipate what she’ll do next.

So, what is this thing called focus? It’s the synthesis of three elements that work in unison to create a story: the protagonist’s issue, the theme, and the plot.

The story isn’t about whether or not the protagonist achieves her goal per se; it’s about what she has to overcome internally to do it. This is what drives the story forward. I call it the protagonist’s issue.

The second element, the theme, is what your story says about human nature.

The third element is the plot itself—the events that relentlessly force the protagonist to deal with her issue as she pursues her goal, no matter how many times she tries to make an end run around her issue along the way.

Think baptism by ever-escalating fire.

Suppose you are sitting down for a cup of coffee at a restaurant to meet with your brother, who wishes to discuss your parents’ inheritance and what is to be done with your half sister, who has been acting strangely. You are very present and in the moment, as they say in Hollywood, but now you are also transported, by turns, to many other places, with many other people besides your brother, and to situations that you have not experienced yet that are the products of your informed and rich imagination.… You are busily all over the place and at many epochs of your life, past, and future. But you—the me in you—never drops out of sight. All of these contents are inextricably tied to a singular reference. Even as you concentrate on some remote event, the connection remains. The center holds. This is big-scope consciousness, one of the grand achievements of the human brain and one of the defining traits of humanity.… This is the kind of consciousness illustrated by novels, films, and music.…

Happily, theme actually boils down to something incredibly simple: 
What does the story tell us about what it means to be human? • 
What does it say about how humans react to circumstances beyond their control?

Theme often reveals your take on how an element of human nature—loyalty, suspicion, grit, love—defines human behavior. But the real secret to theme is that it’s not general; that is, the theme wouldn’t be “love” per se—rather, it would be a very specific point you’re making about love. For instance, a love story can be sweet and lyrical, revealing that people are good eggs after all; it can be hard-nosed and edgy, revealing that people are intense and quirky; it can be cynical and manipulative, revealing that people are best avoided, if possible.

Theme often reveals the point your story is making—and all stories make a point, beginning on page one. But that doesn’t mean you have to hit readers over the head with it.

Knowing your story’s point is what helps you cut through all the clutter.

writers often have to stop and think about what it is they’re trying to say and what point their story is making. It’s crucial, because the instant a reader opens your book, his cognitive unconscious is hunting for a way to make life a little easier, see things a little clearer, understand people a bit better.9 So why not take a second to ask yourself, What is it I want my readers to walk away thinking about? What point does my story make? How do I want to change the way my reader sees the world?

MYTH: The Plot Is What the Story Is About 
REALITY: A Story Is About How the Plot Affects the Protagonist

Plot facilitates story by forcing the protagonist to confront and deal with the issue that keeps him from achieving his goal. The way the world treats him, and how he reacts, reveals the theme.

Since theme is the underlying point the narrative makes about the human experience, it’s also where the universal lies. The universal is a feeling, emotion, or truth that resonates with us all.

The universal is the portal that allows us to climb into the skin of characters completely different from us and miraculously feel what they feel.

In other words, your theme begets the story’s tone, which begets the mood the reader feels. Mood is what underlies the reader’s sense of what is possible and what isn’t in the world of your story, which brings us back to the point your story is making as reflected in its theme—reflected being the key word. Because as crucial as theme is, it’s never stated outright; it’s always implied.

It’s the story’s job to show us the theme, not the theme’s job to tell us the story—especially since theme is a rotten storyteller and, when left to its own devices, is much more interested in telling us what to think than in simply presenting the evidence and letting us make up our own mind.

Unchecked, theme is a bully, a know-it-all. And no one likes to be told what to do, which is why reverse psychology works so well. What this means is that the more passionate you are about making your point, the more you have to trust your story to convey it.

Here’s the litmus test: the central theme must provide a point of view precise enough to give us specific insight into the protagonist and her internal issue, yet be broad enough to take into account everything that happens

One way to help identify a story’s defining theme is to ask yourself: is it possible to filter the story’s other themes through it?

But the plot’s goal isn’t simply to find out whether he snags that brass ring or not; rather, it’s to force him to confront the internal issue that’s keeping him from it in the first place. This issue is sometimes called the protagonist’s “fatal flaw,” and whether a deep-rooted fear, a stubborn misperception, or a dubious character trait, it’s what he’s been battling throughout and what he must finally overcome to have a clear shot at the last remaining obstacle. Ironically, once he overcomes it, he often realizes true success is vastly different from what, up to that very second, he thought it was.

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Wired for Story

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