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Best Edition Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence with Free PDF EDITION Download Now!
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.
At this time of writing, The Audiobook Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence has garnered 8 customer reviews with rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Not a bad score at all as if you round it off, it’s actually a perfect TEN already. From the looks of that rating, we can say the Audiobook is Good TO READ!
Best Edition Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence with Free PDF EDITION!
This blurb for this book makes some bold claims:"a revolutionary look at story""recent breakthroughs in neuroscience""Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets""ignite the brain's hardwired desire to learn what happens next""what fuels the success of any great story and what keeps readers transfixed""aspect[s] of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it"Wow! Sounds exciting, doesn't it?Well don't be. Take my word for it that this book fails to live up to these grandiose claims.That said, I must add that the advice given in the book isn't wrong or inapplicable. The book does have some value, but only for the beginner struggling to craft his very first story. In other words, for someone who knows next to nothing about story creation and writing execution. The information is very basic and is no more than what you would find in the many many other books that have been published for novice storytellers and writers. Without all the brain science hype.The few examples of neurological research cited in 'Wired' are superficial gee-whiz Mr. Science factoids, like "when the hero realizes he's really up the creek, all these different brain areas light up!" Golly gee-willickers! There are no specific tips that will instruct you as to what particular storytelling techniques will accomplish this in your story blueprint. Nor much apart from the standard writing wisdom that will help you as a writer. Actually, the blurb for WIred contains about as much info in this area as does the book itself: "ignite the brain's hardwired desire to learn what happens next". Ask yourself how many times you've read about a terrific bestseller described as a "page turner" ?? That's all there is to it, folks! This book 'Wired' has no discussion of what suspense is, and how it is created in the mind of the readrer. You're better off reading scholarly criticism of Hitchcock movies (plenty of that!) than wasting time on this book.The advice given for story creation is the same old same old you can get in most any of the how-to writing books available from Writer's DIgest.. Stuff like you must have a Protagonist, who has a problem, and has to overcome the Antagonist(s) and obstacle(s) to attain his Goal and the answer to the Story Question...blah blah. Good advice, yet anyone who has researched this topic will have seen it all before.The examples cited mostly have to do with romance. The main example is Gone With the Wind. The made-up story fragments given as examples are also boy-meets-girl type stuff. Cron does briefly mention the movies Fractured and Die Hard (once each). She uses Fractured to point out that the protagonist doesn't have to appear from scene one, and the story's beginning has to build up to it. Heard it before. As for Die Hard, the difficulties McClane has with his wife didn't really contribute much to the story. Another example given is the movie It's a Wonderful LIfe but I only had time for one Jimmy Stewart movie and it was Mister Smith.Examples like these are pretty much useless for someone like me striving to create stories with a more masculine bent. I have two specific recommendations: 1) watch the reimagined Battlestar Galactica TV series. Ron Moore and crew did a great job crafting believable character arcs and internal motivations for the cast and plot. 2) Read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Now, this book is mainly about the psychology of economic decision making. But it has very much to do with the way people perceive meaning (which is what a reader is supposed to get from a good story). Perceiving meaning seems to happen effortlessly, and it does if a tale is well crafted and well told. But it does not happen effortlessly. Kahneman explains the nuts-and-bolts of how the unconscious 'System 1' constructs meaning by making up stories that give meaning to a person's life experiences. This is a gold mine of psychology you can use in your storytelling. You will get more useful brain science in one chapter of Kahneman's book than you will in this entire book 'Wired".Also, necessarily, economics has alot to do with making predictions and forecasts. And Kahneman deftly illustrates how our built-in System One cognitive biases play into that, and how they are manipulated by various forces in capitalist society (like marketers and political pundits). And you can use those same techniques to manipulate the emotions of the readers of your story, which is exactly what you must do to be a successful storyteller. 'Wired For Story' would have you believe that emotion is all there is for the reader in a story. This is wrong. Story is the one and only artform that engages the mind of the reader. Music, painting, sculpture, dance...all other artforms are purely emotional, and do not spur thought. So the writer, of all artists, has the obligation and responsibility of engaging the intellect as well the senses. Kahneman informs you the storyteller how you can use the reader's mind to elicit his emotional System 1 -- as Cron and her citations of brain studies cannot. He is a scientist much better acquainted with human nature than any neurologist, because his science is experimental psychology. And he's a Nobel prizewinning one, to boot.I present the story Airframe by Michael Crichton as the prime example of how to use the logical System 2 effectively as a storyteller. There is practically no depiction of emotion in this novel; it's all matter-of-fact plot presented as dry series of events external to the characters. Yes, it has a protagonist Casey Singleton with a Story Goal and internal issues. All well and good. But the point is the storytelling itself is all 'Outside In' as they say in writing circles. The conventional wisdom says that this a formula for failure: a dry-as-dust boring narration. Yet Crichton amply demonstrates that it is possible to engage the reader's sympathies through his mind alone. And this is something only a writer can do. In actuality, there are other kinds of good stories than the one Ms. Cron insists on.Some of the writing advice in 'Wired' isn't even very good. For example, she shows how to handle first-person narration. BUT she insists that the narrator is always the protagonist. Not true, and poor strategy. For one thing, the protagonist has to be in every single scene. Second, the protagonist-narrator has a need for modesty imposed upon him, or else he would come across as obnoxiously boastful of his daring deeds. Third, the narrator is severely restricted in commenting on the action and supplying background information. And the best tales feature the narrator in this important role of commentator and information source. Think of how Watson narrated Sherlock Holmes' tales, and in Donna Tart's Secret History the narrator (Richard Papen) acted as observer to the murder-minded Greek classics students. Yes, I know Suzanne Collins made 50 million writing Hunger Games with its first person protagonist, but that doesn't make it an example good writing. It was a success in spite of its quality of writing. In fact it was awful; I couldn't even finish the book the viewpoint used was so irritating. But I must concede that the quality of the story did overcome its poor execution.Cron seems to believe that there is only one kind of possible story: one protagonist with an internal conflict who must have a story goal and obstacles to surmount. That's fine, probably the ideal that one would like to strive for. But she doesn't give any advice on how to conceive of story situations that could produce such a result. You the reader-writer are on your own; no inspiration for creativity is even hinted at.The book is mediocre at best. I give two stars only because it does have some useful information, but only for novice writer-storytellers. You can get better advice almost anywhere else, without all the hype and gee-whiz brain science filler.
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