The Science Of Storytelling

The Science Of Storytelling will make you better at persuasion, writing, and speaking by outlining the psychology of telling good tales, including why our brains like them and how to craft the perfect ones.

Is what you’re experiencing right now a simulation? If you’ve ever wondered this you’re not alone. And you’ll be interested to discover that there is some truth to the idea.

Your reality is simply a combination of the stories that your brain tells you about what’s going on around you. When you mistake a garbage can for a person on your nightly jog, for a second you actually did see someone.

In the stories you tell yourself, your brain always places you as the main character. This can make you adjust your past to make you a hero. You might, for instance, consider stealing okay if it was from someone who is greedy.

Another way your brain works to make sense of narratives is by making everything linear. It looks for cause and effect sequences in place that they don’t even exist.

A pair of filmmakers discovered this when showing images of an expressionless person next to different scenes to an audience. The people-watching commented on the skills of each actor, acclaiming their sadness or thoughtfulness that wasn’t actually there.

Stories are also a way that we attempt to understand those around us. This is part of our survival instinct that began in the earliest Homo sapiens. The better a person was at communicating, whether for trading or cooperation, the better chances they had for survival.

We use stories in the same way today to help us understand others around us and thrive.

One side effect of your brain always casting you as the hero of your stories is that it makes you morally above everyone else. This is one reason that you’re so bad at seeing your own weaknesses. But seeing other’s inadequacies can help. Every time you read a story and enter the mind of a flawed character, you open your mind to exploring faults, including your own. Most of your weaknesses come from the beliefs you gained as a child. These cultural influences warped your understanding of the world, including yourself. Consider the difference between an old Western novel and another placed in Victorian England. The Westerner likely values freedom and individuality, while the Englander prizes self-discipline and composure. As an adult, you cling to these beliefs and try to defend them, blinding you to their disadvantages. When you dive into a story, however, you can see the mistaken beliefs of the characters more clearly. Additionally, because you enjoy setting and achieving meaningful goals that you can control, you also like to see…