Authors: Lisa Cron
Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Cron
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
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Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Front cover pen photograph copyright ©
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Front cover ink blot illustrations copyright ©
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cron, Lisa.
Wired for story : the writer’s guide to using brain science to hook readers from the very first sentence / Lisa Cron. —1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: “This guide reveals how writers can take advantage of the brain’s hardwired responses to story to captivate their readers’ minds through each plot element”—Provided by publisher.
1. English language—Rhetoric. 2. Fiction—Authorship. 3. Creative writing.
I. Title.
PE1408.C7164 2012
808.036—dc23
2011049478
eISBN: 978-1-60774-246-3
v3.1
To my children, Annie and Peter,
the best storytellers I know
.
COGNITIVE SECRET:
We think in story, which allows us to envision the future.
STORY SECRET:
From the very first sentence, the reader must want to know what happens next.
COGNITIVE SECRET:
When the brain focuses its full attention on something, it filters out all unnecessary information.
STORY SECRET:
To hold the brain’s attention, everything in a story must be there on a need-to-know basis.
COGNITIVE SECRET:
Emotion determines the meaning of everything—if we’re not feeling, we’re not conscious.
STORY SECRET:
All story is emotion based—if we’re not feeling, we’re not reading.
COGNITIVE SECRET:
Everything we do is goal directed, and our biggest goal is figuring out everyone else’s agenda, the better to achieve our own.
STORY SECRET:
A protagonist without a clear goal has nothing to figure out and nowhere to go.