"The Science of Storytelling" by Will Storr

This fascinating book starts with neuroscience to discover how to grab a reader’s attention and hold it. It assumes that since people are fundamentally interested in other people, a storyteller should focus on character rather than plot. In particular, our brains are wired to notice change. Change can indicate danger or an opportunity. So a good story uses change to prompt curiosity so the reader keeps turning the pages, trying to satisfy this curiosity. "The place of maximum curiosity ... is when people think they have some idea but aren’t quite sure." (1.2)

He then analyses characters. Most of us have a sort of default set of behaviours (Storr calls it a 'theory of control', terminology I find difficult) to help us cope with the world. These behaviours have been learned through past successes, adapted to one's personality (eg extrovert, neurotic, conscientious etc), and distorted by one's culture. Once we have created, usually during adolescence, a model of ourselves, we defend this.  The classic 'hero's adventure' type of story is one in which the behaviours of the protagonist prove inappropriate to the challenges they face, so they are forced to change them. This process involves unlearning old behaviours and learning new ones, all while "a riotous democracy of mini-selves.” (3.1) battles for supremacy.

It's a compelling (and enthralling) narrative from which he draws a toolkit for the creation of character. It makes a great book.

Selected quotes:

• “A successful poem please on our associative networks as a harpist plays on strings. By the meticulous placing of a few simple words, they brush gently against deeply buried memories, emotions, joys and traumas.” (1.7)
• “Beneath the level of consciousness we’re a riotous democracy of mini-selves.” (3.1)
• “A gripping plot is one that keeps asking the dramatic question ... to repeatedly change and gradually break the protagonist’s model of who they are and how the world works before rebuilding it.” (4.2)
• “Find out what people believe to be sacred, and there ... you will find rampant irrationality.” (The Sacred Flaw Approach: the sacred flaw)
• “Many of the most memorable characters in fiction ... derive their fascination from the fact that they're making a fundamental mistake about the human world and their place within it. We can see their mistake but they can't.”  (The Sacred Flaw Approach: finding the flaw)

February 2026; 255 pages
First published by William Collins in 2019
My paperback edition was issued in 2020

This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God