Lately it seems every dimension of human experience can—and must—be viewed through the lens of pop neuroscience. Now it’s fiction writing’s turn. Quoting Pinker, Gazzaniga, Damasio, and (oops) Jonah Lehrer, UCLA writing teacher Lisa Cron claims we’re “wired for story” because it helped us survive by letting us imaginatively rehearse potential challenges. Stories that don’t tap “the brain’s primal urge for survival” won’t elicit the “delicious dopamine rush” that keeps ’em reading. This might make for a reductive, but at least streamlined and consistent, guide to crafting gripping tales.
But Cron quickly has to acknowledge how much about story can’t be reduced to survival strategies. What about our mysterious tendency to sabotage our own survival—what Cron calls (in the language of writing workshops, not neuroscience) the conflict between the protagonist’s “issue” and “goal”? Electrodes can’t reach that kink in the human brain, but art can. And art’s best stratagems haven’t ...
