Neuroscience for Writers

If you would like your writing to be stronger and more surprising, there are two areas of the human brain that you can cultivate.

1) The nucleus accumbens which responds pleasurably to the unexpected, and—

2) the binary operator which helps us divide complex concepts into opposites.

The nucleus accumbens, located behind the left eyebrow (just kidding, I have no idea), responds pleasurably to surprising stimuli. It’s evident from birth and if you’ve ever played peek-a-boo with a nine-month-old, you know what I’m talking about.

Most of us say we like surprises.  We mean pleasant ones like a marriage proposal and an engagement ring, a surprise birthday party, or even a snow day. No one wants a burst water main, a tax audit, or the stomach flu.

Historically surprises were NOT pleasant, and usually came in the form of an invading army or a plague. We’re actually wired to observe patterns, form models, and order our lives precisely to avoid surprises in an effort to control our environment and to survive.

In our STORIES, though-- fiction, nonfiction, films, song lyrics, even advertising-- we delight in the unexpected. Humor is largely powered by surprise, so figuring out how to tickle this area can help make us funnier writers. I’ll speak for myself, but even (especially) with the most serious of subjects, I can stand to lighten up a little.

Banish stereotypes and the cliche. Court surprise. In your sentences, your characters, and your plot.

The binary operator is responsible for our ability to divide and simplify relative and complex concepts into opposites.

Like: big/small, isolation/integration, mature/immature, good/evil. That's how we get black and white thinking in a world that's an infinite number of shades of gray.

If we think in terms of OPPOSITES in our fiction and push everything as far out on the poles of extremes as possible, we will get more surprises.  Average or gray characters, settings, and situations will not produce the unexpected.  Sponge Bob Square Pants and Cookie Monster are pretty extreme. Cinderella in space, pigeons driving buses, cows that type—these are all unexpected and funny. When you put opposites and extremes, incongruous and exaggerated elements together--voila the unexpected!

So the next time you sit down to write, think about your brain.