THE ATTRACTION OF STORIES
affected subjects from different cultures similarly, with visceral changes (‘physical twinges’) throughout the entire body. Striking research has also been com- piled in a book by American literary scholar Jonathon Gottschall called The Storytelling Animal. Gottschall cites vital research into ‘mirror neurons’ and the role they play in our enjoyment of stories. “Many scientists now believe we have neural networks that activate when we perform an action or experience an emotion, and also when we observe someone else performing an action or experiencing an emotion.” Gottschall quotes Marco Lacoboni, a pioneer of mirror neuron research: “Mov- ies feel authentic to us because mirror neurons in our brains re-create for us the distress we see on the screen. We have empathy for the fictional characters because we literally experience the same feelings ourselves. And when we watch the movie stars kiss on screen? Some of the cells firing in our brain are the same ones that fire when we kiss our lover. ‘Vicarious’ is not a strong enough word to describe the effect of these mirror neurons.” What happened when you read Baby
Shoes? Why did you care? Your mirror neu- rons fired in empathy with the hero – you felt what the mother felt as she sat writing the heartbreaking classified ad. This is why we seek out great stories, because of the pleasure of feeling what great heroes (Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Scout Finch) feel as we join them on their fraught journeys. And ‘join’ is just the right word. Our brains are engaged. When they fight, we fight with them. Thanks to our mirror neurons, we’re participating in the story. And Gottschall goes deeper with the research.“We’re addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
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We seek the pleasure of feeling what great heroes feel as we join them on their journeys
And when does this process start? At
birth. Children are 24-hour story machines. They are literally hard-wired to ‘do story’. What are the stories about? You might be surprised. Here’s Gottschall: “What do the (children’s) stories have in common? They are short and choppy. They are all plot. They are marked by a zany cre- ativity: flying choo-choos and talking ducks. And they are bound together by a fat rope of trouble: a father and son plummet from the clouds; baby Batman can’t find his mother; a girl is menaced by a crocodile; a little dog wanders in the woods; a man is bludgeoned and bloodied.” This is the stuff of fairy tales, which is
why they’re so plotty, ferocious and memo- rable. An evil stepmother convinces a poor woodcutter to let her leave his children in a dark forest populated by a cannibalistic fiend in a gingerbread house. A beloved fairy tale told 202 years ago by the Broth- ers Grimm. Straight out of a child’s dream.
STORYTELLING TRUTHS Gottschall’s book is filled with universal truths about storytelling. Stories aren’t something we do when we’re in the mood, they are ‘what we are’, the foundation of our very being, the context from which we make sense of the world, the software program our body runs 24 hours a day. Further Gottschall insights include: l Scientists have ‘mapped’ stories across cultures. Great stories are owned by everyone, around the world. l One reason we tell ourselves stories is to prove to ourselves that the world makes sense. Virtue is rewarded, justice is done, heroes thrive. Unfortunately, psy- chopaths, serial killers and murderous dic- tators hijack these storytelling tropes and twist them to justify their insane actions. l Our memories are an unreliable data- bank. We don’t remember what happened, we remember our story of what happened. So what’s the future of story? Here’s Gottschall again: “These are undeniably nervous times for people who make a liv- ing through story. The publishing, film and television businesses are going through a period of painful change. But the essence of story is not changing. The technology of storytelling has evolved from oral tales to clay tablets to hand-lettered manuscripts to printed books to movies, television, Kin- dles and iPhones. This wreaks havoc with business models, but it doesn’t fundamen- tally change story. Fiction is as it was and ever will be: Character + Predicament + Attempted Extrication.”
MEMORABLE STORIES Science can measure the effect of story- telling, but it will never create great, mem- orable stories. Storytelling will aways be an art that flows from a great truth: “What comes from the heart goes to the heart.”
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