Episode 212: Why Tell Stories

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Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing our episode digging into why we (as human beings) tell stories.

In this episode, Fable opens by sharing a quote from neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga that’s included in Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story:

 “The brain never does anything it doesn’t have to do. The fact that there seems to be a reward system that allows us to enjoy good fiction implies that there’s a benefit to the fictional experience.”

Stories are used to entertain, educate, and connect us emotionally. In this episode we talk about the mental, emotional, and physiological reasons that we tell stories — including what chemicals our body releases when we experience stories that do different things to our minds and bodies. And how that relates to what audiences experience while they interact with stories.

We also talk about the importance of having your audience emotionally connect with your stories as part of the marketing of your book, even using things like posts or reels that helps them bond with a character or story elements. Using things like:

  • Knowing the flavor of your story and the emotional core and using language to help foster that feeling

  • Using color psychology to create subconscious connections

  • Creating a potent hook or blurb that gives the reader something to hold on to — an emotion or experience

  • Giving the reader something about a character that they can relate to or that engages their empathy

  • Touching on specifics that make your characters feel more real or your stories feel more visceral

Towards the end of our conversation and since this is spooky season, we talk about why readers choose to engage with thrilling, creepy, and horror stories. Amongst other things it allows us as readers to rehearse fear, feel excitement and freight in a controlled environment, remember to be grateful that we’re alive, and strongly feel that sense of catharsis when it comes to an end. Another thing we unpack is how that ability to put a book down or stop a film or TV show when it becomes too much, allows us to decide how much we want to take of a given feeling and disengage when it gets overwhelming — which we unfortunately can’t do with real life dreads and traumatizing experiences.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Fable opens by sharing a quote from neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga that’s included in Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story. That quote is:

 “The brain never does anything it doesn’t have to do. The fact that there seems to be a reward system that allows us to enjoy good fiction implies that there’s a benefit to the fictional experience.”

The Verbivore referenced two Ted Talks in this conversation. Here they are:

Books Mentioned:

Music from:https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman