The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Paperback – April 20, 2021

Good book for anyone who wants to write, but a great book for anyone who wants to get into publishing. It answers the questions, "what do people want to read and why do they want it?" If you want to be a professional in any field of publishing, you'd better know the answers to these questions. The book is full of the latest evolutionary psychology. There's plenty of research-based theories you can rely on scientifically, but the author does take a slant toward his pet theories As a reader, you have to be discerning enough to know the difference. If you can do that, this books is invaluable.

Here are the reasons why you should buy this book:-It has helpful scientific information on how our brains respond to elements of story.-There are multiple examples and facts that I wrote down to peruse later.-There are real strategies you can implement in your writing.Reasons you might not love it:-Talks about film quite a bit.-Like most craft books, sections could be removed to trim it down.Still, it's one of the more helpful craft books I've read this year.

When inventing plays, the ancient Greeks noticed stories often healed audiences of their psychological ills. Stories remain some of the first historic signs of civilizations the world over. Even today, weekends for many often consist of movies and/or fiction. What fascinates us so about them? Will Storr takes a gambit to explain this deeply human topic. He wants us to understand stories - and ourselves - better so that we can tell the next tale more effectively.Storr relies on many English-language classics to illustrate his points about storytelling. He shows different forms and techniques successfully used in the past. The literary devices cited are fairly standard, but for people with a science-heavy education like me, books like this can substitute for the rich liberal-arts education we never received.I would give this book five stars except for his heavy reliance upon evolutionary theory as the foundational human history. As a scientist, I appreciate evolution deeply, but I question whether it can be a panacea to explain all facets of social behavior. I doubt one storyline can so easily explain all human diversity and complexity. Nevertheless, Storr at times not only cites evolutionary explanations as a source, but tends to use it as a crutch for authority. I prefer to leave it as one important story among many to be refined in centuries to come.Most of us enjoy sitting around a dinner table or at a pub and swapping humorous tales. Likewise, most of us have also grown all-too-aware of our shortcomings in those ventures. We wish we could communicate better to please our friends. This book can help us do just that. By understanding story, we can more artfully construct them to delight, frighten, and tantalize our audiences. This book heightens our awareness so that we can be a grander narrator for our friends.

This book is well-written and supported by research throughout, making it a compelling treatment of the subject. Adding to the already valuable content the author offers copious examples throughout the text to show artistry in action.

Interesting book about the structures that shape the stories told in books, movies, presentations, speeches, etc, to keep audiences interested, at the edge of their seats!

First of all, this book is for everyone, not just writers. It delves into how our minds and our personal (self told) storyline connects us to the world around us. Our life experience comes from the narrator in our head. You can become a great writer by keeping concepts introduced in this book in mind with your character Arcs and story line. You can also become very in tune with human behavior in the real world and be more influential if you understand everyone around you assumes themself a protagonist in their own life. We all unknowing narrate our lives in our heads, naming ourselves the good guy with honorable goals in all our endeavors and finding an antagonist we must overcome. This motivates our actions and is our driving life force. You can learn how to appease to others’ driving life force and be more influential as a person and writer.

First, this is a great book about the connection between consciousness and narrative. Not quite as neurocognitively scientific as I hoped, but the research conclusions and principles are clearly stated. The content gets 5 stars! The audiobook and narration gets 4+ stars (a little slow in the cadence for my ears, but otherwise candy for the ears).The Kindle gets 2 stars. I got the Kindle with the discounted audible book and boy am I glad I did! There are entire pages apparently absent from the Kindle version that are clearly narrated in the audiobook. At first I thought my hallucinated version of the real world was to blame, but the words I hear are simply not in print - and the context verifies that something is missing. C'mon Amazon! Just because it's less expensive and electronic doesn't mean the book has to be incomplete! Please do better!

SWEET! Sweet read, let the brain loose. The Juice is on the Loose. :-)