I have recently finished the most important book I have read in decades. And I am not joking. But the core message is an old, plain, and simple thing: Telling stories works. As a scientist, I have heard that too often from communicators and journalists, usually when doing an interview where they struggle to understand what it is what we did and why would someone care. And I always considered stories a soft ball, inferior to telling science as it is: the facts and only the [amazing] facts.

So, what makes this book such an amazing one? The author, also trained as a scientist, took the months (partly under NASA contract) to research and dissect the what, the why, and perhaps most strategically, how to hack it and maximize its usefulness. [Every assertion I write here is referenced to the appropriate research paper at the back of the book.]

Here is the thing: humanity has only democratized reading and writing for a few centuries. Moreover, argumentative and factual narratives (like science) have historically been the education of the few. Yet, humanity, every single one of us, has evolved for millennia to care about stories. We think today that we want facts, but we crave stories. That is why when we are tired, we watch a movie, not a documentary. We read a narrative book, not a research article. Our minds crave stories, and we are suckers for good stories. But what is a good story? A Gossip? Something with violence? or sex? Something about someone? Is truth important? What is the minimal story that works? 

See what you feel when you read these short but powerful stories:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

"We thought AI couldn't do it, turns out it didn't want to"

"Halley's comet comes once in a human lifetime, and if you are reading this, you'll probably never see it again."

 

Before going into the hacks, pause and reflect on the absurdity of the following: Stories not only work, but they has also been proven the fastest and most effective and efficient way to hold our attention, create understanding and meaning in our minds, make us remember them for longer, and recall them more easily. Incredibly, our brain-body connection carries stories across those bridges: patients who use redemptive stories heal faster. Even if we know how powerful they are, or how defenseless we are to its power, we can’t resist its influence.

Language was created to tell stories. We told stories literally before history, even before we had language. We have used stories for at least 100.000 years, whereas [written] history only has 6.000 years. Anecdotally if you have had babies, you can see how they understand stories before they understand words. Babies also make up stories before they can understand logic. 

Facts need context and prior knowledge to get meaning, stories include meaning in themselves. Our brains in fact do not, and cannot, process all the sensory input it receives. Our brain has an unconscious storyteller that is constantly mixing a minimal sensory input with what it remembers, feels, projects, assumes, judges, .... and uses that story as the experience for what is to come. Kahneman called this “System 1”. You might even notice that we talk to ourselves in story mode. Only if we pay attention and focus on a specific input, we can strain the conscious mind to overrule the unconscious storyteller with our logic, and facts (“System 2”). Moreover, it is only when we learn to read, that we learn to have abstract non-story thoughts. (like silogism "if A then B, and if B then C, then If A then C" can only be understood by cultures who can read).

Most importantly, the inner story is a muscle that can be trained and shaped, but also gets harder and harder to rewrite as we age. It seems that around age 12 any major rewrite of our inner story gets almost impossible.

So, here’s the meat. 

Features of our story-wired brain:

1. Experience builds expectation. We are constantly expecting based on experience, and if we are correct, we lose interest. Conflict, struggle, surprise fuel our attention.

2. We assume that everything we experience is connected.

3. Human minds demand meaning. We constantly try to make sense of what is happening. If a story deviates from the expectation, it sticks in our mind until we understand this new expectation as a new meaning to remember. 

4. Everyone has intent. Intent is having a goal and a motive. Everything everyone does is a response to that intent.

5. Everything can and should be judged as soon as possible. We do not need, or want, to have all the facts before making up everyone's intent, meaning or expectation of what is next.

6. Every story is about someone. Characters must be the center of stories. If it is not a person, we project as if it is a person.

7. We only care for as much as it matters to us. Bonus: Sensory input is the fastest way to connect with the reader and trigger recalls. 

 

Frustrating bugs in our mental model:

A. Stories bypass our attention and focus. They land in our mind without a filter. We are wired to be influenced by stories, even despite knowing it and avoiding it. (i.e. listicles of myths are usually counterproductive if the myths are stories)

B. Our unconscious story-wired mind does not care about truth. It is only our conscious mind, education and logic that can, with attention, evaluate and judge. Just think how natural and easy it is for kids to listen to stories with animals talking, or people flying. Think also how effective fake news and populist narratives are based on stories.

 

The above means for example, that memory and recall are mostly based on the intensity of the stories judged by the seven points above, not on the content, truthfulness or veracity of the story. We remember what we felt about the story more than we remember the details of the story, or if it was true or not.

 

So, based on all of this, what is a story? A story is  a detailed, character-based narration of their struggles and obstacles to reach their important goal.

A Story must have 1) a character as its center, 2) an intent as the driver, 3) actions to achieve the character goal, 4) struggles and breaks of assumptions to keep our interest, and 5) details (sensory and narrative) all along to help create meaning and anchor memories. The natural end of a story happens when we have answered and understood all these.

These details alone should help you re-think already every piece of material you produce. But the author goes on with other tricks:

* Evoke prior knowledge in your story to aid comprehension, meaning and effectiveness. Even using words or concepts with baggage to transfer as much prior knowledge as possible. This also means making the story as relevant to the reader as possible. Prior knowledge helps the reader focus on the bits that are relevant, not trying instead to first create the context on which the story happens.

* Sensory details are the fastest way to create recall triggers.

* Specially in children everything can be thought better with stories. The author refers as example a study where 4th grade kids with poorest scores in grammar overperformed their most skilled peers with just 3 weeks of story-based grammar teaching.

* Making the story structure explicit only helps encoding, recall and comprehension

 Now pause and think what you remember of the post you are reading... and see if you remember the little 3 one-sentence stories at the top. Crazy how you probably do.

If you want to know more, just buy the book 😊