8 Secrets from Science to Fire Up Your Readers’ Brain

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I feel like my brain is metaphorically lighting up because things are making so much sense.
I'm,
I'm just thinking,
wow.
Yes,
I can understand that.
I see that how amazing and you know,
so I think it's,
it's a really great approach and very accessible and uh writers should really be paying attention.
Hello?
Hello,
I'm Melissa Bourbon and this is the Writer Spark Podcast where business creativity and the craft of writing converge.

(00:28):
Welcome.
15 years ago,
I was an avid reader but not a writer.
I didn't know anything about the actual craft and I knew next to nothing about the publishing industry,
but I had a dreamed to become a published author and I set out to learn everything I could.
Now,
I'm a number one Amazon and national bestselling author of more than 35 novels I've published traditionally and I recently plunged into the world of indie publishing and I teach people like you how to grow in their craft and find success in this ever changing industry.

(01:01):
I'm an ordinary person,
a wife,
a mom,
a daughter,
a teacher living in a small North Carolina town through writer Spark.
I am doing what I love more than anything in the world which is teaching and helping others on their writing journeys.
I'm here as your partner,
as you navigate your own writing journey.
I'm here to help you understand the essential elements of the writing craft,

(01:24):
to build your confidence and to help you find the success you desire.
Welcome to the Writer Spark podcast.
Seeing things from a new perspective can really give you a new way of seeing and internalizing things.
That's how I felt after reading Bill Beard's new book,

(01:46):
writing For Impact Eight Secrets From Science to fire up your reader's brains.
This book really hit home for me on so many levels.
There are a ton of craft books out there,
but this one is different.
It's science based and it gives a new vernacular and a new understanding of what most writers already do.
Writing for impact.
Really got me thinking.
I spent my early writing years gathering every craft book I could find devouring principles and concepts and trying to figure out how to incorporate it all into my writing.

(02:14):
Needless to say I became overwhelmed,
probably like so many of you,
many people have many ideas.
This is why the writing resource books that I write are very practical and geared towards the working writer.
I've been overwhelmed by writing books and theories and advice between the pages and it can be too much.

(02:35):
Sometimes you just need it spelled out for you quick and dirty.
That's what Bill does in writing for impact.
The fundamental principle is to fulfill the desires hardwired into the human brain.
There are eight of them and that's what writing for impact is all about and it's what we're going to talk about today.

(02:59):
Welcome to my guest today,
Bill Burchard,
who is the author of many books,
but the one that we're here to talk about today is writing for impact and the science behind engaging readers through sort of through,
through tapping into the brain essentially.

(03:19):
So welcome,
Bill.
I can't wait to jump in,
but I'd love to hear a bit about your background first,
sort of your origin story.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
For the past 25 years I've been uh pretty much involved in writing books.
I'm a nonfiction writer.
I'm not a fiction writer.
Um I write my own books,
six of my own writing for Impact is the sixth and I've written 10 for others um in business economics,

(03:43):
uh health,
et cetera.
And it,
and uh before that I was a freelance writer in the Business Press.
Uh work appeared in fast Company strategy and business chief f financial officer,
et cetera.
Those kinds of magazines.
Before that I was the editor of a company business magazine.
So writing has pretty much been my life and um and at this point,

(04:05):
I wanted to share my latest passion,
which is how science helps us engage readers when we know more about it and know more about uh what we've,
what we've learned in the last couple of decades uh on from what happens in the brain.
So,
how did you come up with the,
I guess the idea to,
to do this research and to connect engaging readers in fiction with brain science with neurology.

(04:32):
Yeah,
it evolved.
Um I'm not a fiction writer but I'm sure fiction evolves as well and it was first,
it was uh I'm a late stage career.
So I wanted to pass on what I felt were strategies and writing better when people come to me and,
and I coach them now and,
and writing their own books.
It's like,
what do I tell them?
And um there were,

(04:53):
there were about eight or 10 things that I thought were really important and I,
I started to look into,
well,
why are those important?
And I,
I originally had a biology degree.
Never used it.
Been a writer and editor my whole life.
Uh But when I started poking around in Google scholar,
I don't know how much um fiction writers use Google scholar.
I suddenly there was a treasure trove of experiments where scientists,

(05:16):
psychologists and neuroscientists primarily were looking at what happens in your brain when you read different kinds of things,
a metaphor in a sentence versus a uh a literal sentence,
a simple sentence versus a complex sentence.
A story uh uh uh a sentence that started a story versus one that did not.
And,
and they,
they could see all kinds of things happening in the brain.

(05:37):
Now this is basic science.
This is an applied science.
The scientists are not trying to figure out how to write better.
That's not what they were trying to do.
What they just,
what they want to see is just how the brain works.
What,
what's lighting up in there?
What interacts,
et cetera?
Fuck.

(05:57):
Oh Yeah,
absolutely.
Oh,
absolutely.
Yeah.
When,
when clients come to me,
one of the key things they want to do is is integrate stories into their,
their um whatever message they're conveying about leadership,
whether it's,
whether it's how to,
how to be uh uh run a more sustainable business or whether it's how to have more empathy or whatever.
How do you,
how do you integrate a story into that?

(06:20):
So,
yeah,
that absolutely.
In fact,
that's uh my book is based or structured uh on eight ss um the eight ss that engage readers and the last one is story driven and,
and we'll get to that.
I'm sure as we go along.

(06:47):
Mhm That,
yeah.
Yeah.
That's exactly right.
I mean,
of course,
lighting up is a metaphor.
The brain is wet.
It's a bunch of chemical reactions.
It's really wet where there's no fire up there at all.

(07:09):
But that's,
that's the metaphor.
Of course,
that's lighting up those chemical reactions to the principal ones that I'm interested in are the ones that are releasing dopamine and natural opioids in the brain that create pleasure.

(07:33):
Mhm.
Exactly.
Right.
Exactly.

(07:56):
Yeah.
I love that.
My husband is uh an educator and he teaches masters students and I think here there's a huge amount of research out there and it's often related to things like that is where the brain is.

(08:21):
Even though your eyes in the front,
the part that processes vision is in the back And that I that is not research that is part of this after the brain decodes the letters and and decodes the words,
a different part of the brain actually is decoding what it means.
So my book is all about the meaning and that happens on the left side of the brain kind of a racing strip along the left side.

(08:42):
It's not bilateral,
it's not on both sides of the brain,
which many things are the language processing essentially,
which is the definition of that word.
But that's only,
that's only a beginning.

(09:02):
You might say that what you write is really boring.
It's really playing.
So maybe that's the only part of the brain.
But after that,
if you have say specifics,
if you,
if you adjective or what have you other parts of the brain light up,
including the motor circuits which are across the top of the brain,

(09:26):
the sensory circuits are as well,
the auditory,
the olfactory,
etcetera,
all of those light up.
And then on top of that if you have really compelling language,
it,
for example,
with uh the,
with uh motor action,
kicking,
hit,
et cetera,
then,
then the muscles in that that would be engaged in real life.

(09:46):
Um If,
if you were actually performing that actually a,
a little,
a very faint echo of a,
a microts goes through those muscles as well.
So,
so when you specifics,
for example,
that's,
and we all know that's important in writing,
right?
But,
but now we know neurologically why?
Because it's lighting up the,
the language circuit,
it's lighting up the motor circuits and the sensory circuits and it's actually lighting up tissue in the body.

(10:10):
So you're getting this sort of full brain body buzz when you um use specifics of that kind.
So anyway,
that's,
that's a sort of a uh a,
a quick introduction to the,
the breadth of activity in the brain.
I,
I,
we can go s by s and I could tell you which parts of the brain actually are.
Lighting up some of the parts you might have heard of some,

(10:31):
you won't have heard of.
I didn't hear,
hadn't heard of them before.
I,
I research if there's one you'd like me to start with.
Should I just start with the,
the first?
Uh keep it simple.

(11:23):
Right.
Well,
I,
I'm,
I'm simplifying a bit here when,
when you listen to anything or you,
you read anything,
a lot of the brain is activated.
So it's just,
that's the primary what they can,
what they call the classical uh language processing circuit.

(11:44):
Actually,
a lot of the brain is involved because even in words that don't have action involved in them say concepts,
say like um a saga.
Well,
there's no action in that word itself,
right?
But you associate that with action because you've read about a saga before or the saga of your,
your neighbors divorce or something that so all of a sudden there are other parts of the brain that activated because it's associated with town smells,

(12:14):
action,
etcetera.
So I don't,
I simplify too much,
but I do that in the book somewhat just to highlight in that definition that maybe you don't even understand always left brain or is that part right brain when you're looking at the definition you're taking it in,

(12:36):
but you don't understand it and then you get contact to help you understand that the left brain into it or is it always all left brain shaped um a component in the middle of your head?
Um If it's uh if it's related to something that's insightful,

(12:58):
it's a,
it's a flash on the right side of your brain.
Um If it's,
if it's um um if it's uh let's see,
it's uh let me take another one.
Anticipation.
It's a thing called the tic nucleus,
anticipation being in suspense,
et cetera.
That's like a little roof over the,
the components in the middle of your brain.
So,
they,
they all,

(13:18):
all those are highlighted but,
but they never operate alone.
The brain is a very interconnected place and,
and I,
you know,
I would say also that brain science is a,
is in the early years right now.
It's,
it's uh it's,
it's where everybody's pioneering new research.
In fact,
the research related to,
to what my book is based on is,

(13:39):
is new research.
And we,
we should probably get into that because the basis of the book,
I'm kind of glossing over here.
Um Right.

(14:05):
Oh Yes,
Hugh tries.
So if,
if,
if,
if again we over si we not over simplify,
simplify a little bit,
there's two kinds of research that go on.
There's a behavioral research which is,
which has happened for a long time.
Give,
give somebody something to read,
give them a story,
give them a metaphor,
et cetera and then see how,
how they react.
I mean,
do they say they're pleased?
Do they react quickly or slowly?

(14:27):
Do they remember it very well?
That's behavioral research.
And there's a lot of that and there's a lot of that in my book,
a huge amount of that.
Some of that dates back and some of it's relatively recent,
you don't need a complex lab to do that,
but you do need complex experimental procedures so that you,
that you rule out factors that might mislead you.
So you have very simple sentences.
You have,
you have three different sets of subjects and one gets this text and one gets that text and one gets it is the control and gets,

(14:52):
gets um yet other text.
And um so those are,
those can be complex experiments,
but they're not technologically sophisticated.
The ones that are very,
very much more sophisticated today are the,
especially the ones using the,
the modern scanning technologies that I have an old high school that was 30 years ago now.

(15:18):
So when you say it,
the exchange of oxygen in the brain,
it's measuring the exchange in oxygen.
And when oxygen is exchanged,
there's a magnetism change in the brain and then that creates an image.
So we know how quickly basically the brain is burning glucose and which part of the brain is burning glucose.

(15:39):
The the,
the the fastest is the part of the brain that's most,
most activated.
So,
so that's a,
that's a,
that's a sort of a new toy and the,
and the for the,
for the neuroscientists and they're learning a lot from that,
but it's,
it's still limited,
you know,
they take pictures,
they,
they ask people to read stuff,
they see which parts of the brain light up and,
and then by inference,

(16:00):
they say,
well,
we know the hippocampus is involved in spatial learning and in surprise and,
and we know the Amygdala is emotion and look,
it's lighting up when there's a metaphor,
the,
the Amygdala is lighting up when there's a metaphor.
That means there's inherently some emotion in that.
And that's,
that's sort of the nature of a lot of the work today and,
um other work that's actually getting pretty advanced and,

(16:21):
and I'm gonna say it's gonna be over my head is probably good.
I'm writing this book now and not in five years is,
is the stuff with A I and data science where you're crunching a lot of data to try to figure out how the brain operates.
And,
and then those are scientific articles that even even with my,
you know,
trying as hard as I can,
I cannot understand.
It.
Takes a technician to understand this.

(16:57):
Is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah,
that's interesting.
Let me explain what I think is the basis of the book which is,
um which is what's,
what's driving people to read and keep reading and,
and that's what,
what motivates us to do anything.
And it turns out it's this component or a set of components in the brain called the word circuit.
When,

(17:17):
when you,
when you want something to drink,
you want something to eat,
you wanna,
you wanna befriend somebody,
you wanna look for shelter,
you want to do anything that seems desirable.
There's a part of the brain that is governing that when,
when a stimulus comes in,
um if it's a word or it's,
it's the si let's say it's the image of a donut or it's the image of a,
of,
of somebody that,

(17:39):
that looks friendly then your brain immediately evaluates that stimulus and said,
is that,
is that worthy?
Do I want it?
Do I want to pursue it?
Can I learn from it?
And the reward circuit is doing that?
There's a bunch of components there,
some of which you heard of like the Amygdala is one component.
The other is you have not like a thing called the nucleus incumbent.
And when that happens,

(17:59):
dopamine is released.
Now,
historically,
people thought dopamine created pleasure.
But in fact,
it doesn't create pleasure.
But we learn that in more modern,
what it is is it more signals signals through the reward.
What creates the pleasure disappears?
The science is not on this.

(18:19):
What creates the pleasure is the dopamine stimulated release of natural opioids.
There's a marijuana like opioid and there is a morphine like opioid and those are then released and those create pleasure.
So if you're getting tingles up the spine or chills or goose bumps or what have you,
you you probably we can,
we can guess right?
This is this is not easy to confirm,

(18:41):
we can guess that there were some opioids released in the brain.
So,
so my book,
the whole book is based on what are the things that drive the reward circuit when it comes to language,
what can you do in language to drive the reward circuit?
And so I started just exploring that and I,
I basically collected every article I could on scientists studying language and,

(19:03):
and scientists,
scientists being relatively creative people.
When it comes to experiments,
they'd studied a lot about a lot of different things.
And I,
I actually found out that some specialized in studying simple language and some specialized in language that drove anticipation and some specialized in stories and our age of specialization,

(19:23):
right?
You would have thought somebody specialized was just specialized in reading language.
But no,
there were some in all those areas that,
that,
that then,
that then for me allowed me to distill eight ss to,
to uh write better,
to better engage your readers.

(19:51):
Right.
Uh-huh.
Right.

(20:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.

(20:40):
Right.
Right.
Right.

(21:02):
OK.
So interesting.
And I love that uh hearing about the research that you did that led you to this and it just brings up,
you know,
the,
the sort of um emotional charge we get when we get texts right now nowadays with our nowadays,
so old fashioned with our cellphones and our instant connectivity with everybody on this sort of peripheral level,

(21:22):
not necessarily face to face,
but we're constantly seeking that probably stimulus in the brain that now we're conditioned to get.
And,
and I wonder how that is,
you know,
affecting how language and our fiction triggers things in our brain.
But that's a whole another conversation.
Let's dive into your uh eight Ss.

(21:42):
So I'll just review them really quickly and then we'll go through them.
So we have uh the keep it simple keep it specific,
keep it surprising,
keep it stirring and that's kind of the first four and then you move into the second half,
which is keep it seductive.
Keep it smart,
keep it social and keep it story driven.
I love how you organize this.

(22:04):
It's really,
uh it's so accessible,
I think.
And,
you know,
as a writer myself,
I've written 32 books and when I was first starting out,
I was just wanting to get all of the information that I could and some of it made sense,
some of it didn't,
you know,
so much of your learning is enhanced by your experience.

(22:24):
And now after having so much experience when I read something like your book as I have been doing,
I feel like my brain is all part of the brain is lighting up the circuit.
When you follow any of these strategies,

(22:46):
you keep it simple,
keep it at the same time that happens.
We're,
I'm c as a teacher.
I know how important it is all learning.
I agree to get ready set,
right?
Of course,
as a way to share a ton of what I have learned over the past 15 years.

(23:06):
And it's a comprehensive moral how to create your pro and,
and support it has lessons on conflict story structure and the hero's journey as well as what I call the essential elements of writing point of view,
dialogue,
tone and voice.
Plus,
there are less engages the quote and you write a unit a long time to truly internalize all of this.

(23:34):
And my course is a way to help you.
They will guide you through the writing process.
So you can take people at home so to speak and write information.
Find out more about the writers courses and ready,
right at writers academy dot com forward slash.
We're actually getting a reward in the driven for keeping it simple.

(23:56):
So you,
so there's no,
you know,
long,
long sentences that are hard to,
hard to decipher are not,
not in your interest because they're not going to engage the reader.
The readers get a,
that's not to say we write like ad copy writers um where every other word is,
is um a sentence itself but,
but shorter and,
and processing uh fluently processed sentence are,

(24:17):
are,
are,
are rewarded,
you know,
you're,
you're gonna reward your readers um specifics.
We already talked a little bit about specifics.
They're highly rewarding because they activate so much of the brain that creates a huge amount of fodder for the reward circuit to look at and to evaluate and,
and to like,
and um so,
I mean,
that's pretty much the,

(24:37):
the,
the importance of specifics if you,
if you know,
if you,
if you write really active sentences,
uh it's just readers gonna feel enriched.
They,
I think we all feel that I,
I should say I should say that the,
the,
the,
the research that I did in a,
in some ways,
define what the muse is.

(24:58):
What's our intuitive muse telling us when we sit down,
why is it,
why have we always been taught to write by ear?
Does it sound right?
Why is that?
Because we are all equipped with this reward circuit that evolved over millions of years that is giving us an intuitive sense for what the scientists are now showing us.

(25:19):
So,
so you know,
you,
when you use these strategies,
you're using them in tandem with your intuition.
So your muse and the information you have from scientists work together kind of as a,
as a way to double your skill set.
They don't,
they're not in conflict,
they just reinforce each other.
So I wanna make that point that we're not,
we're not discovering something that that's gonna overturn the,

(25:42):
the what the masters have always said about writing.
So let me move to the third one is keep it surprising.
I mean,
why is surprise important?
I mean,
obviously we involved,
if there's,
if there's a snake or there's something we need to,
to,
to worry about.
Uh it's a surprise and,
and we are hardwired to react to surprise extremely fast.
And that's just because we,
we survived and thrived that way.

(26:03):
It's,
that's pretty easy to understand.
So we get a reward for that and then stirring similarly,
if,
if there was emotion involved in language,
uh aside from body language,
and aside from tone of voice,
if a word implied something that,
that,
that had emotion in it,
like danger or,
or fear or,
or happiness.
Uh We process that very quickly and it turns out that this is extremely interesting,

(26:25):
the,
the,
the emotional component of a word,
say I say fear or I say avalanche um or I say fire,
the,
the it,
it's almost seems um counterintuitive.
But your brain processes the emotional component of that word in about 200 milliseconds,
about 200 about 2/10 of a second.
And it processes the full meaning of that,

(26:46):
what the scientists call semantic meaning in 400 milliseconds.
And so you are actually getting the emotional hit before you get the logical hit,
so to speak.
And your brain is combining those two to come up with the full meaning of,
of what you're reading or what you're listening to.
So emotion is,
is a very powerful,
um a very powerful drive of the word C a very powerful drive of,

(27:10):
of um engaging readers and then uh go on moving on to keep it seductive.
That's,
that's not what you think right off,
right?
Seductive we think of as a sexual link.
But it's,
it's more in the broader sense,
the alluring sense,
the tempting sense and specific.
This is an area where scientists study the rewards from anticipation.

(27:31):
Why do you,
why you,
why will you wait today to eat that piece of chocolate cake?
So you can have it tomorrow because there's a reward,
there's actually a dopamine opiate reward for waiting for something you're anticipating to be really good.
And,
and so this says everything about fiction,
right?
I'm not a fiction writer,
but why is suspense important?

(27:51):
That's one reason and why is foreshadowing and,
and,
and maybe even flash forwarding important.
It's because in the interim,
you are actually giving the reader a reward.
You're engaging the reader after you hinted at something that's gonna happen.
They're wondering what?
So now they're not just wondering,
they are actually enjoying the wonder.
So,

(28:12):
I,
I found that fascinating and that,
that's of course true.
In nonfiction,
of course,
nonfiction,
writers don't worry quite as much about suspense,
but it,
it,
it certainly plays to engaging your reader if,
if you're,
even if you're writing it,
uh,
about financial topics.
And then the next one is,
is I say,
keep it smart.
And for that,
it's,
uh,
what I'm,
what I'm implying is not just keep it intelligent,

(28:33):
but in keep it insightful,
keep it,
keep it so that you're having leaps of insight about the human nature about the way the world works,
et cetera.
That it turns out that when you,
when you,
when someone experiences an an AHA and science actually have a term technical term for this.
It's called the AHA moment.
That's actually what they call it.
They research the aha moment,

(28:53):
a whole part of a whole part of your brain on the right side lights up and at the same,
same time,
there's a huge surge in the reward circuit.
So when you,
when you're able to say,
uh can I make this just a little bit more illuminating,
then you are driving engagement and reader?
So it's,
it's worth that extra effort,
not just not to,
just to say something straightforward,

(29:14):
but to say it in,
in,
in maybe a little more insightful way,
a way that,
that,
that pulls your readers in and uh and,
and,
and,
and maybe uh surfacing a universal truth or something like that.
Um And then the,
the next one is keep it social.
And this is another one that's of course important to fiction writers.
And when you're reading,

(29:35):
of course,
you're not having a direct social,
you're not having direct social contact with anybody.
So,
so in fiction,
you're doing it through your characters,
right?
And,
and what is the part that most lights up in people's brains when they are reading about other people?
It's the part of the brain that is trying to figure out what's happening in the other person's brain,

(29:57):
the scientists call this mentalis or,
or easier to understand is mind reading.
You are trying to figure out what's happening in those,
in those characters brains.
And that is highly rewarding.
Of course,
we're all wired for that evolutionarily,
we needed to know what was happening in other people's brains,
whether friends or foes or what have you.
And that's still,
of course true.
Today,
we're all always,

(30:17):
always looking ahead,
our brain is always active,
trying to figure out what other people are thinking.
You're trying to figure out what I'm thinking right now.
I'm trying to figure out what you're thinking.
You're trying to figure out what I'm thinking of you.
I mean,
that's,
that's just the way we are.
We're,
we're,
we're wired that way.
And so um that's a very power when you expose that for readers in your stories.
Um that's a very powerful Driver award.

(30:39):
And then the last one is,
is keep it story driven.
And that,
that's what fiction is about.
Um What I would like to just comment on that is I have nothing to say.
I'm sure that you,
you haven't already covered another podcast about story in my book.
But what I,
but what's interesting is the science that supports the power of story and that's what's really interesting.

(30:59):
It just reinforces just how important that is to being human and to transmitting information as a human being.
And I'll just,
I'll just cite 11 aspect of the research there.
And this is not fully understood,
but clearly the brain is wired in a way that that is very powerful with story.
When you tell me a story,

(31:22):
the activation in your pattern in your brain and they scan this with an FM Ria functional MRI machine that is duplicated in my brain.
And if I then go tell someone else to the story,
you told me the,
the activity in their brain is duplicated um is a duplicate of mine and then a duplicate of yours.

(31:44):
And scientists don't fully understand why this is true.
And there are other,
there's other experiments that I could go into,
but they don't understand why this is true.
But clearly stories have a riveting potential on human beings.
So um so those are the,
those are the eight and I,
and just a final comment on that is that a story is sort of a symphony of all the,

(32:08):
all of the,
the other ss or the all the other strategies for writing to engage readers.
Sometimes when you're especially,
I think I've often this in editing,
you wanna,
you wanna kind of raise the,
raise your game a little bit.
Sometimes it's improving your story,
but sometimes it can just be improving the surprise in your sentence or the,

(32:29):
the,
the,
the word you chose to evoke emotion or it could be the,
the level of insight that you created et cetera.
So sometimes you could just work on one of those ss and not try to work on the eighth one,
which is the symphony,
uh play one instrument at a time sometimes.
And,
and that's,
that's uh that's gonna help you move,
you know,
move your sentence along that you're struggling with the uh that,

(33:08):
that's exactly right.
And uh scientists don't fully understand the ramifications of that.
But that obviously um shows that,
that we are wired to,
to connect with people when they,
when they tell stories,
other research shows,
for example.
And if you're writing,
you know,
your whole book is,
is fiction.
This is significant that the longer the story goes on,
the more engaged you get.

(33:29):
If it's in,
in experiments,
they,
they,
they will start a story that's three sentences long,
you know,
that we were riding in the plane,
it,
it crashed,
but we barely survived,
you know,
whatever a story that's three sentences long and then I'll have some that are 100 and 50 words long and then they'll have some that are seven or eight minutes long and they find that the engagement increases,
the longer the story is so that,
you know,
that plays to uh fiction,

(33:51):
obviously long form fiction plays to,
to uh engaging people just by its nature.
Exactly.

(34:12):
OK.
So I have a few questions.
So first of all,
I heard that you getting the same sort of trying to keep,
you're not feeling engaged by having simplified a passage,
then your reader probably isn't either.

(34:33):
And if you're not feeling stirred up by having added the right emotions because I often focus on the right emotions,
not any emotion,
but the right emotions,
the appropriate ones,
um then your reader isn't either.
So you're the,
you're the first filter.
Um And you should,
you know,
you shouldn't feel that necessarily as a tingle although you might,
um,
but,
but you,
you know,
you,

(34:53):
you should feel it.
So,
the,
the muse and the science there again,
they,
they work together.
Mhm.
Right.
Exactly.
Right.
Right.

(35:13):
Right.
Right.
There's a great,
uh,
Robert Frost quote,
our poet,
I think a way to explain why writers write because we are getting that same brain charge or,
you know,
satisfaction report if we have,
you know,
like I told by the masters writing over the century,

(35:37):
they,
they dovetail,
they compliment each other.
They,
they knowing both.
I think,
you know,
one of the things I think is it just simply gives you more confidence.
Uh If you've got a complex sent uh set of sentences that,
that you think have a problem all of a sudden you go,
well,
maybe part of the problem is they're just complex.
I mean,
the science shows that so now you have confidence and,

(35:58):
but other uh if you didn't have that science,
you might have thought,
well,
I still kind of like those long sentences.
But then you have to say,
well,
if the processing fluency is hampered,
then that means that you're gonna engage the readers,
the reader less as simple as that.

(36:19):
Mhm.
Mhm Yeah.
I,
I can think of instances where I have made myself laugh out loud or made myself cry or,
you know,
whatever the emotion is and that,
and,
you know,
I actively think,
oh,
that's really good because I felt the emotion of the words that I just wrote.
So I'm,
yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Right.

(36:44):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Sure.
Yeah.

(37:06):
Right.
Yeah.
And it goes,
and it goes without saying,
II,
I think it goes without saying that simpler sentences don't mean simplistic writing.
They just mean,
more,
more fluently processed.
I think often,
you know,
when I write because I often,
my first drafts often have very long sentence.
OK,
I'm writing on fiction,
but they often are very long sentences.
And I go,
how did I ever write a sentence that long?

(37:27):
And the point is is that you had this kind of long thought and what you have to realize is that thought actually could be broken into two or three parts.
And that period.
And that's what type of fiction that's being written in literary fiction,
you know,
just inherently has more complex sentences compared to say a straight,

(37:50):
then you need to figure out how to read instead of as a whole,
you know.
So I think that if you have more complex,
you gonna pull the read out because they stop to think about it.
And your whole point with engagement as a writer is to not pull the reader out of the narrative,

(38:11):
but to keep them fully immersed in it.
And so keeping those sentences simpler allows them to just keep going,
keep going,
keep going without having to stop and say,
wait,
what did that?
Let me go back to the sentence and those clauses and dependent clauses,
independent clauses and wait,
I've got confused,
that sort of thing.

(38:39):
Mhm.
Right.
Right.
Right.
You know,
if you,
if you bear with me,
I'd like to read,
um,
uh,
something I have here.
Um,
and,
uh,
there are two passages in which the writers are,
are,
are describing what life is.
Ok.

(38:59):
One,
the first one is by Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Nation.
This is,
this is in my book.
Um This is a,
this is a quote probably a lot of people have heard,
but he says,
what is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

(39:22):
So we're defining life with specifics.
There isn't that amazing?
Now,
here's another one I ran across,
here's Oscar w writing about life.
Life is not governed by the tone of color.
And then I have a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across really want to get into.

(39:54):
Those.
There's the specifics I was even thinking if you wanted to write a prompt,
put in three sentences,
what life is sentences and what life is using,
no abstractions just using specifics to define it like that.
I mean,
those,
those are,
those are wonderful quotes and,
and those,
particularly the Chief Crowfoot.
When you see that around a lot.

(40:15):
I don't know if you've seen it before,
but you see it around a lot and that's why,
I mean,
it's just simple as that,
the specifics drive a huge amount of activity in the brain which in turn drives a huge reward for the,
the reader.

(40:37):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Mhm.
Mhm.
Mhm.

(40:58):
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And,
and surprise again,
you know,
when you're editing,
surprise can also be just a,
just a,
a turn of phrase.
That's,
that's surprising.
The reader enjoys that too.
I,
I mentioned that a lot in my book.

(41:20):
Um some examples there.
Um One I like is uh uh John Steinbeck wrote at one point in his book,
he was describing Monterey and he said it was so this is um travels with Charlie in Search of America,
one of his,
his nonfiction pieces that,
that the town was dirtied by un diapered mines.

(41:43):
Now,
how can,
how can you,
how can you beat that for surprise?
Right?
Um Or there's a,
there's a novel about Guadalupe.
I went to Guadalupe.
You think about it.
This is in the,
wrote in her book about one of the characters,

(42:03):
she was in the sun creating conflict and stuff like that.
Just,
just a little surprise when you write a scene,
you have goal,
motivation,
conflict and disaster and you're leaving your scene on some sort of new story.
Question,
new scene question.
So you're continually surprising the reader with what's going to come next.

(42:27):
So that makes perfect sense.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.

(42:49):
Mhm.
Mhm.
Mhm.
Mhm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
No,
you captured it perfectly there.

(43:12):
Yeah.

(43:34):
Right.
You ready?
Right.
Right.
And I think that really almost taps into the emotion too and that's what you're saying.
Everything works in tandem.
But,
yeah,
and going back to these essays as they apply to the writer,
as well as the reader,
I,
I'm a hybrid plotter Panther definitely.

(43:54):
And uh you know,
as I do research on whatever it is I'm working on in that particular moment.
I have so many,
you know,
from my point of view,
it's a set of all the time and read by the research,

(44:26):
not only help,
the material comes after it.
Now,
I'm not recommending topic sentences necessary for fiction,
but they make a promise to talk about and just,
you know,
a little bit of that sort of visceral experience or just tapping into the human experience and the emotions that we all know that,

(44:47):
that are universal to us.
So that's,
you know,
one thing that is something that writers are always trying to tackle and then anticipation,
seductive is your s and that really builds to anticipation,
which,
which I love,
that's the word that came to mind when you were describing it.
And then you said anticipation.

(45:09):
And I think that's exactly right.
And that's what we all are trying to do is to keep the reader wanting to know what's next with those story,
questions,
with those questions and things like that.
So.
Mhm.

(45:29):
Yeah.
Mhm.
That's right.
That's right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
There's a quote by Alfred Hitchcock.

(45:50):
I don't think I can get it quite right.
But he basically says there's,
there's basically no reward in the,
in the,
the terror.
The reward is in the run up to the terror.
I mean,
he said something more eloquent than,
than that.
But even in a horror story,
I mean,
I,
I don't know if any of your listeners will write horror,
but even there,
it's all the anticipation.
Yeah.
Well,

(46:10):
in terms of fiction,
that's what romance mysteries are about.
You know,
you have the hero and heroine getting together in the end and this push and pull all the way through and you have the red and the,
and the,
and the reader trying to stay ahead of the same with suspense,
read more of them than the character from the villains point of view,

(46:36):
how much they pay for all of the different forms.
You know,
this is dating myself.
But,
you know,
the whole love story between Sam and Diane and David in Moonlight or Friends.

(46:57):
But it's that when are they going,
we don't care anymore.
It's like,
ok,
it's over because we were really in it with that shorter uh delayed period.
So you're actually getting the sum of two things.
You're getting the pleasure of the payoff and you're getting the pleasure of the anticipation added together.
And human beings make that calculation intuitively that I'm gonna get the most pleasure.

(47:21):
It goes back to the chocolate cake again.
Right.
I'm gonna get the most pleasure.
Not if I eat this chocolate cake right now,
but if I put it aside and I think about it,
enjoy the thought of eating it tomorrow.
Right.
And we're hard wired that way,
we're hard wired.
That way we get a reward,
we get a reward.
I mean,
the dopamine is going,
I mean,
we're get actually uh getting a neural reward for,
for that period of anticipation.

(48:02):
Uh-huh uh-huh.
Uh-huh hm.

(48:24):
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And you're alive.
Yeah.
And you're relying on your setups earlier in the earlier in the book to,
to carry the reader along because they're anticipating,
they're anticipating,
they're enjoying the anticipation of your tying that all together at the end.
Mhm Yeah.

(48:53):
Mhm.
That's so,
yeah,
which in fiction writing,
I think it's really important to understand that and to make sure that your subplots are working in a similar fashion because once your main plot,

(49:16):
post climax is resolved,
you still want the readers to finish the book and that means wrapping up your subplots as well and offering that resolution or the,
you know,
return with the elixir if it's the hero's journey or whatever are more than just one line of anticipation.

(49:38):
It's multiple based on all of your subplots.
Otherwise,
as soon as the hero and the Hero and Kiss,
that's it.
The story's over close the book.
Even though you might have a whole another chapter left and nobody cares because you didn't build it up.
Uh-huh.
Mhm.

(50:02):
Right.
And in mysteries,
you know,
we have talked on this podcast in the past about how mysteries,
uh,
specifically cozy mysteries differ a lot now,
from how they were originally written and you look at Agatha Christie books,
for example,
mystery is solved.
That's it.
It's over.
And here now we write very character driven mysteries with Slews that carry a series.

(50:25):
And so we've got these subplots that are connected to their lives and the society that,
you know,
community of people that we've created and you have to have this series,
you know,
that's true,
that statement,
you serious stuff or you might be writing about um leadership,

(50:49):
that's the easiest one to choose but,
and your leadership is about leading a corporation but,
but I say to them,
OK,
so that's great.
But you need to,
you need to also surface more perennial truths about that things that resonate more deeply with us as human beings.
So,
OK,
so this point you're going to have in the corporation,

(51:10):
what about leadership in the community in the nation?
On all the,
it doesn't pull in those historical elements and I get reader feedback quite often about that they love,
they always thinking about,
you know,
like whatever the story,

(51:30):
something you thinking about something in a way that that can take away.

(51:51):
I think that engages them more.
Invest more.
Hm.
No.

(52:17):
Absolutely.

(52:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's why I say it kind of doubles your skill set,
you know,
listen to Muse,
but listen to the neuroscientist too.
They're saying the same thing and you get it from two different,
two different very different angles and that reinforces it,
it gives you more confidence as a writer and of course,
confidence is all important.

(53:05):
Mhm.
Mhm.
Yeah.
And that's what happened with me as I was reading your book and making,
I was making these connections to what I already know about writing fiction and thinking.

(53:28):
Oh,
yes,
that's,
that's what this means.
I already knew that.
But it's the only way to look at it,
which I think when you have multiple ways to look at something it can help solidify it or it can help you internalize it on a deeper level.
And that's,
that's what I took away from this book and a lot of it,
I think that was exciting for me.
You know,

(53:48):
and especially after 32 books when II,
I feel like I'm always going to be learning.
But when I get something that's really an,
aha,
for me that,
that's really making a strong connection about my craft.
That's pretty exciting.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.

(54:17):
You know,
and it's something that writers can take away and,
or refer back to when we get that writer's block.
I don't really necessarily believe in writer's block because I believe in moving forward to something else.
Not,
not getting stuck and staying there.
But,
you know,
when you do get stuck in something then you can refer to these eight Ss and think about,

(54:38):
ok,
what can I,
what can I do to this scene that's gonna pull in one of these things that I know is going to engage my readers.
So it's really a concrete tool to use.
Yeah,
non-fiction.
As you say that the,
the,
the,
you know,
and I think you could,
if I was writing this book for only for fiction authors,
I and I was a fiction author like you are,
I,
I would probably have a different chapter but in,

(55:01):
but in nonfiction,
I mean,
the key thing is again,
getting people to wonder about what other people are wondering the complexity of,
of their internal,
internal,
internal speculation about what's going on with other people sequel to and then as a story.
So we can look at these in many different ways and apply them to our writing on many different levels.

(55:27):
We read a book and wondering what's going on between them.
OK.
So social,
we have social,
which is I think the reason that we read in so many instances,
it's because we want to connect,
we want to understand,
we want to experience things that are outside of our normal world perhaps.

(55:49):
But also on that more subliminal level,
we are understanding people,
we're understanding society,
we're understanding humanity,
we're understanding different things that are social within our world,
but maybe not entirely accessible or that we don't understand on,
on the level that we want to,
which is,
which is why we read.

(56:11):
Mhm.
Mhm.
Mhm.
Mhm.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No,

(56:31):
I think that's correct.
Uh,
you know,
way more about fiction than I do uh that.
But,
but there's research also that shows the,
the rise and fall of activity in the brain in different parts with the,
with the rising fall of the action and,
and stories.
So um getting that,
getting that right is something people very actively follow.
We're just,
we're just wired to follow a story,

(56:53):
you know,
scientists and also to think about it in a way the story was trying to get a lot of research that show gatherer tribes and then the final story driven which we talked about,

(57:20):
you know,
a little bit.
But that engagement,
I think it goes back to the understanding whether whether you use the V structure or,
or whatever your,
whatever your so what it means to have a solid story,

(57:40):
storytelling ability is being selected for the storytellers have large families and they're passing on their genes that are good at storytelling and what it means is that every generation gets better at telling stories.
So the faculty of having,
uh,
of the faculty foretell and deciphering stories.
Uh,
you know,

(58:01):
this is,
this is just one research study could actually be evolutionarily driven.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
So,
I see you're in a very,
you're in a hardwired,

(58:21):
you're a,
what we can say,
neuroscience is saying is a hardwired profession.
Now,
you're dealing with the hard wiring of the brain.
Right.

(58:57):
Hm.
Hm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
absolutely.
I,
you know,
I it's,
it's nice to hear that.
That that's the way you feel because as they say,
you know,
these,
these,
these eight s si I think of as hardwired primal desires.

(59:19):
I mean,
people want surprise,
people want it stirring,
people want it story driven.
And so if you give it to them and they're gonna get a award for it.
So there's the motto of my book,
reward your reader.
I like to say people don't because they like they like you unexplainable.
Right.

(59:47):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Well,
Bill,
I want to thank you so much for being here.
These eight S is this book.
It's fascinating.
And again,
for me,
it triggered all kinds of connections to what I already know.
So I highly recommend this.
Everybody who's listening,
anybody who's watching,

(01:00:08):
I really highly recommend getting writing for impact because you know,
you're going,
you the writer are gonna have all kinds of moments where your brain is lighting up with these connections that this book will make for you and I really strongly believe it's gonna enhance your fiction writing.
So I think it's a great book and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about it with me,

(01:00:59):
right?
It's how,
it's how you feel,
right?
People say you're not,
you don't might not necessarily remember a teacher,
but you're gonna remember how they made you feel.
Yeah,
it's,
that's what it's about,
right?
Thank you again,
Bill for being here.

(01:01:19):
This has been so fascinating and again,
I encourage everybody to go out and buy this book,
writing for impact.

(01:04:09):
Thank you so much for listening and spending your time with me today everyone.
I'm Melissa Bourbon and this is the Writer Spark podcast.
Take a moment to visit our website at www dot riders spark academy dot com.
Check out our courses,
our resources and all the content there and I will see you next time until then happy writing.

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