Notes tagged “Writing”

2024

• Aug 6
  The skills to analyze and synthesize are different things There’s a popular saying that ‘those who can’t do, teach,’ but the truth is more nuanced.

  6 min

2022

• Dec 1
  Design your story to fit humans The best tools are designed to be ergonomic, fitted to people, rather than requiring people to fit them. Similarly, as a storyteller, you should design your stories to fit the way people’s minds work.

  5 min
• Nov 25
  Lazy engineers and hard-working tour guides Good storytellers are like tour guides, using technique and craft to make their stories as easy as possible for their audiences to engage with. It’s hard work, but it pays off.

  3 min
• Jul 3
  The subjective awareness of peak experience When audiences have peak aesthetic experiences, they move from tension to release, often experiencing interaction of both happiness and sadness and having a sense of profundity and connectedness.

  11 min
• Jun 27
  Peak experiences and reward In peak aesthetic experience, activation of reward circuitry manifest in increased pleasure, attention, and memory.

  7 min
• Jun 17
  The physiology of peak experiences When something elicits peak aesthetic experience, our bodies are put into a unique physiological state that mingles elements of both tension and release.

  6 min
• Jun 10
  Peak experience and the breakthrough moment At climactic moments, story audiences should experience the greatest magnitude in shifts from tension and disequilibrium to balance and release.

  11 min
• Jun 5
  Intensity and peak experience Tension must reach a certain minimum level of intensity before peak aesthetic experience is possible.

  8 min
• May 25
  Priming, callbacks, and peak experience Storytellers can use both tonal and thematic setups to create peak aesthetic experiences.

  8 min
• May 22
  Incongruity and peak experience Storytellers can create peak aesthetic experiences by setting up imbalances for which our brains naturally seek resolution.

  8 min
• May 9
  Optimal difference and peak experience To make story moments maximally engaging, storytellers must find a balance between expectation and suprise. Too familiar is boring. Too different is unbelievable.

  4 min
• Apr 15
  Expectation, the knowledge instinct, and peak experience Stories hook into our reward systems, leveraging our brains’ built-in mechanisms for learning in order to create anticipation and narrative drive.

  12 min
• Apr 8
  What types of content create peak experience? Moving stories often feature a common set of characteristics, among them resonance with values, relationship change, prosocial actions, and moments of mixed valence.

  7 min
• Apr 5
  Investment and peak experience The deeper we are invested in the characters and themes in a story, the more likely we will find the story moving.

  5 min
• Mar 29
  Definitions: what are peak aesthetic experiences? A peak aesthetic experience is one in which a person is exposed to a particularly meaningful work of art, music, nature, or story and experiences tears, chills, a sense of being moved, or some combination of these.

  1 min
• Mar 21
  Sharing my research for a book on story In the interests of ‘working with the garage door open,’ I’m sharing my research notes.

  1 min