The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better

Evolutionary psychologists argue we have two wired-in ambitions: to get along with people, so they like us and consider us non-selfish members of the tribe, and also get ahead of them, so we’re on top. Humans are driven to connect and dominate.

At the start of a story, we’ll often meet a protagonist who is flawed in some closely defined way. The mistakes they’re making about the world will help us empathise with them. As the story gives us hints and clues about the causes of their errors, we’ll warm to their vulnerability and become emotionally engaged in their struggle.

Fairytales take those scary inner selves and turn them into fictional characters. Once they’ve been defined and externalised, like this, they become manageable. The story these characters appear in teaches the child that, if they fight with sufficient courage, they can control the evil selves within them and help the good to become dominant.

Take capitalism. For the left, it’s exploitative. The Industrial Revolution gave evil capitalists the technology to use and abuse workers as dumb machine-parts in their factories and mines and reap all the profits. The workers fought back, unionising and electing more enlightened politicians and then, in the 1980s, the capitalists became resurgent,

As the story theorist Robert McKee writes, ‘the most memorable, fascinating characters tend to have not only a conscious but an unconscious desire. Although these complex protagonists are unaware of their subconscious need, the audience senses it, perceiving in them an inner contradiction. The conscious and unconscious desires of a multidimensional

The Japanese form known as Kishōtenketsu comes with four acts: in act one (‘ki’) we’re introduced to the characters, in act two (‘sho’) the actions follow on, in act three (‘ten’) a twist that’s surprising or even apparently unconnected takes place and in the final act (‘ketsu’) we’re invited, in some open-ended way, to search for the harmony betwe

Gossip exists to teach us about other people, to tell us who they really are. Most concerns moral infractions: people breaking the rules of the group. Such stories maintain pro-group behaviour by triggering moral outrage, which pushes us to act, either against the ‘characters’ in gossip or in their defence.

Great drama often forms itself around a clash of competing hero-maker narratives, one belonging to the protagonist, the other to their foe. Their respective moral perceptions of reality feel utterly genuine to their owners and yet are catastrophically opposed. These are neural worlds that become locked in a fight to the death.

Psychologists measure personality across five domains, which can be useful for writers doing character work to know. Those high in extraversion are gregarious and assertive, seekers of attention and sensation. Being high in neuroticism means you’re anxious, self-conscious and prone to depression, anger and low self-esteem. Lots of openness makes fo

characters in story aren’t only at war with the outside world. They’re also at war with themselves. A protagonist is engaged in a battle fought largely in the strange cellars of their own subconscious mind. At stake is the answer to the fundamental question that drives all drama: who am I?