The place of maximum curiosity – the zone in which storytellers play – is when people think they have some idea but aren’t quite sure.

a ‘hero and heroine must represent the perfect coming together of four values: strength, order, feeling and understanding.’

Our errors about what others are thinking are a major cause of human drama.

The brain’s propensity for automatic model-making is exploited with superb effect by tellers of fantasy and science-fiction stories. Simply naming a planet, ancient war or obscure technical detail seems to trigger the neural process of building it, as if it actually exists.

Scientists used to believe attention was drawn simply to objects that stood out, but recent research suggests we’re more likely to attend to that which we find meaningful.

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.

The more context we learn about a mystery, the more anxious we become to solve it.

It’s cause and effect that powers curiosity. Human brains and human stories ask, ‘Why did that happen? And what’s going to happen next?’

An ignition point is the first event in a cause-and-effect sequence that will ultimately force the protagonist to question their deepest beliefs. Such an event will often send tremors to the core of their flawed theory of control. Because it goes to the heart of their particular flaw, it’ll cause them to behave in an unexpected way. They’ll