In his pioneering classic The Uses of Enchantment the psychoanalyst Professor Bruno Bettelheim argues that making sense of such terrifying transformations is a core function of fairytales. A child can’t consciously accept that an overwhelming mood of anger may make him ‘wish to destroy those on whom he depends for his existence. To understand this

No matter who we really are, to the hero-making brain we’re always poor Oliver Twist: virtuous and hungry, unfairly deprived of status, our bowls bravely offered out: ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’

Almost all perception is based on the detection of change’ says the neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott.

Aristotle argued that ‘peripeteia’, a dramatic turning point, is one of the most powerful moments in drama,

Storytellers excite these instincts by creating worlds but stopping short of telling readers everything about them.

The rational response, when encountering someone with alien ideas, would be to either attempt to understand them or shrug. And yet we become distressed.

Greek myths usually have three acts, Aristotle’s ‘beginning, middle and end’, perhaps more usefully described as crisis, struggle, resolution. They often starred singular heroes battling terrible monsters and returning home with treasures.

In most of the best contemporary fiction, objects and events aren’t usually described from a God-like view, but from the unique perspective of the character. As in life, everything we encounter is a component not of objective external reality, but of that character’s inner neural realm – the controlled hallucination that, no matter how real it

A disagreeable neurotic sending out grumpy, twitchy causes into the world has to deal with the negative effects that fly back. A feedback loop of grumpiness emerges, with the neurotic convinced they’re behaving reasonably and rationally only to be tossed, once again, into an oubliette of hostility and disapproval.