When a story meets our brain’s criteria, we relax and slip into the protagonist’s skin, eager to experience what his or her struggle feels like, without having to leave the comfort of home.

in a story, what the reader feels is driven by what the protagonist feels.

Sara’s pains are coming ten minutes apart now. Every time one comes, she jolts herself against the side of the car, trying to disappear. Everything outside is whizzing past her from the car window because Jack, her father, is speeding, something she’s never seen him do before. Sara grips the armrest, her knuckles white. She presses her back against

As John Irving once said, “Whenever possible, tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence.”12

If you don’t know what the objective is, everything appears random. The action doesn’t add up, so there’s nothing to follow, which makes it impossible to anticipate what will happen next. It is anticipation that creates the intoxicating sense of momentum that hooks a reader, so stories without it remain unread.

In other words, we’re wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world. So if your eyes glazed over back in high school when your history teacher painstakingly recited the entire succession of German monarchs, beginning with Charles the Fat, Son of Louis the German, who ruled from 881 to 887, who could blame you? Turns out you’re only,

Stories allow us to simulate intense experiences without actually having to live through them.

Is something happening, beginning on the first page?

Is there conflict in what’s happening?