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The Secret that Famous Authors Use to Write Irresistible Stories
And you can use it, too.
Ever wondered how great writers can provoke specific feelings in their readers?
Think of that time when you were reading a novel, and at some point, you felt sucked into the story like you were almost part of it…
Or maybe that sense of imagining the characters of the story as real people whom you would — or maybe wouldn’t — want to meet…
Can’t remember? Read this excerpt carefully:
“Look — ” he murmured, holding out his arm to stop Malfoy. Something
bright white was gleaming on the ground. They inched closer. It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead. Harry had never seen anything so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves.
Harry had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze
where he stood. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered. . . . Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. Harry, Malfoy, and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal’s side, and began to drink its blood.J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Not only was the next line in the book, “AAAAAAAAAAARGH!”, but I am sure we all had a bit of that reaction in our minds as we read the last sentence of this excerpt.
How is it that our minds almost synchronized with a character in the story?
What makes a story so riveting that we can have such a connection with its characters?
So, I did some digging and found something that took me down a rabbit hole.
This connection is not just a feeling you have. It is much more than that.
It is, as Rihanna once said, “as real as you and me.”
It is so real that it has been scientifically studied for 30 years now.
And to satisfy the geek in me, I went and looked it up on Google Scholar, the search engine for academic literature.
