Why Readers Read: What Every Writer Should Know
Why do we read? He hadn’t really thought about this question in depth. Surely I could tell you that I do it because I love it, that those stolen hours lost in pages are an exciting, exhilarating escapism. But I had never considered it, and as a psychologist with my theoretical roots firmly rooted in science and evolution I should have, that story is actually a powerful part of our lives.
Think about it, unlike other hobbies, like quilting, croquet, or gambling, they all make stories in one way or another. I devour books, my husband loves to watch television, my son is absorbed in games of raising dragons or building pixelated forests. Children take plastic My Little Pony and form families and plan great adventures. Adults take painted figurines and build empires and plan the defeat of their enemies. Gossiping is a story, seeing a psychologist is about telling your story, marketers know that a good story will make you invest in their product. I realized that history is EVERYWHERE.
Which means escapism is not a good enough reason for history to be with us. True, getting lost in a story isn’t smart – from centuries ago, when keeping an eye out for saber-toothed tigers was pretty essential to survival, until modern times, where paying your mortgage keeps food in your fridge. History has been so ubiquitous and universal that it has survived the ruthless mill of evolution, that relentless process that filters everything that does not guarantee that our species will be here to produce future generations. If it is not ensuring our survival, then it is cut off. Missing.
Extinct.
Why then? Why does the story keep circulating? Why is it so tightly woven into the layers of our life?
Essentially, the story was and still is our first virtual reality. Just as it is much safer for pilots to learn to fly in simulators, we learn the complicated lessons of life through the experience of others. In the same way that pilots prefer to make their mistakes much closer to the ground, we can see what could happen if our babysitter did not turn out to be who we thought she was, how to take down a zombie, what a series. murderer is capable of, how to navigate in a dystopian world, what is the ripple effect of having an affair with your neighbor. In real life, mistakes can be devastating for both drivers and us. With the story, we can do all of this and more, all without the deadly crash landing.
Evolution thought this was so important that it really connected us to the story. In fact, he thought it was so important that he embedded it deep into our gray matter in two significant ways. The first makes us probe directly at the cellular level. Neurons are the thin, spider-shaped cells that make up the matter of our brain. They are the little fools that wrap information throughout our brain and body. A relatively recent discovery was that of mirror neurons, cells that fire both when you do something and when you see someone else doing it. Oh, like listening to a story, watching a movie … or reading a book! Mirror neurons are the reason we get so excited when we watch a sport as we play it, why we cower in our seats and look away from a horror movie.
Or why we have a visceral, physical response to a great book.
Pretty cool, huh?
Another is in the chemical communications that occur in our head. Namely, dopamine, the small molecule involved in pleasure and reward. Food, sex, and cocaine trigger the release of dopamine in our brain. And also devour a good book.
In the case of reading, dopamine is the brain’s way of rewarding curiosity, so you can learn the hard-earned lessons for the character (in the safety of the library or your living room). Interestingly, the more dopamine that is released, the higher we get, the more we want to keep doing what we’re doing. Most importantly, if the brain anticipates doing that activity again, like reading, it will release dopamine accordingly. Think about it, we’ve all been there when our favorite author releases a new book. When that book finally rests in your palms, that happy, intoxicating feeling makes you plunge into the first page no matter where you are. It’s the brain’s way of encouraging you to do it because it felt so good last time.
When I found out about all this, as a reader I felt validated. I finally realized why I came to work with gritty eyes and wanting to drink coffee because ‘just one more chapter’ turned into ‘only a hundred pages left, I better be able to finish it’. It’s not about poor self-control, an addictive personality, or the belief that I can function on three hours of sleep. My brain is programmed to want this! (Okay, okay … maybe self-control jumped in my DNA …)
But as a writer he was fascinated.
I realized that all this knowledge is the basis of what readers are unconsciously looking for in a story. Why some books are ‘meh’ and why others will be OMG IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO PUT THIS ON!
If you capture your reader, give them a character that they care about as they fight, fail but eventually learn, if you swallow it whole with your words and your wit, you’ve made it. You got it. They will connect with your protagonist, your story …
Your book.
And if you really hooked them, the ones on your fund list and the ones to come.
What writer doesn’t want that?