Post #243 February 1 2021 “Story in a Bottle: Frame Stories and Embedded Narratives” Recently I finished my newest novel The Eureka Gambit. Look for it at the end of January 2021. In this story, I have used a technique that I have used before on similar alternate-history stories…a frame story, or as it is sometimes called, an embedded narrative. Essentially, this is an inner story inside an outer story. What is a frame story? Wikipedia says this: A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories. I call this a kind of ‘mirror effect’ in storytelling. In my case, I have inserted a prologue before my main story and an epilogue after the main story. The prologue and epilogue occur after the main (or inner) story. This is not a commonly used technique but it has some advantages. Frame story techniques can be used effectively, when done right, to radically advance the time or change location of the inner story. The Eureka Gambit brackets an inner story inside an outer story that is itself set some 40 years later. This allows the writer to show some perspective and commentary by characters on what happened in the inner story. Sometimes an ironic twist can be added. Think of a frame story as a bookend supporting a shelf of books. The outer story can be used to support or enhance or amplify the inner story. There are some caveats however. For one, the characters in the outer story should relate somehow to what happens in the inner story, or to themselves acting in the inner story. The outer story can comment or reflect on the inner story, but it must be consistent and believable and not at variance with your plot logic. It shouldn’t be like “The Wizard of Oz,” and wind up being only a bad dream. That’s not playing fair with your readers. Ideally, the inner story shouldn’t even ‘notice’ the outer story frame or refer to it…otherwise the mirror effect is broken and your story is in danger of becoming a parody, like TV Batman. In my case, the outer story is kind of like ‘looking in’ on earlier, younger versions of one of the main characters. This can have the effect of adding some texture and nuance to your overall narrative. You should not attempt a frame story or a nested narrative like this unless you’re careful about interactions between the inner and outer story. See above. Use the ‘story in a bottle’ technique when you want to add another layer of meaning or commentary on what happens in your main (inner) story. Done well, it can be an enjoyable, even surprising twist to what is being experienced. The next post to The Word Shed comes on February 8, 2021. See you then. Phil B.

Post #241 January 25 2021 “Editing and Flossing: We Do It Because We Should” Every day, I floss my teeth, like all real Americans. Twice a day. I don’t particularly like it but I do it. The dentist says I should. That’s how think about editing too. Wikipedia says this about editing: Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible and film media used to convey information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and many other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete work. When I finished Episode 8 of my Quantum Troopers serial, it was 68 pages long. Right after finishing the first draft, I do a thorough read-through. Does it flow? Does the story make sense? Is it believable and consistent? I take this read-through as a chance to correct awkward grammar, fix typos and misspellings (later I ran spellcheck) and generally find out if I have a decent story, with all the proper elements of a story…plot, characters, a problem for the characters, some complications, some kind of resolution in the end, etc. Let’s take what Wikipedia says and expand on correction, condensation and organization as major points in the editing process. Correction Everybody makes mistakes. I know that’s hard to believe but it’s true. Editing gives you the chance to find them and fix them before your readers do. Nothing destroys the power of a story, the verisimilitude of a story, faster than an obvious factual error. Typos and awkward grammar can be fixed easily enough. But when you say Mars is a billion miles from Earth and it’s really only a hundred million miles away, plenty of readers will pounce on that and toss your book, assuming you haven’t taken the time to be a pro and find and fix obvious glitches. It does not reflect well on your craftsmanship when your story reeks of mistakes. We don’t build houses that way and we shouldn’t build stories that way either. Condensation To condense a story means a lot of things, mostly taking things out. One of the practices that made Quantum Troopers possible as a serialized story of 20,000-word episodes, uploaded to Smashwords every 3 weeks, was the fact that I freely copied and pasted from other stories. After the chop job, though, I have to smooth things out, condense down the paste job so it will fit my story size and smooth things out so the story flows, the plot makes sense, the story is adequately carried forward, the characters are consistent and believable, in other words, condensation and correction work together, like ham and eggs. It’s a rare story that can’t stand some enlightened pruning. For the last thirty years, I have spent much of my life as a professional technical writer. This turns out to be good discipline for story-telling. Tech writing is done mainly to instruct. Story writing is done to tell a story. But these two things are related. Moreover, in tech writing, as in any good writing, use only the words needed and no more. Be spare. You don’t have to be Ernest Hemingway. But try to tell the story with the minimum number of effective words. I interpret condensation as a form of literary distillation, paring down my words to the most essential ones, pruning away all but the essence. That’s what makes for effective writing, in any genre. Organization The editing process also involves organization. In any story, things should happen and flow logically, for a reason. Dick did this and then Jane did that. For me, organization starts with a strong outline. Outlines are the heart of my writing. If I don’t have a good outline, I can’t tell a story. But other authors are different. Good editing involves understanding what makes a story tick. Characters are motivated by certain things. A problem hits them and their motivations drive them to react and deal with it a certain way, hopefully consistent with their nature. The hard part is making this look natural and keeping the character’s responses both believable and consistent. The really good storytellers have a way of using plot complications to cause a character to grow in their response, thereby revealing something we can all learn from. Hey, maybe if that happened to me, I could do what he did. It makes sense, it’s satisfying at some fundamental level. Stories that do this are the memorable ones and organization (tightening the story up) is one key part of that. Obviously, there’s a lot more to editing than this but I like to keep my posts short and to the point…as we’ve just been discussing. Corrected, condensed, organized…any writing will benefit from these. Behind every successful writer is an effective editor and in this day of indie, self-publishing and e-books, those two are often the same person. Next week’s post will come on February 1, 2021. See you then. Phil B.

Post #241 January 18 2021 “Eight Tips for Writing Action Scenes” I’m nearing the end of the first draft of my alternate history novel The Eureka Gambit. This novel is filled with action scenes. Writing action scenes, like any writing, is an art and it can be learned. The following tips are ones found from www.nownovel.com and which I have modified to better meet what I consider to be particularly important. 1. Use short sentences. This has the effect of speeding up the reader’s following of the story. It increases tension, just like short scenes and quick cuts in a movie. And use simple sentences to keep the reader focused on what matters. 2. Mix in dialogue with your action. It’s tempting to have nothing but slam-bang paragraphs, where Tom pulverizes his adversary with punch after punch, leading to a bloody mouth and teeth flying everywhere. But consider adding some choice words from Tom, like “Now, you’re going to get it,” or having Tom respond to his adversary’s taunts like “Is that the best you can do, you panty-waist slimebucket?” A little dialogue thrown in adds to the realism and makes Tom and his adversary seem lifelike. 3. Keep the introspection to a minimum. Don’t have Tom, in the middle of swinging a punch, reflect on why, when he was eight years old, little Tommy Jacobs stole his tricycle. Who cares what Tommy Jacobs did? I want to know: did Tom land the punch and did it knock the bejeezus out of his adversary (lets called the adversary Bluto). 4. Keep the action scene short. Nothing fatigues a reader faster than page after page of non-stop action, especially when there doesn’t seem to a story-related purpose to it. Give the reader a break. Intersperse action with some other narrative, like how nice the weather was when Tom plastered Bluto against the wall. 5. Use active voice. “Tom smashed Bluto’s face,” rather than “Bluto’s face was smashed by Tom.” This gives your writing more power and immediacy. Remember, you’re not writing for Downton Abbey (unless you are). 6. Keep details of setting and other descriptions relevant. Don’t stop in the middle of the action to have Tom ruminate on the historical significance of the tree he just smashed Bluto’s face with. Say “Tom smashed his face,” and move on. 7. Keep the character’s goals and needs in mind. This one bears some detail. Tom is fighting Bluto for a reason and it had better be a reason related to the larger conflict of the story. Otherwise, it’s just Tom taking out his frustrations on Bluto for no apparent reason. Ideally, the conflict between Tom and Bluto has grown and become so inflamed that conflict between them seems inevitable, until it finally bursts forth. This helps with creating and sustaining tension as well. You can even vary this a bit, by having Tom take more than a little abuse from Bluto before finally lashing out and deciding to end this standoff once and for all. Tom wants or needs something and Bluto’s standing in the way. This is the essence of story conflict. 8. Describe action using gestures, movements, noises, and other elements pertinent to the action. Like any writing, use words as needed and don’t add superfluous words that don’t contribute to the action. More importantly, engage all the senses: taste, smell, sound, as well as the physical experience of burying a fist in Bluto’s face. This adds to the realism and gives your action scene more power and more punch (sorry), especially if you’ve sketched Tom sympathetically so that the reader really feels his anger. Writing action scenes can be learned and practiced. Done poorly, action scenes add nothing to a story and like some James Bond movies, become gratuitous and even wearying. But done well, they contribute to the reader’s understanding of your protagonist and his sympathy for the protagonist’s cause. The reader will feel “Hey, I would have done the same thing as Tom. That could have been me.” Once your readers start doing that, they’re hooked. The next post to The Word Shed comes on January 25, 2021. See you then. Phil B.

Post #240 January 11 2021 ‘Where the Hell Are We? How Details of Setting and Sense of Place Can Help (or Hurt) a Story Remember when Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz, mutters to Toto: “Toto, somehow I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore?” Dorothy was actually identifying one of the most important attributes of a good story…a strong sense of place. Writer’s Digest lists 12 elements of setting for writers to consider. To wit: 1. Locale. This relates to broad categories such as a country, state, region, city, and town, as well as to more specific locales, such as a neighborhood, street, house or school. Other locales can include shorelines, islands, farms, rural areas, etc. 2. Time of year. The time of year is richly evocative and influential in fiction. Time of year includes the seasons, but also encompasses holidays, such as Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Halloween. Significant dates can also be used, such as the anniversary of a death of a character or real person, or the anniversary of a battle, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor. 3. Time of day. Scenes need to play out during various times or periods during a day or night, such as dawn or dusk. Readers have clear associations with different periods of the day, making an easy way to create a visual orientation in a scene. 4. Elapsed time. The minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months a story encompasses must be somehow accounted for or the reader will feel confused and the story will suffer from a lack of authenticity. While scenes unfold moment by moment, there is also time to account for between scenes, when a flashback is inserted, and when a character travels a long distance. 5. Mood and atmosphere. Characters and events are influenced by weather, temperature, lighting, and other tangible factors, which in turn influence the emotional timbre, mood, and atmosphere of a scene. 6. Climate. Climate is linked to the geography and topography of a place, and, as in our real world, can influence events and people. Ocean currents, prevailing winds and air masses, latitude, altitude, mountains, land masses, and large bodies of water all influence climate. It’s especially important when you write about a real setting to understand climatic influences. Harsh climates can make for grim lives, while tropical climates can create more carefree lifestyles. 7. Geography. This refers to specific aspects of water, landforms, ecosystems, and topography in your setting. Geography also includes climate, soil, plants, trees, rocks and minerals, and soils. Geography can create obvious influences in a story like a mountain a character must climb, a swift-running river he must cross, or a boreal forest he must traverse to reach safety. No matter where a story is set, whether it’s a mountain village in the Swiss Alps or an opulent resort on the Florida coast, the natural world with all its geographic variations and influences must permeate the story. 8. Man-made geography. There are few corners of the planet that have not been influenced by the hand of humankind. It is in our man-made influences that our creativity and the destructiveness of civilization can be seen. Readers want visual evidence in a story world, and man-made geography is easily included to provide it. With this in mind, make certain that your stories contain proof of the many footprints that people have left in its setting. Use the influences of humankind on geography to lend authenticity to stories set in a real or famous locale. These landmarks include dams, bridges, ports, towns and cities, monuments, burial grounds, cemeteries, and famous buildings. Consider too the influences of mankind using the land, and the effects of mines, deforestation, agriculture, irrigation, vineyards, cattle grazing, and coffee plantations. 9. Eras of historical importance. Important events, wars, or historical periods linked to the plot and theme might include the Civil war, World War II, medieval times, the Bubonic Plague, the gold rush in the 1800s, or the era of slavery in the South. 10. Social/political/cultural environment. Cultural, political, and social influences can range widely and affect characters in many ways. The social era of a story often influences characters’ values, social and family roles, and sensibilities. 11. Population. Some places are densely populated, such as Hong Kong, while others are lonely places with only a few hardy souls. Your stories need a specific, yet varied population that accurately reflects the place. 12. Ancestral influences. In many regions of the United States, the ancestral influences of European countries such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland are prominent. The cities and bayous of Louisiana are populated with distinctive groups influenced by their Native American, French-Canadian, and African American forebears. Ancestral influences can be depicted in cuisine, dialogue, values, attitudes, and general outlook. Anybody writing science fiction has to spend some time thinking about details of setting, since much sf is set in times and places (and planets) other than this one. For example, my Farpool series is initially set largely on a marine (oceanic) world called Seome. Later, the stories are set on 22nd century Earth. I had to draw maps, invent a language, a whole new history and culture to tell these stories. And with my newest title coming out later this year, I even have hybrid descendants of the marine creatures of Seome plotting a way to get rid of the land dwellers and become the dominant intelligence on Earth. There are several ways of getting details of setting into your story. You can work the details into the story. In my novel, The Farpool, I have both human visitors Chase and Angie do a lot of traveling around Seome, which gives me the opportunity to describe the world and its many features, as seen through the eyes of human teenagers. You can also simply append a section to the end of the story, in effect an appendix. I also did this in The Farpool, calling it Angie’s Echopod Journal…sort of vocal diary recorded by one of the humans. This gives me the chance to direct the reader’s attention to matters that the human protagonists find important, or unique. I’ve used both techniques in this novel. The challenge of my second story in this series, The Farpool: Marauders of Seome, was that the setting changed, from Seome to Earth and from some time in the future to multiple timestreams on Earth, including World War II and the 22nd century. This was definitely a story-telling challenge. Using setting properly (in such a way that the nuts and bolts don’t show) can enhance any story, from atmospherics to provoking the proverbial sense of wonder, something that science fiction writers do all the time. The key is to keep the setting descriptions embedded in the context of the story and not to dump an encyclopedia of facts and maps on the reader. Some writers spend so much time on their setting and world-building that they feel it essential to drop all this into the story. Sometimes, the setting is the story, like Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Rendezvous with Rama. But most of the time, a good, believable setting is just one part of the greater story, like plot and character and it should be woven together into a seamless whole. Spend time on your setting details but don’t do it at the expense of telling a good story. The next post to The Word Shed comes on January 18, 2021. By the way, I just totaled up all the downloads for all my titles for calendar year 2020. The total was 4974 for the year. See you next time. Phil B.

Post #239 December 21 2020 “2020: My Writing Year in Review” This is my last post for the year 2020. What a year, huh? Most people I know can’t wait for this year to end. We’ve had a pandemic, a nasty election cycle, street protests, way too many political ads, business failures, too many deaths. Bring on 2021! In this post, I thought I would review what I have accomplished in my writing life this year. To start with, some basic statistics: I started and completed one science fiction novel…Monument. As of this writing, it’s had 141 downloads, so it’s done okay but it’s not blowing anybody’s socks off. I also started and completed a series of short novels (episodes) called Quantum Troopers Return, in which I reprised my pretty successful series Quantum Troopers from several years ago. As of today, this series has garnered 638 downloads. Respectable, I suppose. In one additional project, I started and completed a science fiction novelette called Proxima. This story has been circulating around the world of sf print magazines, so far without success. If I can’t place this story in a print market, I’ll archive it for a later collection of short works to be called Spiral Galaxies. For new titles, I have earned a total of 779 downloads. For all titles this year, my downloads have been 4953. I’m still hoping to hit 5000 by year end, but we’ll see. The new year of 2021 will see more projects completed and started. My current project is an alternate-history novel called The Eureka Gambit. The first draft is about two-thirds done and I expect to finish this draft sometime in February. I believe this work will be ready to upload this spring, perhaps as early as Easter, April 4. I am also deep into researching and planning the first of three additional titles in the Farpool series of stories. This first one will be called The Farpool: Plague. I should be able to start the first draft of this one in late spring or early summer, pending the results of cataract surgery on both eyes about the same time. With any luck, this title will be available at Smashwords.com and other fine ebook retailers before the end of 2021. Two other titles The Farpool: Diaspora and The Farpool: Destiny will follow in 2022 and 2023. So, that is what is coming up. New ideas continue to percolate in my feverish brain but I want to spend a few minutes talking about writing and the writing life during a pandemic. As I see it, there are several points that should be made. First, all writers face the problems of working in a medium in which isolation from others can be an issue. For myself, I am a member of a group of writers that meet every week (this year, mostly on Zoom) and this helps to deal with that isolation. Also, I’m happily married (30 years next April!), so that keeps me on my toes. It should go without saying that anyone who works regularly as a writer needs to attend to their social network and maintain social connections diligently. Do this if for no other reason than your friends can be a source not only of support but also good ideas. Maintaining energy and momentum are important to me as a writer. When I am working on a project, as I am now, the daily rhythm of planning and accomplishing 3-5 pages every day is important to me, and kind of comforting as well. To make this work, set yourself achievable goals and work every day to accomplish them. The daily satisfaction of achieving these goals can bring little bursts of satisfaction that help keep me motivated. That’s why I always print out what I’ve written every day. I enjoy watching the pages mount up; it’s a tangible reminder of what I’m doing. This is one way to motivate myself to keep going over the length of an entire novel, when motivation can easily flag halfway through. Along with doing whatever it takes to motivate yourself, celebrate all successes, no matter how small. It could be doing a week’s worth of writing and seeing an additional 20-25 pages added to your first draft pile. It could be completing a particularly difficult scene. It could even be something as simple as an especially well-turned phrase. Enjoy your words! Don’t be afraid to celebrate the scenes you’re creating. Just don’t get carried away with your awesome talent come editing time, when you may well have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. My point is this: celebrating yourself and what you have accomplished against the indifference of the Universe will go a long way toward keeping that motivation up. I think most athletes understand this viscerally. My final point is a physiological one: find some way to exercise regularly and stick to it. Walk the neighborhood. Swim 1500 meters every other day like I do. Do stretches and calisthenics, even do Pilates, God forbid. Do something physically active everyday to keep yourself up. Your body will thank you, and your doctor will thank you too. Moreover, your mind will have a chance to switch to a different mode while you’re working out and, in this mode, you’ll often find new ideas and ways of advancing your story bubbling up unbidden. It’s a great resource for inspiration and it’s good for you too! That’s the year 2020 in my writing life. Tell me how things went for you in this challenging time. The Word Shed will take a two-week hiatus for the upcoming holidays. The next post will come on January 11, 2021. Have a great holiday season and we’ll see you then. Phil B.

Post #238 December 14 2020 “Excerpt from “The Eureka Gambit” I started my newest novel The Eureka Gambit on 2 November this year. So far, as of this writing, I’m 105 pages into the first draft. It seems to be going well and I’m actually a little ahead of schedule. It’s possible that I may have to add some extra scenes to bulk up the first draft toward 200+ pages, as this is what readers would normally expect from a novel-length work. If you’re not familiar with the plot, here’s a brief synopsis: Major premise: Hitler approves a plot to abduct Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill as they arrive and assemble for the Teheran Conference in Nov 1943, to prevent an invasion of western Europe. The plot involves ransoming off the lives of the Big Three for a cessation of hostilities in Europe and recognition by the Allies of current borders and military gains by the Third Reich. Recognizing a new order in Europe. The operation succeeds and Roosevelt and Churchill are abducted. Stalin escapes the attempt with injuries. Roosevelt and Churchill are spirited away by low-flying aircraft to a remote site in Turkey, then taken by train through the Balkans to a mountain hideaway in the Austrian Alps. Now Hitler has a bargaining chip for dealing with the U.S. and U.K. He also knows about the proposed Operation Overlord and one of his conditions is that Overlord be scrapped. A rescue effort must be mounted. Vice President Henry A. Wallace must coordinate with King George VI of England to coordinate rescue operations. Below is an excerpt from the first draft: Surreptitiously, Otto Skorzeny checked his watch. 1450 hours. Ten minutes to H-hour. The embassy main building was in reality a large rectangle, with the conference hall along the same side as the service drive, giving onto a pleasing view of the lindens and a few decorative sculptures and flower beds. A large oval table dominated the room, topped in green baize, with miniature flag stands and water pitchers in the middle. The room was lined along three walls with folding chairs, for staff and aides to attend the meetings. At ten minutes to five in the afternoon, the sun dappled the oaken floor and the table, slanting in through tapestried windows in stark shafts of lights. The air inside was stuffy, thick with cigarette smoke and tension. Winston Churchill was talking, making a point by jabbing the air with a cigar. “General Morgan has been charged with the responsibility for carrying out preliminary planning for Overlord. His Majesty’s Government has already expressed a willingness to have the overall command of Overlord placed under a United States commander.” Stalin puffed on a pipe, but said nothing, while Churchill went on. “Also, Marshal Stalin, you should know that in the Mediterranean, the British have large air and naval forces under direct British command.” Looking over at Roosevelt, Churchill added that, “The President can name the Supreme Allied Commander for Overlord if he accepts our offer to serve under a United States commander.” Now, Stalin poked the air with the stem of his pipe. “I do not presume to take part in the selection of a commander for Overlord, but we would like to know who this man will be….” Fifty feet away, inside the kitchen stores room, Skorzeny, Eisler and the White detachment had already extracted their weapons from produce bags, checked action and crept to the door to the kitchen. On the other side of the cooking range, past several Filipino mess stewards and cooks stirring pots on a stove, Skorzeny caught the eye of Fritz Born and Jurgen Holtz, stashed away in another stores closet and a pantry. Skorzeny counted down the last minute. It seemed to last an eternity. Sechs…funf…vier…drei…zwei…eins…NOW! As one, the commandos of Operation Long Jump burst out of the stores rooms and pantries and immediately shot down two of the cooks, who slumped to the floor in awkward positions, blood pooling below their faces. A voice cried out. It was Born. “Grab those fire extinguishers! We can use them!” Inside the conference room, the debate continued, momentarily stalling at the crack of gunfire. Along a side wall, Mike Reilly came instantly alert and felt for the heft of his Colt. Churchill was droning on. “It’s essential that a commander for Overlord be appointed without delay, ideally within the next fortnight. I am concerned with the complexity of the problems before us. We must remember that the thoughts and wishes of nearly a hundred and forty million people rest with us and—” Churchill stopped in mid-sentence, for in that moment, Mike Reilly and half a dozen armed Soviet civilian aides had bounded out of the room in a dead sprint. A great commotion outside the conference hall had erupted. There were shouts, then gunfire. An explosion slammed opened the gilded doors and smoke boiled into the conference room. Chaos reigned even as the participants ducked for cover under a hail of bullets. Just emerging from the kitchen, Otto Skorzeny peered through dense white smoke. He’d just ordered one of the fire extinguishers rolled into the hall. A few well-placed rounds had burst the tank and white mist blanketed everything in sight. Skorzeny consulted a crude hand-drawn map on his wrist, scribbled by Max himself from decades-old plans from a Tehran construction firm. “This way!” he hissed. Hans Eisler and most of White detachment were right behind him. They crept low, along the walls. Shots rang out from inside the smoke and the commandos returned fire, their Sten guns and MP-40s spraying death into the mist. Heavy thuds hit the floor. They crept cautiously, made a slight dogleg left and Eisler nearly tripped over a fallen Russian body, still twitching and bleeding out from neck wounds. The conference hall was just ahead on the left. Shadows materialized deep in the mist and Eisler sprayed the figures again. His fire was immediately returned and a cry erupted from behind him; one of the commandos had been hit and gone down. “Against the wall!” Skorzeny ordered. He motioned the soldier carrying the other fire extinguisher forward. “Roll it in there and blast the thing!” The commando, a scharfuhrer named Decker, hustled up. After a few bursts from their machine guns, Decker tossed the tank inside and more rounds lit off the extinguisher, which hissed, squealed, gushed and spewed white foam and mist everywhere. “Grenades!” Skorzeny yelled. Two Blendkorper smoke grenades were tossed in after the extinguisher. Seconds later, they burst and blanketed the room with opaque gray and white smoke. “Come on!” With hand signals, he indicated Eisler should take three men and move right. Motioning behind him, he signaled Born and Holtz to follow him to the left. Cautiously, they crept inside the conference room. Shots rang out. Shouts, Russian, English and German cascaded about the room. Bodies hit the floor. Groans and shouts of pain erupted. Underneath the mahogany table, Winston Churchill found a prostrate Franklin Roosevelt, lying on his side in a fetal position, both shielded by advisors and guards. Mike Reilly’s face hovered nearby, wreathed in smoke. Churchill remarked over the shots, “By God, that’s German we’re hearing!” “Stay down, sir!” Reilly yelled. Then the lights went out and Churchill felt the body shielding him go slack. Whoever it was had been shot. Blood poured onto the marble floor and onto the Prime Minister’s hands and arms. As he started to extricate himself from the slick mess, Churchill froze. Strong hands were pulling him out from under the table. Behind him and over top of the table, thick and boiling throughout the room, smoke and flames crackled. So that’s the excerpt. What do you think? This scene dramatizes the actual kidnap attempt inside the Soviet embassy in late November 1943. I hope to provide more excerpts in the future. The next post to The Word Shed comes on December 21. After that post, The Word Shed will take a two-week hiatus for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. See you on December 21. Phil B.

Post #237 December 7, 2020 “Man, the Storyteller” Picture Og and Grog sitting around the campfire one evening after a dinner of mammoth meat and tree roots. Og is sharpening his spear points. Grog is skinning a hide. Og grunts and gestures at Grog: “If you had followed my orders, you wouldn’t have been injured by that mammoth, you stupid dolt.” After some loud arguing back and forth, and few threats, Slamdok intervenes and, using more gestures and grunts, recounts the events of the day that led to Grog’s injury and tonight’s dinner. Some modifications are made to the account and after awhile, after everyone is stuffed with enough mammoth meat and some fermented berries that Slamdok’s wife made, everybody agrees that this is what happened. The day’s hunt goes down in the annals of the tribe as “the way things happened.” It becomes a legend. Later, maybe a myth. Man is preeminently a storytelling animal. We don’t know if this is how stories began but we do know, from research, that stories have for generations served a profoundly important evolutionary purpose. I have posted about this before. Why does our brain love stories so much? In an article from the Greater Good Science Center (University of California, Berkeley) in December 2013, neurobiologist Paul Zak says this: The first part of the answer is that as social creatures who regularly affiliate with strangers, stories are an effective way to transmit important information and values from one individual or community to the next. Stories that are personal and emotionally compelling engage more of the brain, and thus are better remembered, than simply stating a set of facts. Think of this as the “car accident effect.” You don’t really want to see injured people, but you just have to sneak a peek as you drive by. Brain mechanisms engage saying there might be something valuable for you to learn, since car accidents are rarely seen by most of us but involve an activity we do daily. That is why you feel compelled to rubberneck. To understand how this works in the brain, we have intensively studied brain response that watching (compelling video) produces. We have used this to build a predictive model that explains why after watching the video, about half of viewers donate to a charity. We want to know why some people respond to a story while others do not, and how to create highly engaging stories. We discovered that there are two key aspects to an effective story. First, it must capture and hold our attention. The second thing an effective story does is “transport” us into the characters’ world.” Grabbing and maintaining attention and building empathy for your characters are thus two critically important jobs that any storyteller has to complete. There is now strong neural evidence to support this. Let’s look at how these could best be done to work with your reader’s brain. According to Zak, one good way of grabbing and maintaining the reader’s attention is to continually ratchet up the tension in the story. Use James Bond as an example. Imagine Bond fighting with a villain on top of a speeding train. We don’t know what’s going to happen…things fly past our eyes in a blur…our heart rates elevate…our palms become sweaty…will he survive that tunnel coming around the turn? Will Bond beat the bad guy? Zak’s lab has shown that such physiological responses are consistent and can be predicted depending on whether certain responses are provoked. Zak adds, “We attend to this story because we intuitively understand that we, too, may have to face difficult tasks and we need to learn how to develop our own deep resolve. In the brain, maintaining attention produces signs of arousal: the heart and breathing speed up, stress hormones are released, and our focus is high. Once a story has sustained our attention long enough, we may begin to emotionally resonate with story’s characters. Narratologists call this “transportation,” and you experience this when your palms sweat as James Bond trades blows with a villain on top of (that) speeding train. Transportation is an amazing neural feat. We watch a flickering image that we know is fictional, but evolutionarily old parts of our brain simulate the emotions we intuit James Bond must be feeling. And we begin to feel those emotions, too.” Building empathy for your characters is the second key to telling a good story that will make your readers sweat and pant. Zak describes the neural basis for building empathy… “Emotional simulation is the foundation for empathy and is particularly powerful for social creatures like humans because it allows us to rapidly forecast if people around us are angry or kind, dangerous or safe, friend or foe. Such a neural mechanism keeps us safe but also allows us to rapidly form relationships with a wider set of members of our species than any other animal does. The ability to quickly form relationships allows humans to engage in the kinds of large-scale cooperation that builds massive bridges and sends humans into space. By knowing someone’s story—where they came from, what they do, and who you might know in common—relationships with strangers are formed. We have identified oxytocin as the neurochemical responsible for empathy and narrative transportation. My lab pioneered the behavioral study of oxytocin and has proven that when the brain synthesizes oxytocin, people are more trustworthy, generous, charitable, and compassionate. I have dubbed oxytocin the “moral molecule,” and others call it the love hormone. What we know is that oxytocin makes us more sensitive to social cues around us. In many situations, social cues motivate us to engage to help others, particularly if the other person seems to need our help. When people watch (a story) in the lab—and they both maintain attention to the story and release oxytocin—nearly all of these individuals donate a portion of their earnings from the experiment. They do this even though they don’t have to. This is surprising since this payment is to compensate them for an hour of their time and two needle sticks in their arms to obtain blood from which we measure chemical changes that come from their brains.” Empathy and attention…two critical aspects that every story needs to have, even non-fictional ones. We’re neuro-biologically wired to love stories and we particularly love those stories that command our attention and involve characters we can empathize with. Not exactly news to discerning writers and readers but it’s nice to know that current research in Science can support this age-old dictum of storytelling. The next post to the Word Shed will come on December 14, 2020. And watch out for that tunnel up ahead! See you then. Phil B.