Story Science: A Prime Path to Learning

by Kendall Haven, September 2019

Why Story?

Sure, your students love stories. They listen to stories. They remember stories. But have you ever wondered why? Why do we consistently lavish time, attention, and mental energy into visualizing and remembering stories? Why do stories make sense to us? Why (and how) do we find meaning in stories?

More precisely, what is it about the elements that form the structure of "story" that so uniquely affect and engage the human mind?

Answers to these questions—so central to the process of learning—come from the emerging field of neural story science. In this article, I want to summarize what we have found as we wire up audiences to watch their brains on story. More importantly, I want to suggest ways this information can accelerate your library teaching.

Your Brain on Story: Let's Meet Your Neural Story Net

I have been deeply involved in this research for several decades now and have put together two books (Story Proof and Story Smart) on the subject. Those five hundred pages provide the details of what we have learned. I refer you to them for a more comprehensive presentation—and the full list of the sources I used to build my case. (Those two books include over 1,300 references.)

Here, in true bullet form, are our key findings. Then I want to suggest what those findings can mean to you and your teaching.

1. Human brains have been evolutionarily hardwired to make sense, to understand, and to create meaning in specific story form. We can see the neural net that performs this function on EEG scans. It's called the Neural Story Net (NSN). It's not that your students can think in story terms through their NSN; it's that they can't not do it.
2. The NSN is part of the brain's initial subconscious processing. In our recent lab experiments (Haven 2014) we were able to show that the NSN's neural connections physically exist and create a fixed network of brain sub-regions that work together to process incoming signals (see Haven 2008). This network is the specific part of the subconscious brain that undertakes initial processing of incoming signals—similar to those sub-regions that convert the dot pattern streaming down the optic nerve back into lines, letters, and words before the information is passed to the conscious mind. The key finding is that the NSN operates automatically and subconsciously.
3. One of the functions of the NSN is to make sense of incoming information (the Make Sense Mandate). In experiments we were able to show that the job of initially making sense of all incoming information and experience is performed by the NSN—in story form—before that information is passed to the conscious mind.
4. The NSN lies between your sensory organs (eyes and ears) and your conscious mind. Nothing reaches your conscious mind and memory without first being massaged into story form by your NSN. This happens automatically and subconsciously.
5. You automatically turn all incoming narrative and experiential information into story form before it reaches your conscious mind.

As Jonathan Gottschall (2012) said, "Humans: the great ape with the storytelling mind." We are truly Homo narratus, story animals.

A quick demonstration. Here is the opening sentence of a story:

Once, a very young girl named Mary desperately wanted some ice cream.

How will that story end? When we finally find out if Mary gets her ice cream. Right? You think that not because that's the way the world works but because your NSN mandates that a story must end when the main characters resolve their primary goal, one way or the other. Your NSN forced you to structure the story that way. That's your Neural Story Net in action.

The Eight Essential Elements on Parade

During EEG lab experiments in 2012–2014, I was able to isolate and identify the Eight Essential Elements that define the fundamental architecture of the story structure the brain is hardwired to use to create story from incoming information (Haven 2014). These are the eight bits of information that the NSN uses to create the structure of its stories.

Element #1: Characters. All stories are about characters. Period. Stories are not about what happens, but about the characters to whom that stuff happens. Audiences won't care about events and information until they care about the characters involved in those events.

Element #2: Character Traits. Question: What makes a character interesting? (Take "interesting" literally: being of interest.) Readers must be interested enough to hold and remember story characters.

The answer is character traits. Character traits are really just details about characters including any descriptive information that differentiates this character from those around them.

Element #3: Goal. A goal is defined as what a character needs or wants to do or get in a story. It is not what they actually do. It is what they are after, what drives them.

Once, a very young girl named Mary desperately wanted some ice cream.

I gave you a character, (Mary) one trait (young) and a goal (get ice cream). The goal tells you what the story is about and how the story must end (resolution of the goal). It also creates significance for a story's plot and action. Every action is given meaning based on its impact on a character's ability to achieve goal.

That is the incredible story power of a goal.

Element #4. Motive. A story motive is the information that makes a goal important to a character. Motives are the answer to the question, "Why do they need that?" Motives give a character compelling reasons to struggle, to act.

Back to Mary. Why did she want that ice cream? Consider two different motives:

1. She was hungry.
2. Her beloved, dying grandmother whispered, "Child, just once more before I die—if you love me—get me some ice cream."

Notice how different motives change how you feel about the story and the character? Motives are one of the most powerful (and underrated) of the essential elements.

Element #5: Conflicts and Problems. Let's return to Mary.

Once, a very young girl named Mary desperately wanted some ice cream. So she went into the kitchen and got some. The end.

That intuitively feels wrong. Again, this is your NSN in operation. The NSN needs to understand what blocks character from a goal. Anything that (even temporarily) blocks a character is a problem.

A conflict is a subset of problem that places one character in direct opposition to some other entity in the story. The hardwiring of your NSN requires that obstacles exist to block the path to goal resolution.

No problems; no conflicts: no story.

Element #6: Risk and Danger. Question: what creates excitement in a story? It turns out it is not problems that perform this magic trick.

Back to Mary:

Once, a very young girl named Mary desperately wanted some ice cream. But:

1. A butterfly sat on the counter and said, "You can't have any."

2. The butterfly whistled to summon its hoard of enraged killer bees. "Get her!" screamed the butterfly.

Notice that a conflict (the butterfly), itself, is boring unless it creates risk and danger for our character. Risk is the probability of failure; the likelihood that something will go wrong. Danger is the consequences of failure; what happens if something does go wrong.

Risk and danger are the drivers of excitement, tension, and drama.

Element #7. Struggles. Finally, we consider the plot. Struggles are the sequential actions a character takes, facing risk and danger, to overcome conflicts and problems, to reach a goal that is important to them. Human NSN's expect characters to struggle.

For example:

Baby Duck woke up. "Quack, quack. Where's my mother? I need to find my mother!" Baby Duck turned around. "Oh, there you are. Hi Mom." The end.

We need that duck to struggle, to exert real effort, before we appreciate either the character or the story. The NSN demands that characters struggle in order for the story to make sense and to acquire meaning.

Element #8: Details. Details create mental images. Every image you have ever "seen" in your mind and memory when you heard or read a story came from details: character details, sensory details, scenic details, and event (action) details.

Details are like verbal spotlights. The spots where an author packs in sensory details are the spots you will visualize and remember.

Applying Story Science to Your Library Teaching.

These elements exist in every effective story, yet we rarely dissect stories and identify each element as it is presented. Point them out to students as you share stories. Discuss them. Assign students to identify these various elements as they read. It's simple and amazingly powerful for students.

Use games, activities, and exercises that help cement the individual elements into students' conscious minds. My two Writing Workout books have a couple dozen games apiece that are fun, powerfully teach these elements, and that I have used many times. Get It Write (2004) has a separate section of games/activities for each of the elements.

The Eight Essential Elements emerge from neural science, but are practical and powerful tools for improving student comprehension, writing skills, and verbal language skills. Best of all, they're already there—in every story in every book on your library shelves—just waiting for you to bring them to the conscious minds and attention of your students.

Works Cited

Gottschall, Jonathan. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Houghton Mifflin, 2012.

Haven, Kendall. Get It Write! Creating Lifelong Writers from Expository to Narrative. Libraries Unlimited, 2004.

Haven, Kendall. Story Proof: The Science behind the Startling Power of Story. Libraries Unlimited, 2008.

Haven, Kendall. Story Smart: Using the Science of Story to Persuade, Influence, Inspire, and Teach. Libraries Unlimited, 2014.

Haven, Kendall. Writing Workouts to Develop Common Core Writing Skills: Step-by-Step Exercises, Activities, and Tips for Student Success, Grades 2–6. Libraries Unlimited, 2015.

Haven, Kendall. Writing Workouts to Develop Common Core Writing Skills: Step-by-Step Exercises, Activities, and Tips for Student Success, Grades 7–12. Libraries Unlimited, 2015.