STORY PROOF

STORY PROOF
The Science Behind the Startling
Power of Story

KENDALL HAVEN
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haven, Kendall F.
Story proof : the science behind the startling power of story / Kendall Haven.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59158-546-6 (alk. paper)
1. Storytelling. 2. Brain—Growth. 3. Cognition in children. I. Title.
LB1042.H386 2007
372.670 7—dc22 2007017728

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright 
C 2007 by Kendall Haven

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be

reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007017728

ISBN-13: 978-1-59158-546-6

First published in 2007

Libraries Unlimited, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

A Member of the Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.lu.com

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 CONTENTS

Introduction: It Was a Dark and Stormy Night vii

PART 1. STORY SMARTS 1

Chapter 1. Opening Arguments: More Than You Imagined 3
The Power of Stories 7
The Inside Story 9
Chapter 2. So, What Is a Story? 11
The Blanket Myth 13
The Binary Association Myth 15
The Childhood Myth 16
The Dictionary’s Turn: The Final Myth 17
The Story Step: What It Means to Us 19
Chapter 3. Starting at the Top: A Nod to the Noodle 21
What’s in This Gray Goo? 21
Watching You Think 22
A Few Relevant Parts of the Brain 23
Brain Development 24
Cells That Fire Together Wire Together 26
What It Means for Us 27
Chapter 4. Noggin Know-How: The Mind Is What the Brain Does 29
Owner’s Manual for the Human Mind: The Concepts That Govern
the Mind’s Story Map 32
The Magnificent Seven in Action 43
What It Means for Us 44
Chapter 5. Mind Mechanics 45
Eleven Mental Tools 45
Why Do We Do It? What It Means for Us 64
vi CONTENTS

Chapter 6. Thanks for the Memories 67

Memory Mechanics: Making Memories 67
Remember the Alamo!: What You Remember 68
Remember Me Fondly: How You Remember 70
What It Means for Us 72
Chapter 7. That Reminds Me of a Story: A Better Definition 75
Do Researchers Agree? 76
What Is a Story? 79
What It Means for Us 80

PART 2. STORY PROOF 81

Chapter 8. A Peek at the Anecdotes 83
Six Examples of Anecdotal Evidence 83
What It Means for Us 86
The Value of Anecdotes 87
Chapter 9. We’ve Reached the Research Results 89
Using Stories Improves Comprehension 90
Story Structure Improves Logical Thinking and General
(Cross-Curriculum) Learning 98
Using Story and Story Structure Enhances Meaning 104
Stories Create Motivation and Enthusiasm for Learning 108
Stories Create Involvement and a Sense of Community 109
Story Structure Improves Literacy and Language Mastery 113
Story Structure Improves Writing Success 115
Story Structure Enhances Memory 118
A Final Summation 122
Chapter 10. The Proof Is in the Pudding: Putting Stories to Work for You 123
General Advice 124
Advice for Educators 125
Advice for Leaders 126
Advice for Outreach Communicators 127
Fiction versus Nonfiction: A Final Comfort and Warning 128

Bibliography 129
Index 149
 INTRODUCTION: IT WAS A
DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

I once heard it said that life is like chess and that stories are like books of
famous chess games that serious players study so that they will be prepared if
they ever find themselves in similar straits. I thought it a clever and well-turned
phrase—stories form a roadmap for life—until I began the research for this
book. Then the profound truth of it struck me full force.
Results from a dozen prominent cognitive scientists and developmental psychol-
ogists have confirmed that human minds do rely on stories and on story architec-
ture as the primary roadmap for understanding, making sense of, remembering,
and planning our lives—as well as the countless experiences and narratives we
encounter along the way. Lives are like stories because we think in story terms,
make sense out of experiences in story terms, and plan our lives in story terms.
In our enlightened, literate, scientific, rational, advanced world, it is still story
structure that lies at the core of human mental functioning. In this age of binary
wizardry, ‘‘That reminds me of a story . . .’’ or ‘‘Once, back when the world was
young . . .’’ are still the royal road to meaning and comprehension. In this age of
cell phones, Blackberries, and airport cards, human minds are still hardwired to
think and perceive through stories.
Everyone loves a good story. An enthusiastic teller begins, ‘‘Once, long ago,
deep in a forest that clung to the topmost crags of a distant mountain . . . ’’ and
everyone within hearing sheds their own world and concerns to sink deliciously
into the world of the story. Certainly, it has always happened to me and to those
in audiences when I perform. I’ve always taken it for granted. That’s just the
way it is. Until I began to research this book and I had to consciously ponder
the question: why? Why are humans drawn to and entranced by a good story?
What’s the appeal? Certainly not all narratives possess that appeal, that allure.
Only a few enter our memories and linger there for years if not for decades.
Why is that? Just luck? I will argue that no, it is not.
In this book I want to lay out the evidence and build my case to prove that
stories are more effective and powerful than any other narrative structure. Said
viii INTRODUCTION

more specifically, I want to prove that stories are more efficient and effective
structural vehicles when used to motivate, or to teach and communicate factual,
conceptual, and tacit information (attitudes, beliefs, values, and cultural expecta-
tions). Stories belong as the bedrock of management, leadership, education, out-
reach, and general communication efforts.
But if I am to accomplish that, we must first agree on what several terms
actually mean: narrative and story. We bandy both terms around quite loosely.
Many allow them to slop back and forth interchangeably. Research on the value
of stories will have minimal meaning until we have settled on specific defini-
tions for what is and isn’t story; what is and isn’t narrative. If these key terms
don’t mean something specific, they don’t mean anything useful at all.
Yet we tend not to devote much thought to story. Many, hearing me talk
about this book, have responded, ‘‘Oh, you’re going to write a book about story-
telling.’’ No. Storytelling (orally telling a story to a live audience) is one—but
only one—means of communicating a story. Neither is this a book on the value
of story reading. That is another means of communicating a story. This is a book
about the thing, itself: about story. Once you understand and master stories,
many books can show you how stories may be used.
On a cab ride from JFK Airport into New York City a cabbie asked me what I
did. When I said that I tell stories, he said that he told stories, too. I asked if he
told in a local storytelling group. He said that he told stories while he drove. I
asked, ‘‘To your customers?’’ He said, no, his driving was his story.
The way he drove was—in his mind—a story, his storytelling. Is that what
you mean when you say, ‘‘Tell me a story’’? Orchestra conductors are often
described as storytellers by the way they conduct. Does a musical composer or a
conductor ‘‘tell stories’’ when they write music or lead an orchestra? Does an
artistic painter tell stories?
What is a story? What is not? The act of gathering and assessing evidence to
answer those questions will sharpen your understanding of this key word and,
thus, unlock much of its amazing power to your control. I want to show you
that the word—story—really has a specific meaning that is defined by specific
informational elements and that this structure produces a radically different
effect inside the human mind than do other narrative structures.
So, I must first prove that the power and effectiveness of stories comes from
these specific informational elements and show that they correspond to how the
mind processes narrative information. If so, these elements will define what we
really mean when we say ‘‘story.’’ For this I’ll rely heavily on research from the
cognitive sciences, neurological science, developmental psychology, and neural
net modeling. We will spend four chapters exploring the inner mysteries of
human minds and the wondrous ways in which they process arriving narrative
and experiential information.
This effort will expose the myths and misconception, the ambiguities and
confusion that abound surrounding the idea of story. It will also peel back the
layers of fog to expose the heart and structural framework of successful stories.
This book and its dual set of proofs (first, what a story really is, and second, a
story’s value for a variety of applications) will benefit anyone who needs to
effectively communicate, needs to find ways to more effectively motivate and to
create a sense of belonging and of community, or who seeks more effective and
efficient ways to teach factual, conceptual, and tacit information. That should
cover most of us. We all want to convince, to communicate, to teach, to get
 INTRODUCTION ix

others to see and to share our own vision and images, to effectively reach
another human with our words. Stories are a universal expressway to accom-
plish each of these tasks.
Teachers, sales people, managers, lawyers, clergy, organizational leaders,
writers, scientists . . . the list of those who can more effectively do what they do
through story structure is virtually endless. Stories hold human attention. Stories
are understood. Stories ‘‘make sense’’ in a way other narratives do not—even
stories about the longings of a talking tree stump or about a little girl who
decides to commit felony breaking and entering to swipe a bowl of porridge
(oatmeal) from the house of the bear family. Stories get remembered and are
easily recalled.
This goes for fiction and nonfiction stories alike. It applies to the overall story
and to any key information contained within the story. This book will help those
to whom communication is important.
The good news is that story—as a specific narrative structure—is not difficult
to learn, master, or apply. Just the opposite. Most struggle to write effective nar-
ratives and struggle to deliver effective presentations. Understanding and using
story architecture makes these jobs easier and more effective.
It turns out that your mind was evolutionarily hardwired long before birth to
think in specific story terms. You know now, and have always known, this
structure. Your mind uses it every waking hour. However, your internal neural
story maps are not housed in the conscious mind. Rather they reside below that
level so that they can be automatically, subconsciously applied to incoming
information. It is well worth spending some time examining story structure in
order to dredge that structure up into your conscious thinking.

USING THIS BOOK

I will weave three kinds of information into the tapestry of my proof in this
book: solid research results (both qualitative and quantitative), anecdotal exam-
ples to breathe life and clarity into research results, and as many demonstra-
tions as I could stuff in to make the concepts real and personal (and fun) for
you. For many—me included—hearing about something isn’t enough. I need to
see it and to do it in order to truly believe. The demonstrations, I think, are
vital to helping you see and understand the power that lies in story form.
Through this triad of related streams of information—research, experience, and
demonstration—I hope you develop a clear understanding of why stories are
so uniquely powerful and effective.
Because I will report on a great many research studies in this book, the temp-
tation has existed to treat it as a dissertation. I have tried to resist that tempta-
tion. Stories are supposed to be enlivening as well as enlightening, energizing as
well as thought provoking. I have tried to maintain that outlook while writing
this book about stories. In addition to providing information about stories and
the evidence to support their expanded use, I have included sections to serve as
guides to the successful application of story concepts.
A few technical notes: This book contains summary references to a vast array
of supporting research. I will cite my sources in the text using (author year)
notations that link to the full citations in the bibliography.
Several roles are involved in the use of stories. The story creator is either a
storywriter or a storyteller. The receiver of the story is either a listener or a
x INTRODUCTION

reader. It is far too awkward to repeatedly say ‘‘writer/teller’’ or ‘‘reader/

listener.’’ However, ‘‘creator’’ sounds too lofty and ‘‘receiver’’ sounds too much
like stereo equipment. Thus, I often use ‘‘writer’’ and ‘‘reader’’ for the sake of
simplicity and narrative flow. When you read these terms, reinsert the teller or
listener, knowing that I intended them as well, but didn’t want to subject either
of us to the tedium of including them in the sentence.

THANKS
I owe a great many deepest thanks to those who have supported the develop-
ment of this book. The combined library staffs of the Sonoma County Public
Library, Santa Rosa Junior College, and Sonoma State University did a won-
drous job of and yeoman’s work in locating and delivering the mountains of
references I required.
Sharon Coatney at Libraries Unlimited provided valuable guidance in the
early shaping and formation of this book. David Herring at NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center graciously supported my early efforts, talked through early
concepts with me, and provided the motive and incentive to undertake the
project. Roni Berg, the love of my life and litmus test of my writing, guided,
shaped, and organized this text into a flowing, comprehensible, and pleasing
whole. Her wisdom and insights are as evident on each page as are my own
thoughts and ideas.
Finally, I owe my deepest thanks and appreciation to the team of reviewers
who agreed to read and critique early drafts of this work. They have saved me
from numerous misstatements and embarrassing errors. So, great thanks and
deepest bows of appreciation to Dr. Parker Page, Dr. Kevin Feldman, Gay
Ducey, Dr. Craig Rooney, Dr. Flora Joy, Steven Kardoleff, Judge George Hernan-
dez, Dr. Nelson Kellogg, and Dr. Denny Bozman-Moss.
Finally, I want to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to ponder these
important ideas and to explore the potential and wonder of the simple things
we call stories. It will be well worth your while.
 PART 1

STORY SMARTS
 CHAPTER 1

OPENING ARGUMENTS: MORE

THAN YOU IMAGINED

I began my research for this book in September 2005, in response to a challenge.

I had presented several workshops at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
advocating the use of story as a more effective medium for science outreach
writing. One of those present, who has since become a good friend, lobbied to
restructure much of NASA Earth Science’s outreach writing into story form. He
was stopped by someone at the directorate level in NASA headquarters who
said that wasn’t how science writers write. ‘‘I know it isn’t,’’ said my friend.
‘‘Story writing is better!’’
The director replied, ‘‘Prove it.’’ My friend turned back to me and repeated,
‘‘Prove it.’’ As we talked, it became clear that a few examples of effective story
use would not ‘‘prove it’’ to a skeptical world. It also became clear that I would
have to provide a clear definition of story—say what that word means and
doesn’t mean. We’ll begin that job in Chapter 2.
I started this information search expecting to desperately hunt for scraps of
evidence to support my case. I expected to be forced to rely on opinion and
anecdote. However, I have been overwhelmed by the mountain of available,
pertinent, qualitative and quantitative, research-based studies. My proof has
been substantiated a dozen times over by research from a half-dozen fields.
I readily admit that I am not an unbiased researcher. I came into this project
with twenty-five years of full-time work as a storyteller and author. I have seen,
on countless occasions, the positive power, benefit, and effect that stories have
on audiences. Listeners and readers are entranced for the duration of a ‘‘good’’
story. They long remember stories.
Consider:
¥ Humans have told, used, and relied on stories for over 100,000 years. Writ-
ten communication began only 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. Modern expository
forms of argument, persuasion, and logic developed well after that. Most
Western cultures began, en masse, to read and write only a few hundred
years ago. Before that, oral stories were the dominant form through which
4 STORY SMARTS

history, news, values, cultural heritage, and attitudes were passed from
person to person and from generation to generation. Current research indi-
cates that stories even predate language (see Chapter 3). In the beginning
there were stories. Then came language to express story concepts. Then
came written language with its grammar and syntax. Only much later did
other narrative and expository forms emerge. Evolutionary biologists con-
firm that 100,000 years of reliance on stories have evolutionarily hardwired
a predisposition into human brains to think in story terms. We are pro-
grammed to prefer stories and to think in story structures.
¥ Every culture in the history of this planet has created stories: myths, fables,
legends, folk tales. Not all have developed codified laws. Not all have cre-
ated logical argument. Not all have created written language and exposi-
tion. All developed and used stories.
¥ Research by cognitive scientists has shown that ‘‘experiences not framed
into story form suffer loss in memory’’ (Mandler 1984, and Mandler and
Johnson 1977). We remember stories (and information in stories) better and
longer than the same information presented in any other narrative form.
¥ Canadian researchers found a strong positive correlation between early
storytelling activity and later math abilities. They suggested that time spent
on stories (telling, reading, and listening to stories) during preschool years
improves math skill upon entering school (O’Neill, Pearce, and Pick 2004).
That says that learning story structure develops logical and analytical think-
ing as well as language literacy!
¥ A senior official at the World Bank, Steven Denning, found that ‘‘time after
time, when faced with the task of persuading a group of managers or front-
line staff in a large organization to get enthusiastic about a major change,
storytelling was the only thing that worked’’ (Denning 2001).
¥ In a small, five-school test I personally conducted, one hour of instruction
on story structure raised writing assessment scores 0.86 (over 25 percent) on
state standardized writing assessments even though the assessment writing
assignment was to write a persuasive essay, not a story.
¥ In researching this book, I have reviewed over 350 research studies from fif-
teen separate fields of science. Incredibly, every one of those studies, as
well as every other study they cite—every one—agrees that stories are an
effective and efficient vehicle for teaching, for motivating, and for the gen-
eral communication of factual information, concepts, and tacit information.
Not one doubted or questioned the effectiveness of stories!
¥ Famed developmental psychologist, Jerome Bruner (2003) pointed out that
‘‘stories are surely not innocent: they always have a message.’’ He or she
who understands the internal structure of story controls the message. As
Lori Silverman (2006) says in her book introduction, ‘‘Those who learn . . .
and apply its [story’s] principles are those most likely to succeed.’’
It would seem that stories and their supporting evidence are universal. It’s an
intrinsically human thing to do. We rely on stories like we rely on air, water,
sleep, and food. Proving the value of story should feel like an exercise in prov-
ing the obvious—something everyone already knows.
However, the studies that will form the core of my proof have had little impact
to date, though most have been available for five years or more. Stories struggle
to infiltrate into the normal flow of education, of organization and corporate
 OPENING ARGUMENTS: MORE THAN YOU IMAGINED 5

management, and of governmental agency outreach. More and more institutions

seem to turn away from stories just as more research from more fields confirms
in more ways and at more levels story’s effectiveness and efficiency.
In state after state, departments of education and school districts push second
graders into expository writing to inform and writing to persuade instead of let-
ting them focus on learning story structure and story writing. The Language
Arts frameworks in many states consider story reading and story telling to be
fluff—pleasant and enjoyable curriculum extras, carrots to dangle over students
as a treat during free reading times for completing other, more serious activity.
(See Maria 1998 for a discussion of this phenomenon.)
The outreach programs of many governmental agencies prefer to use rigorous
academic and technical articles instead of stories as a way to share their research
and to—literally—tell their stories to the public. Many then find that their
messages are lost, unappreciated, and unheard in the clutter of assumptions,
caveats, data, and the distant third-person writing academic articles provide.
Many organization and corporate leaders shy away from leading through stories
fearing that they will not be taken seriously.
It seems that a litany of research results will not be sufficient on its own to
prove the value and power of story. What must accompany such proof was
well-defined by a question posed during my NASA conversation: ‘‘What exactly
are you going to prove?’’
My initial answer was that I would prove that stories are a better (more effec-
tive and efficient) way to teach and to communicate. By ‘‘communicate’’ I mean
that stories more readily garner and hold reader’s/listener’s attention. They
more readily create meaning and understanding in a reader’s/listener’s mind.
Stories are remembered better and are more accurately recalled from memory.
My friend asked, ‘‘Better than what?’’
‘‘Better than other narrative forms.’’
‘‘What other narrative forms? A poem? A play?’’
And this opens the biggest question of all: What does the word story really
mean? What is a story and what isn’t? Research that establishes the value of
story will have little value until we agree on what the word story means and
doesn’t mean.
Let’s test your story IQ. Which of the following do you think involve a story?

¥ Uncle Fred perches on a kitchen chair doing his impersonation of the presi-
dent while he makes up silly policy initiatives.
¥ Your grandmother quietly tells you about eight generations’ worth of fam-
ily history as she knits.
¥ You tell your spouse about your day.
¥ You tell a joke.
¥ You read an article in Time or Discover magazine.
¥ You read a stock report or a computer program instruction book.
¥ You read an essay your neighbor wants to submit to the Letters-to-the-
Editor section of the local paper.
¥ You read a recipe for venison stew.
¥ You read a short story in a collection of classic literature.

Are they all examples of stories? Which are and which aren’t? Why? Intui-
tively we know there are significant differences between some of these
6 STORY SMARTS

examples. But are there enough similarities for them all to be called stories? I
will argue that no, there are not. But that answer leads to a far greater question:
what is (and what is not) a story?
Surely, a conversationally delivered chronology of my accomplishments dur-
ing a day’s work won’t sway or influence anyone as Denning’s stories do. It
wouldn’t develop logical thinking and math skills as stories did in the Cana-
dian study. Analyzing my ho-hum daily narrative surely wouldn’t raise
student writing scores. Can my narrative be a story as much as those men-
tioned earlier?
One way to look at it would be to say that there exists more than one kind of
story. However, this approach always leads to confusion and muddies—rather
than clarifies—the meaning of the word, story.
Another way is to admit that not all things written in narrative form are sto-
ries. Some are. Some aren’t.
I strongly prefer this second view. There exist a number of specific narrative
forms in the ‘‘non-story’’ category that, unfortunately, don’t have an agreed-
upon moniker in the English language. But they still exist as ‘‘non-stories.’’ If
we eliminate everything in the non-story category, we should be able to locate
the source of the power and effectiveness of stories and to then define exactly
what a story really is.
Thus, I have divided the book into two parts.
Part 1 explores how human brains and minds process narrative information
and identifies the specific informational elements that trigger the creation of
meaning, that enhance memory, and that form the central structure of stories.
Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Franklin (1986) said, ‘‘He who would comprehend sto-
ries, no less than he who would understand universes or temples, must first
grasp the nature of their structure and component parts.’’ In describing that na-
ture, he said, ‘‘Just as all uniquely individual human beings have brains, hearts,
stomachs, and pancreases, all stories have a common set of attributes that are
arranged in a certain, specific way.’’
The power and effectiveness of stories come from these specific informational
elements that form the core architecture of stories and match the informational
demands of human neural story maps. In this narrower view of the word,
stories are more effective because it is easier for the mind to extract and under-
stand this essential information from something structured in story form.
Part 2 lays out hundreds of rigorous, research-based studies to prove the
value of stories for the following key uses of story:

¥ Is there a clear link between narrative comprehension and story? Yes.

Reading comprehension is directly linked to understanding story structure.
Reading enjoyment varies directly with comprehension.
¥ Is there a clear link between writing and story? Absolutely. Mastering the
architectural elements of story arms writers with specific and powerful
strategies for creating the content of consistently effective writing.
¥ Is there a clear link between story and logical and critical thinking? Defi-
nitely yes. Research shows that mastering story structure is an essential
precursor to successful mastery of logical understanding.
¥ Is there a clear link between story and motivation? Most emphatically
yes. The elements that define story structure create context and relevance.
Those elements create motivation in the reader or listener to pay attention,
 OPENING ARGUMENTS: MORE THAN YOU IMAGINED 7

process, absorb, and remember the incoming information. Research also

shows that stories create a sense of belonging and identification.
¥ Is there a clear link between story and memory (learning)? Without ques-
tion, yes! The elements that define story structure create context and rele-
vance. Research clearly shows that memory and recall are highly
dependent on the existence of these two key measures. Information in story
form (and information contained within stories) is easier to remember and
to recall. Information not presented in story form suffers degradation and
loss in memory and during recall.
¥ Is there a clear link between mastering language and story? Again, yes.
Research now supports the contention that story predates human language.
Language was created to express stories. Stories and language are insepara-
bly intertwined. Understanding story helps language learners understand
the purpose and organization of language as well as the specific vocabulary
and grammar presented in stories.
In researching this book, I have read over 100,000 pages of research from fif-
teen fields that, in some way, touch on how the human mind receives, pro-
cesses, and responds to stories—neural biology, cognitive science, developmental
psychology, clinical psychology, neural linguistics, education, information
theory, knowledge management, organization theory, anthropology, narratol-
ogy, neural net modeling, medical science, narrative therapy, and, of course,
storytelling and writing. This included over 350 books and qualitative and quan-
titative studies as well as over 70 articles that have reviewed and evaluated
other studies including analysis of over 1,500 studies and descriptive articles.
I have collected the personal accounts of over 1,300 practitioners (mostly
teachers) who have made extensive use of stories in their work. I have added
my own informal research on how variations in story structure affect listener
and reader understanding and appreciation that I have conducted over two de-
cades of storytelling performances for several million and writing workshops
for over 200,000 students and 40,000 teachers.
The mind-boggling and extraordinary truth is that each and every one of these
thousands of independent sources agrees with the premise that stories work, that
they are effective and efficient. I could not find one shred of evidence to suggest
that stories aren’t effective vehicles to teach, to inspire, to inform, and to educate.
Think about that for a moment. Most scientific literature is a series of contra-
dictory arguments and studies debating an issue back and forth until some com-
mon resolve, some preponderance of evidence, is reached. It took well over a
decade for the scientific community to agree that global warming is actually
happening. There is still—seventy-five years after its discovery—a heated argu-
ment over whether Pluto is a planet. Strongly worded positions supported by
hard data are published on both sides. Not so with story. All researchers agree.

THE POWER OF STORIES

I switched from a career in science (oceanography) to storytelling because I
used to make up stories for one nephew in the park. We’d flop into the sandbox
and I would improvise whatever popped into my head. And I consistently drew
crowds to listen to those made-up stories. I often glanced up to find a ring of
fifty or more people leaning in to hear.
8 STORY SMARTS

One day it hit me. If I sat in that sandbox and read any of the reports I was
paid good money by the Department of Energy to produce, not one of these peo-
ple would slow down to listen. It wasn’t me or my voice that held them. It was
the story. I realized that stories exuded a magnetic attraction that other narrative
forms do not.
Stories have started feuds that have lasted for generations. Stories have
started wars, but they have also forged alliances. They have changed societal
and cultural attitudes, beliefs, and values, as well as swayed public opinion. Sto-
ries have redefined and refocused the political and social debate. They have
changed and continue to change the world—to define our world. Stories can be
amazingly powerful—frighteningly powerful.
We take stories for granted. We use them—in fact, mentally depend on them—
but rarely pause to pay any attention to this incredible narrative structure we so
casually wield. We don’t give stories their due. As comedian Rodney Danger-
field would put it, ‘‘Stories don’t get no respect.’’ But if we take a moment to
honor—and even to study—this amazing narrative form, we will find that it
rewards us with virtually unlimited communications control and power.
Last fall I led a one-day Girl Scout storytelling workshop. Fifteen fidgety,
unruly high-school girls and I were shut up in a classroom for twelve hours on
a glorious fall Saturday. They were borderline unmanageable—except when
someone was telling a story—me or one of them. It didn’t matter who the teller
was. It didn’t happen when someone talked. Only when someone broke into
what everyone else recognized as a story. Then they grew still, attentive, eager,
literally mesmerized. They couldn’t articulate what made one speech a story
and another not. But they all recognized and responded to that difference.
Why? How? Is there any information to take away from that one experience?
What about from 500 just like it? That’s my personal bank of such experiences
and I could easily call forth a hundred other storytellers with similar banks of
personal testimonials. But is even such a mass of consistent anecdotal support
admissible evidence? Over 4,000 people swear that they have actually seen the
Loch Ness monster. Does that mean Nessie exists? How much evidentiary
weight should their anecdotal sightings carry?
People are eager for stories. Not dissertations. Not lectures. Not informative
essays. For stories. No one lines up outside the library to be the first to check out
the latest doctoral dissertation. No, it’s stories we crave, even though the disserta-
tion may well have more beneficial information and more lasting value for our
lives. Such expository narratives feel like bitter medicine. Stories feel like candy.
Stories are also remembered better and longer than information delivered in
any other way. I still vividly remember stories read to me during kindergarten
and first grade and can still picture the setting and moment when I heard them.
I do not remember any factual or expository information fed to me during those
years. I don’t remember any essays. I don’t remember any textbook passages.
I remember the stories. I also remember many of the stories I wrote as a child,
but cannot recall even one of the many reports, essays, articles, and papers
I had to write during my grade school years.
In the spring of 1983 I performed at an elementary school in Yorba Linda,
California. I entered the main hallway and passed a second-grade girl heading
for the front door. She said, ‘‘I remember you. You told us stories last year.’’
(It had been thirteen months since my first appearance at the school.) She then
proceeded to tell me one of the stories I had told the previous year. And she got
 OPENING ARGUMENTS: MORE THAN YOU IMAGINED 9

it all right. It was a twelve-minute, original story; one I had told only a few
times. She had heard the story only once in her life and her only instructions at
the time were to march into the multipurpose room, sit on the floor, and be
quiet. Still, thirteen months later and with no prompting, she dredged that
entire story back into her conscious mind and could accurately retell it. I have
had the same experience with both children and adults when the gap between
one-time hearing and accurate recall has been as long as eight years!
How many kinds of narrative information do you accurately and completely
remember after one hearing for more than a year? For almost a decade? There
was no information in the story the second grader heard that was important to
her life or education. Still she remembered it. Stories are routinely remembered.
Other narrative forms of information are not.

THE INSIDE STORY

Gordon Mills begins his thoughtful (1976) book, Hamlet’s Castle, with this
passage:

In the spring of 1924 the young German physicist Werner Heisenberg went on a
walking tour with the great Neils Bohr in Denmark, Bohr’s homeland. The follow-
ing is Heisenberg’s account of what Bohr said when they came to Kronberg Castle:
Isn’t it strange how this castle changes as soon as one imagines that Hamlet lived
here? As scientists we believe that a castle consists only of stones, and admire the
way the architect put them together. The stone, the green roof with its patina, the
wood carvings in the church, constitute the whole castle. None of this should be
changed by the fact that Hamlet lived here, and yet it is changed completely. Sud-
denly the walls and ramparts speak a different language. The courtyard becomes
an entire world, a dark corner reminds us of the darkness of the human soul.

Story somehow transforms simple stone walls into a vibrant, emotionally

charged, meaningful, and exciting landscape. Same stones. Same mortar.
How does the inclusion of a story make them feel different, more important,
or more memorable? Is there proof that stories work? Is there a single ‘‘smoking
gun’’ study everyone can point to?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. A large part of the problem is that story is
not a process. Processes (activities) are easier to study. So we study reading and
writing with only minimal regard for what is being read or what is being written.
We study and promote storytelling without pausing to examine the characteris-
tics of effective stories to tell and the impact of those stories on the success or
failure of the process of telling.
A story is a ‘‘thing,’’ a specific narrative structure. It is the framework—a nar-
rative architecture. Story is not the content, but the scaffolding upon which
some content (fiction or nonfiction) is hung. All stories are narratives, but most
narratives are not stories. Though the term narrative (as well as story) is tossed
about quite loosely in our modern culture, Webster’s Collegiate and other diction-
aries define narrative as a general catch-all word encompassing anything written
or told in sentence and paragraph form. Essays, letters, diaries, articles, text-
books, directives, encyclopedia entries, briefs, and lectures, among others, qual-
ify as narrative, but not necessarily as story.
More specifically, Webster’s Colligate Dictionary derives narrative through this
definitional sequence:
10 STORY SMARTS

Narrate: To tell in writing or speech. To give an account of (happenings, etc.).

Narration: The act or process of narrating.
Narrative: Of or having the nature of narration.
Roger Schank, a famed developmental psychologist, wrote (1990) that ‘‘stories
form the framework and structure through which humans sort, understand,
relate and file experience into memory.’’ We think in story terms which means
that we can’t think about story without using stories as the foundation of our
thinking.
Another titan of the developmental psychology field, Jerome Bruner (1987),
said, ‘‘My life as a student of the mind has taught me one incontrovertible les-
son. Mind is never free of precommitment. Our precommitment about the na-
ture of a life is that it is a story.’’ Educational and linguistic researcher Mark
Turner (1996) said, ‘‘There is a general story to human existence: It is the story
of how we use story and parable to think.’’
The great philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1964) said, ‘‘A man is always a teller
of stories. He lives surrounded by his own stories and those of other people. He
sees everything that happens to him in terms of stories, and he tries to live his
life as if he were recounting it.’’
Brown (1991) made a list of human universals. Storytelling prominently
appears near the top of that list. Taylor (1996) spent a hundred pages building a
case for his statement, ‘‘You are your stories.’’ Philosopher Isak Dinesen said,
‘‘To be a person is to have a story to tell.’’
The story of human existence is . . . story.
In one of his more recent books, Bruner (2003) said, ‘‘. . . fiction stories create
realities so compelling that they shape our experience not only of the world the
fiction portrays, but of the real world.’’ He is saying that the structure of story is
so powerful that our minds automatically use story elements, story relation-
ships, story architecture to understand, and to make sense out of, the real-world
events and people around us. Life is a story because we force ourselves to view
it and to plan it as a story!
And that makes story research difficult. Fish don’t understand water because
they are forever immersed in it and have no other experience, no other reference
point, with which to compare ‘‘water.’’ We can’t feel or sense gravity because
we have never been without it. It is difficult for us to look at ‘‘story’’ because
stories are so interwoven into the fabric of our lives and minds that we can’t
step far enough away from our storied world to view stories objectively.
These difficulties not withstanding, we will uncover the details of the inter-
section of mind and story (Chapters 3 through 6) and will then be able to pres-
ent and review the relevant story research. I believe the proof is there. It lies in
the confluence of evidence from the various fields I mentioned earlier. By book’s
end I believe you will agree that stories are far more effective, versatile, and
powerful than you ever thought possible.
It is a fascinating journey that I hope you enjoy.
 CHAPTER 2

SO, WHAT IS A STORY?

Common myths and misunderstandings prevent most people from effectively

understanding and using story structure.

Organizational and knowledge management researchers K. Dalkir and E. Wise-

man summed up their frustration by writing, ‘‘Storytelling suffers from one of
the major obstacles still encountered in KM [knowledge management]: namely,
reaching agreement among practitioners and scholars about what storytelling is
and what it is not’’ (Dalkir and Wiseman 2004).
The authors of fourteen of the eighteen articles I have read from the field of
narratology felt obligated to define what they meant by the word story for the
purpose of their study. So did over 60 percent of my sources from narrative
therapy and a significant number of my sources from organizational manage-
ment, knowledge management, and cognitive sciences.
Did they all define it the same way? No, not even close.
If confusion and misunderstanding reign supreme in many of the available
writings on story, where shall we find a solid basis for creating a defensible defi-
nition of story?
First, how would you define a story? What do you think is the difference
between a story and:
A magazine article?
An essay?
An encyclopedia entry?
A memo?
Anything I want?
A recipe?
A basketball?
12 STORY SMARTS

A poem?
A directive?
A conversation?
Last summer?
A newspaper column?
A joke?
Are these all stories? Do they all make stories? Are some stories? Surely, they
do not all match what we mean when we say story! Is there overlap, then,
between story and these other narrative forms? What makes some articles sto-
ries and some not? What makes some jokes stories and some not? When is an
essay a story and when is it not? What is a story?
Do you think that the following people all refer to the same thing—even
though they all use the same word: story?
¥ An editor growls, ‘‘What’s the story?’’ to a cub reporter.
¥ A drama critic searches for a movie’s ‘‘dramatic story arc.’’
¥ A therapist asks a patient to recount a rambling series of life events.
¥ A second-grade teacher asking her students for a half-page story of a
dragon.
¥ A minister begins a recitation of a biblical parable.
¥ A father barks, ‘‘Don’t you tell me no stories!’’ to a son three hours late for
curfew.
¥ A grizzled detective flips open his notebook and licks his pencil stub as he
arrives at the crime scene and growls to the rookie cop who discovered the
body, ‘‘So, what’s the story?’’
¥ A food critic writes a book on the history and cultivation of the carrot.
¥ A man drifts across a crowded cocktail party, pauses next to a woman who
picks at the shrimp platter, and says, ‘‘So, what’s your story?’’
¥ A couple shares the events of the day over dinner.
¥ A daughter snuggled into bed pleads, ‘‘Tell me a story!’’ to her mother.

Do they all mean the same thing when they use the word story to describe
what they are doing? The answer, of course, is no. But what does that say for
your definition of what is and what is not a story? How do you separate the sto-
ries from the non-stories?
I’ve already used the word story many times in this book. Did it always con-
jure a clear, definite, and well-defined image into your mind? Probably it didn’t.
And that’s part of the problem. We typically don’t collectively or individually
demand a clear understanding of that word. Most are okay with a vague and
fuzzy image—until you want to use stories to accomplish your communication
goals. Then you need to be precise if you want to be successful.
Take a minute to write your definition down. Force yourself to find the spe-
cific wording that you think uniquely identifies a story and differentiates stories
from narratives that aren’t stories.
I have asked thousands of adults and students to define a story. The most of-
ten offered answer is that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
True, but so what? What doesn’t have a beginning, a middle, and an end? A
sewer pipe has all three. So does a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Both the
best and the worst prose ever drafted had a beginning, a middle, and an end.
 SO, WHAT IS A STORY? 13

There is no information in such a vague and all-encompassing notion. We

need a definition that guides us toward consistently successful and effective
stories.
The second most common answer is that a story is when you tell about
something that happened. This seems true enough, but look at the lists above.
All qualify as, ‘‘when you tell about something that happened.’’ It’s like the be-
ginning, middle, and end definition. It may be true, but it’s far too vague and
general to be useful. There has to be more to our definition if it is to empower
us to understand and consistently create the power we attribute to good
stories.
Some answer that stories spark our imagination. Some say that they create
an emotional connection, that they involve the reader in the story and get
remembered. Many say that stories give readers a sense of satisfaction and
completeness, and that stories ‘‘make me feel as if I were there.’’ These are all
desired effects of stories, but do not identify what the thing is that creates the
effects.
My favorite answer came from a fifth-grade boy in southwestern Pennsylva-
nia. I asked the question. His eyes bulged. His mouth dropped open. It was
clear that he had just squandered one of his life’s allotment of epiphanies on this
question and that grand concepts had suddenly jelled in his mind. He bolted
out of his chair and shouted, ‘‘I know what a story is. It’s when you have a sub-
ject and a verb!’’ I didn’t have the heart to squash that kind of enthusiasm. We
thereafter called his the definition of a very short story.
Why is it so difficult to articulate a succinct definition for story? Everyone
has heard stories, read stories, and told stories. Most people come in contact
with stories on a daily basis. Stern (1997) said, ‘‘Stories uniquely contain and
present both our beliefs and our knowledge about the world.’’ That’s pretty all-
inclusive. Zaltman (2003) pointed out, ‘‘The similarity of store and story is not
a coincidence.’’ Stories are our universal storehouse of knowledge, beliefs, val-
ues, attitudes, passions, dreams, imagination, and vision.
We are forever surrounded by and immersed in our stories. And that may be
the difficulty. ‘‘We live in stories the way fish live in water, breathing them in
and out, buoyed up by them, taking from them our sustenance, but rarely con-
scious of this element in which we live’’ (Taylor 1996).
Much of the confusion over our definition of story hearkens back from three
pervasive and counterproductive misconceptions about stories.

THE BLANKET MYTH

Many have the vague feeling that ‘‘everything is a story.’’ That statement sim-
ply is not true. Everything is not a story. Most of your daily life is not a story.
Most of your conversations are not stories. Much of what you read is not a
story. That’s not bad. There is no reason for everything to be presented in story
form.
If a cognitive science researcher concludes, ‘‘Experiences not framed into
story form suffer loss in memory,’’ and you think, ‘‘I said ‘Hi’ to my neighbor,’’
or, ‘‘He went to the store,’’ are adequate stories to test this claim, you will cer-
tainly discount the research. You will rightly conclude that your example story
wasn’t worth remembering in the first place. The problem is that your example
was not a story and so doesn’t apply to the stated research.
14 STORY SMARTS

Nora Ephron, a writer whose work I thoroughly enjoy, described an ‘‘ah-ha!’’

light-bulb moment in her new book (2006) as ‘‘. . . the beginning of my under-
standing that just about everything was a story.’’
It’s a myth—a sinister, destructive myth. It is one thing for those who thor-
oughly understand story structure to say, ‘‘Everything is a story.’’ They under-
stand the hidden assumptions and mandates that, though unspoken, still
constrain and define the meaning of that sentence.
It’s like a Home Depot store rep saying, ‘‘Hanging a new door is easy.’’ He
knows that this simple statement means that I must first square the door frame,
then squirt sealer under the new sill, carefully balance and align the hinges so
the door won’t bind, plane the door to fit the actual opening, and so forth. But I
don’t know that. So I fumble, curse, struggle, and fail. Water pours under and
around my new door on the first rain—all because I do not know the implied
interconnection between the parts and the physical process of door hanging.
The same is true for the parts and sequencing of a story.
Let me correct Nora’s statement. ‘‘Any human event can be turned into a
story and presented in story form.’’ Converting events into stories involves a
specific process that the sentence, ‘‘Everything is a story,’’ ignores.
As an example, consider this event:
The Lone Ranger strapped on his gun belt and walked down the boarding house stairs.
It’s not a story yet, just an event. I am sure that exact event happened hun-
dreds of times each day in the Old West—if not to him, then to some other
cowboy.
But it could become a story. Perhaps, someone has yelled, ‘‘Help! The bank is
being robbed by eight really bad guys!’’ That’s better. It gives the Lone Ranger
something to do (a goal) and something to struggle against. Perhaps, the Lone
Ranger has been up in his room rubbing liniment into his sore back because his
sciatica is acting up. Perhaps his eyesight is growing a bit blurred; his gun hand
has noticeably slowed and has picked up a worrisome tremor. He’s tired of liv-
ing out of boarding houses and campgrounds. He hasn’t caught any bad guys
for three months, fears he’s a washed-up has-been, and secretly longs for a
flower garden to tend. He suspects that people are beginning to talk and to
sadly shake their heads as he limps past. Oh, if only he could make one last
grand arrest of a famous bad guy and then retire! The Lone Ranger marches
down the boarding house stairs, heart pounding with fear and anticipation and
wonders if he still has the right stuff to save the day.
It’s not a complete story yet, but now it’s getting interesting. Notice, I haven’t
added any action, but I have given you information about the character—his
hopes, fears, worries, and dreams. Since he’s over the hill, there’s more danger
if he goes after eight desperados. There’s a greater chance of failure.
Maybe the Lone Ranger’s brother is one of the robbers—the brother that
raised and protected him, always telling him that family is everything. Now he
has a dilemma: uphold the law and arrest his big brother, or honor family and
cheapen his badge.
Either way (or through a thousand other character-based scenarios we might
create) it’s beginning to get interesting. The Lone Ranger has something he must
do and conflicts to overcome and resolve along the way.
Remember the Blanket Myth. Everything is not a story—but it could
become one.
 SO, WHAT IS A STORY? 15

THE BINARY ASSOCIATION MYTH

The human tendency to grasp the meaning of concepts by viewing them as
systems of binary opposites is well supported in the scientific literature. It will
come up again in Chapter 5. It also lies at the heart of the second of our inaccu-
rate and destructive misconceptions of story.
Binary theory (Anderson 1993; Egan 1997; Paley 1990, 1984; Crossley 2000;
Levi-Strauss 1978) suggests that humans intellectually set up a paradigm of bi-
nary opposites to understand new terms. You understand one word by compar-
ing it to its opposite.
‘‘Hot’’ takes on meaning when compared to ‘‘cold.’’ Once these anchors are
understood, we fill in the range between with warm, cool, tepid, or frigid. Black
takes on meaning when contrasted to white. Only then can we meaningfully fill
in the range between with shades of gray.
It was natural for humans to try to understand story by comparing it to its bi-
nary opposite, non-story. But English doesn’t provide a separate vocabulary
word for non-story. Certainly we have no agreed upon definition for non-story,
and thus have no way to compare the two terms or to discuss the range of pos-
sible narrative forms that lie between these extremes.
In order to understand and create meaning for the word story and for this
story–non-story binary system, humans subconsciously link story–non-story
with other binary opposites related to communications that humans did and do
understand: fiction versus nonfiction; truth versus non-truth (lies); real versus
unreal; fact versus fiction. Thus, story was—at an unconscious level—associated
with fiction, with make-believe, with unreality, and with the opposite of fact.
Non-story lined with truth, with fact, with reality, with nonfiction.
Up to age seven or eight, most children think of stories as real (factual) and
as unchangeable as histories (Applebee 1978). Just as children switch at some
point from believing that Santa Claus is real to believing that he is unreal, so,
too, they shift their core image of stories from truth to fiction (Applebee 1978;
Egan 1997).
No one thinks that all stories are or have to be fiction, or that stories can’t be
truthful. It’s more of an unconscious overtone, acting like a stereotype to flavor
and distort the outlook of many toward stories and to cloud their attitude to-
ward the use of and reliance on stories. Freeman (2003) reported that Americans
in his study equated fiction with false, made-up, lies, and stories. His study sub-
jects equate reality with nonfiction, truth, and facts.
In conversations with teachers, students, parents, administrators, and execu-
tives over the past few years, I have often detected this misconception lurking
deep in the underpinnings of people’s outlooks and attitudes about stories. The
use of stories to make a point is automatically suspect. (Why didn’t he just tell
us the facts? Is he trying to cover up something and put a positive spin on it?)
Stories are automatically suspected of containing untruths—or half-truths—or at
least serious exaggerations. Stories don’t deliver reliable information and fact.
An eight-year-old boy asked me if he could be excused from a storytelling game
because ‘‘my father says I should never tell stories.’’
Story is not the information, the content. Story is a way of structuring informa-
tion, a system of informational elements that most effectively create the essential
context and relevance that engage receivers and enhance memory and the crea-
tion of meaning. The information contained in a story may be fact or fiction,
16 STORY SMARTS

invented or carefully researched and validated. Story is the framework, not the
content hung on that scaffolding. Don’t let the Binary Association Myth cloud
your view of the potential or versatility of stories.

THE CHILDHOOD MYTH

The primary role modern society has given to stories has exacerbated these
misconceptions and created additional, equally destructive myths. Our exposure
to story comes primarily as children and primarily through fiction stories
designed to entertain. This has unwittingly added a new binary association into
the story–non-story paradigm: child versus adult. Stories are for children. Non-
stories (factual articles, essays, data, and information) are for adults.
Thus, many unconsciously assume that all stories look like children’s stories.
Stories exaggerate as do children’s stories. As soon as a child grows old enough,
they should set stories aside (just as they set aside imaginary friends and child-
hood toys) and move into the factual, truthful adult world of nonfiction and
non-story.
After a presentation on the use of story structure for science outreach writing,
a woman approached me and said that she loved my story concepts, but ‘‘What
am I supposed to do?’’ When I asked her to explain, she said that she taught a
graduate-level physics course in stellar mechanics (the mathematical version of
the life of a star) at a local university. She said (and this is as close to her specific
words as I could recall when I wrote it down ten minutes later), ‘‘What do I say
when I go into class on Monday, ‘Once upon a time there was a cute little star
named Bob’?’’
I realized she was serious. No matter what I had said in the previous ninety
minutes, her deep-seated image said that all stories must look like children’s fic-
tion stories. Information on the use of story structure for science communication
meant nothing as long as that fundamental misconception controlled her belief
systems.
Combine the interweaving tentacles of these myths and people routinely
come to the conclusions that stories are for entertainment. Stories are fluff and
are inappropriate for presenting hard fact. Stories are incompatible with the pre-
sentation of scientific information. You resort to stories if you have a weak case
or if you’re hiding the truth.
In 1984, I decided to drop out of science and become a storyteller. I assumed
that science and story were incompatible. I couldn’t do both, so I chose story.
Twenty-three years later, I struggle to convince science organizations and agen-
cies that this belief is not true and that science and story are completely com-
patible (as are history and story, music and story, organization management
and story).
Certainly, I am not the only one to observe these mythic disconnects between
the reality of story and the common perception of story. Denning (2001) says of
his early attempts as a senior executive at the World Bank to weave his presen-
tation material into story form:

I quickly found that I was living in an age when storytelling was suspect. Scientists
derided it. Philosophers threatened to censor it. Logicians had difficulty in depict-
ing it. Management theorists generally ignored it. Academics equated storytelling
with the world of wholly fictional myth and fable. The antagonism toward story-
telling may have reached a peak in the twentieth century with the determined
 SO, WHAT IS A STORY? 17

effort to reduce all knowledge to analytical propositions, and ultimately physics or

mathematics.

In world-class understatement, he adds, ‘‘I found that the resistance to

rethinking the role of storytelling was considerable.’’
So, stories have been sidetracked into the kiddy corner and labeled, ‘‘just for
fun.’’ We believe that story is the opposite of logic, that stories aren’t effective
for conveying serious and important concepts. And without ever consciously
pausing to consider either the veracity or implications of our assumptions, we
set aside the most powerful communications and teaching tool available to
humans and then idly wonder why our efforts to communicate and to teach
concepts, ideas, beliefs, values, attitudes, and facts do not succeed.
These myths may explain some of our difficulty with articulating a specific
definition for story. However, they offer few clues about what a story is.

THE DICTIONARY’S TURN: THE FINAL MYTH

When all else fails, let the dictionary, like the cavalry, gallop in at the last
moment to save the day. I have checked half a dozen different dictionaries and
all used virtually the same wording in their primary definition:
Story: n.: a narrative account of a real or imagined event or events.
Is that what you mean when you say story? Do you agree? Many researchers do.

¥ Blythe et al. (2004) define story as: ‘‘The narrative accounts of events and
experiences, real or fictitious. They can be spoken or written, vary in length,
and depict past, present, or future events.’’
¥ Dalkir and Wiseman (2004): ‘‘Story may be defined as the telling of a hap-
pening or a connected series of happenings, whether true or fictitious.’’
¥ Booth (1979): ‘‘An implied author, who may differ from the narrator,
presents information about characters and events to a reader.’’
¥ Ricoeur (1984): ‘‘A story describes a sequence of actions and experiences
done or undergone by a certain number of people, whether real or
imaginary.’’
But does that definition match the reality of what our hearts and minds say a
story is? Let’s test it.

He went to the store.

There is a narrative account of a real or imagined event. Is that what you

mean when you say, ‘‘Tell us a story!’’? If your child had been given a home-
work assignment to write a story, would that single sentence meet your expecta-
tions? Does that sentence have the impact and meaning you expect of effective
stories? Does it convince you? Have meaning for you? Would you pay $15.95
for that story at your local bookstore?
Probably not. Yet that sentence meets the dictionary’s definition. Conclusion?
The dictionary is wrong.
Okay. That statement may seem a bit far-fetched. It might be more accurate
to say that the dictionary is defining the wrong thing with their definition
of story.
18 STORY SMARTS

Here is another dictionary definition. This one for plot:

Plot: n.: The arrangement or ordering of the incidents in a story, play,
novel, etc.

Plot is the sequence of events. These dictionary definitions for story and plot
are virtually synonymous. But plot is only one part of a story. Certainly, plot
alone does not constitute a story. It won’t help to make our test story longer by
adding additional plot.

He walked down the street. He stepped up onto the sidewalk. He paused at the double doors
and then pushed his way into the store. He walked slowly down an aisle and waved a ner-
vous hello to the shop owner. He paused in front of the cans of cream corn and picked one
up. He sighed and then put it back on the shelf and left.

Now it’s longer. Now is it a story? It meets the dictionary’s definition. Does it
meet yours?
More importantly, was it satisfying? Do you care about this character and
these events? Did it answer your basic questions? Did it give you a sense of
completion, of resolution? No, of course not. But these are the qualities most
people in my test audiences and workshops say they want and expect from a
story.
‘‘Telling what happened’’ is akin to giving the plotting facts of an event. But,
as Taylor (1996) adroitly noted, ‘‘Facts, theories, and reason alone do not stand a
chance against a story because facts and reason ultimately depend on story for
context and relevance and meaning—and, thus, for their power. Objective data
always require interpretation and perspective in order to yield fact. Those
require story.’’ Thus, for example, facts supporting the theory of evolution will
never vanquish the story of creation.
To demonstrate, Taylor (1996) said, ‘‘Argue either case [of two opposing posi-
tions] with facts, statistics, and charts and we will nod politely as we nod off to
sleep. Argue either side of that case [government’s role in solving poverty] with
powerful stories of hungry children or freeloading welfare cheats and we will
storm the barricades.’’ No one ever marched on Washington because of the facts
on a flowchart. Facts and plot alone do not a story make.
How can we resolve this apparent discrepancy? The dictionary is defining
that all-encompassing, everything-is-a-story version of the word story. In that
sense of story, virtually everything is a story and story is virtually synonymous
with plot. A better way to view it is to say that there are many levels of story. ‘‘I
went to the store today but they were out of our favorite kind of spaghetti
sauce,’’ is a Level 1 story. It meets the all-inclusive dictionary definition but
doesn’t accomplish any of what we want our stories to accomplish.
If we view story—as we will in this book—in the narrower sense of what
many would call a good story or an effective story—that is, the Top Level of
story—and identify the elements and characteristics of these stories that create
their success, then we will have unlocked the secret to effective communications
and teaching through story.
The problem is one of vocabulary. A small irony: English, the largest lan-
guage on Earth, has a remarkable dearth of vocabulary words to describe narra-
tive structures of the language, itself. It is akin to the situation we would have if
we had only one word to describe precipitation. Someone stumbles in from
 SO, WHAT IS A STORY? 19

outside and shakes off. You ask, ‘‘What’s going on out there?’’ Dripping streams
of water onto the floor she answers, ‘‘Precipitation.’’
It’s laughable because we demand far more precision in that answer. We have
easily fifty words to describe different velocities, densities, rates, volumes, and
temperatures of precipitation. Good stories and effective stories are stories. The
others are called stories only by default because we lack vocabulary labels to
individually describe and define them.
Far more important than this conundrum of English vocabulary and narrative
titles—although that does substantially add to the general confusion about what
is and is not a story—is the underlying concept. Narratives are not all alike. Real
and important differences exist between different types of narratives. Those nar-
ratives that I am calling stories possess specific characteristics that create their
unique effectiveness—characteristics not shared by other narrative structures.
Literary critic Northrop Frye (1957) observed, ‘‘We have no word for a work
of prose other than ‘story,’ so story does duty for everything, and thereby loses
its only real meaning as the name of a specific genre, or structure of narrative.’’
We have lots of words for specific subcategories of story—tale, fable, myth,
legend, fairy tale, folk tale, parable, por qua story, epic, snippet, humorous, tall
tale, farce. We have no other word than story for the subcategories of narrative.
I have read scholarly articles in which the author used four versions of the
word story (story, story, STORY, and STORY !) to describe different narrative
structures. She said that she did it because there were no commonly recognized
words other than story for her to use and yet the point of her research and writ-
ing was to differentiate the characteristics and use of several different styles
of story.
Fireman et al. (2003), in agreeing with Russell and Lucariello (1992), said,
‘‘Some of the best minds in literary scholarship and in cognitive and develop-
mental psychology have spent years attempting to get hold of the essential and
distinguishing characteristics of narrative.’’ Why has it been so hard to pin
down the seemingly elusive definition of story? Certainly it has not been for lack
of talent or effort. The names from narratology alone read like a who’s who
of narrative research—Levi-Strauss, Noam Chompsky, Vladimir Propp, Paul
Ricoeur, Topdovor, Bremend, and Roland Barthes.
It’s because they are trying to study and corral the all-inclusive dictionary
story, not the effective story that has a specific set of definable common
characteristics.

THE STORY STEP: WHAT IT MEANS TO US

Many want to jump straight to the research and find studies that support
their desire to expand a reliance on stories. I provide this caution. Neither assess
nor use the research until you have a clear and specific understanding of story.
Misconceptions surround stories as densely and as thorn-filled as the enchanted
thicket surrounded and hid Sleeping Beauty’s castle. First, learn what the word
story does and does not mean. Then you’ll be equipped to evaluate and success-
fully use the research to support your own purposes.
We still don’t have a working definition of story. I propose using a different
approach. If stories are uniquely effective inside the human mind, then let’s use
recent advances in cognitive sciences, developmental psychology, and neural
biology to understand the specifics of how the human mind processes,
20 STORY SMARTS

understands, creates meaning from, and remembers incoming narrative infor-

mation. We will then use the elements of that process as the foundation of our
definition of story.
We must start at the very top and proceed into the world of gray goo that is
the human brain and peer through the prism provided by the variety of neural
and cognitive disciplines to construct an overall image of human mental pro-
cessing. Bransford and Brown (2000) observed, ‘‘What is currently most striking
is the ways in which evidence from many different branches of science are be-
ginning to converge.’’
We will find that they inevitably converge on STORY!
 CHAPTER 3

STARTING AT THE TOP:

A NOD TO THE NOODLE

The evolutionarily created predisposition of human brains to story thinking is

reinforced through the years of brain plasticity by a steady childhood diet of
stories.

Ancient Egyptians thought so little of the brain that they made a practice of
scooping it out through the nose and throwing it away before mummifying the
body and placing ‘‘important’’ organs in elaborately decorated jars. Aristotle
believed that consciousness resided in the heart, not in the head. In 1662, philos-
opher Henry Moore scoffed that the brain showed ‘‘no more capacity for
thought than a cake of suet or a bowl of curds’’ (Pinker 2000).
How does this mound of gray Jell-O bring into being our understanding of a
question or of another’s action? How does it create our ability to answer or to
act appropriately in response? Through what mystical and sublime process does
electrochemical energy become hope, passion, fear, or understanding? The magic
unfolding of the brain and mind will lead us at every turn directly to story.

WHAT’S IN THIS GRAY GOO?

Ball your hands into fists and hold them together, knuckles touching with
thumbs on top and pinkie fingers on the bottom. That’s about how big your
brain is. No wires, sparks, batteries, or flashes. Just a wrinkly, soft-to-the-touch
lump that is 85 percent water and weighs typically less than three pounds. But
that glob of wobbly goo controls everything you do, everything you feel, every-
thing you think, everything you dream and wish. Your brain faithfully performs
thousands of functions every second that you are alive.
That typical brain contains 100 billion brain cells (100,000,000,000)—about the
same as the number of stars in the Milky Way. That’s also a million times more
22 STORY SMARTS

brain cells than a fruit fly has and ten times as many as most monkeys. Each cell
is linked by synapses to as many as 100,000 others. That means your brain has
created over 500 trillion (500,000,000,000,000) wiggling string-like fibers called
axons and dendrites that connect with other neurons at junctions called syn-
apses. These synapses are awash with neurotransmitters and hormones that mod-
ulate the transmission of electrochemical signals. Synapses constantly form and
dissolve, weakening and strengthening in response to new experiences.
The first brain cell, or neuron, is thought to have appeared in animals about
500 million years ago. The neuron marked a crucial leap in evolution, second
only to that of the DNA molecule (Kotulak 1999).
A typical brain neuron receives input from thousands of other cells, some of
which inhibit rather than encourage the neuron’s firing. The neuron may, in
turn, encourage or discourage firing by some of those same cells in complex
positive and negative feedback loops. Somehow, through this freeway maze of
links, loops, and electric traffic jams, we each manage to think, perceive, con-
sider, imagine, remember, react, and respond.
Burdick (2006) reported on some interesting research by Dr. David Engleman,
a neurobiologist at the University of Texas. Engleman’s research has shown that
the brain lives just a little bit in the past. A human brain collects a lot of infor-
mation and then pauses for a moment to organize it before releasing the pro-
cessed information to the conscious mind. ‘‘Now’’ actually happened a little
while (several milliseconds) ago.
To demonstrate this to yourself, tap your finger on a tabletop at arm’s length.
Light travels faster than sound. So the sight actually reached you a few millisec-
onds before the sound. However, your brain synchronized the two to make
them seem simultaneous. The same thing happens when you watch someone’s
lips move as they speak. During these microsecond pauses the brain/mind con-
structs a plausible story to make the incoming information make sense. Sensory
impressions enter the brain; stories exit to the conscious mind for interpretation
and action. A significant part of what the brain does for the conscious mind is
structure experience into story.
Brains, however, come at a high cost. They require enormous amounts of
energy, oxygen, protection, and thermal regulation. Plants don’t need brains.
They don’t need to think about their environmental and personal conditions or
consider alternative responses. They survive quite well relying on the molecular
reflex level. Animals cannot survive as well as plants and so need brains.
If you’d like to read more about brain structure I recommend Pinker (2000),
Kotulak (1999), Newquist (2004), Horgan (2004), or Kruglinski (2005).

WATCHING YOU THINK

Scientists have studied the brain only for the past few centuries. As late as
the seventeenth century, scientists believed that thought and consciousness
existed in the heart, lungs, liver, and even the stomach—anywhere but the brain.
Even after the brain began to receive the credit it deserved, little progress was
made in studying brain structure and function until the mid-twentieth century.
Now all of that has changed. The brain is no longer a mysterious black box.
Medical science has created machines and research techniques that can watch
individual neurons and synapses pulse merrily through their day. Cohen (1995)
said, ‘‘Although the brain’s operation is still far from completely understood,
 STARTING AT THE TOP: A NOD TO THE NOODLE 23

technological advances in recent years have allowed scientists literally to see

how the brain works in ways previously unimagined.’’
In the past decade researchers have crafted arrays of thousands of electrodes,
each of which can monitor a single brain cell (Horgan 2004). These arrays have
shown that individual cells spike (respond) to specific images—and to no
others—a familiar face or object for example. It might be that images are cen-
tered in single cells.
The new scientific and medical techniques used to peer into the inner work-
ings of the brain now allow scientists to track real-time electrical activity, blood
consumption, oxygen consumption, glucose consumption, metabolic activity,
tiny shifts in brain shape, shifts in the way light is reflected off of the brain,
color shifts as blood is drawn or released, and even changes in the density and
movement of neurotransmitters. Scientists can now observe (and test) mental
function at this minute level to confirm theories on brain and mind function.
They can literally watch you think!
The UCLA’s Neuro Imaging Lab alone holds over 90,000 brain scans by vari-
ous technologies from 20,000 patients. With this vast database, they can detect
and evaluate microscopic changes in neural activity.
Such tomography scans show that the brain’s left side lights up in various
spots when considering, reading, listening to, or forming language (but not with
hums, sounds, or music). It’s language that does it. (Pinker [2000] reported that
the psychologist Ursula Bellugi has shown that, remarkably, the same parts of
the brain fire when deaf people watch signers.)

A FEW RELEVANT PARTS OF THE BRAIN

What have these neural technologies revealed about the functions of different
parts of the brain that affect language and story? It is increasingly clear that cog-
nitive function cannot be pinned to spots on the brain like towns on a map. A
given mental task may involve a complicated web of circuits that interact in
varying degrees with others throughout the brain—not like parts of a machine,
but like instruments in a symphony orchestra that combine their tenor, volume,
and resonance to create a particular musical effect (Shreeve 2005).
Paul Broca (in 1861) was the first to prove that different parts of the brain
have specific mental functions. Working with a man named ‘‘Tan,’’ Broca identi-
fied a small area of the brain (Broca’s Area) that controls speech. In 1874, Carl
Wernicke identified an area just behind Broca’s that helps people understand
language. Wernicke’s area seems to have a role in looking up words and funnel-
ing them to other areas (notably Broca’s) that assemble or dissect the sentence
into blocks to construct meaning.
Pinker (2000) stated that ‘‘a very gross anatomy of the language sub-organs
within the perisylvian might be: front of the perisylvian (including Broca’s area):
grammatical processing; rear of the perisylvian (including Wernicke’s and the
three-lobe junction): the sound of words, especially nouns, and some aspects of
their meaning.’’
It is also interesting to note that the frontal lobes, which house the circuitry for
decision making and conscious thought, are not directly connected to the brain
areas that process raw sensory input. Instead, most of their input fibers carry
what neuroscientists call ‘‘highly processed’’ input coming from regions one or
more stops downstream from the first sensory areas (Crick and Koch 1995).
24 STORY SMARTS

Unconscious portions of our human brains process raw sensory input and
pass it to intermediate processing areas of the brain. These areas (also in the
unconscious portion of our brains) are the exact areas that are activated when
humans create stories (Pinker 2000; Newquist 2004; Kotulak 1999). The output
of these regions is fed to the conscious mind for consideration. In other words,
the brain converts raw experience into story form and then considers, ponders,
remembers, and acts on the self-created story, not the actual input experience!
Edelman and Tononi (2000) concluded, ‘‘These unconscious aspects of mental
activity play a fundamental role in shaping and directing our conscious experience.’’

BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
Shreeve (2005) provides a good summary of embryonic neural development.
A human embryo doesn’t just sit, being bored, and suck its thumb. It works
overtime developing a brain. Four weeks after conception a human embryo pro-
duces half a million neurons every minute. Over several weeks those neurons
migrate to the brain following genetic (evolutionary) cues to determine their
specific destination. (We’ll talk about those evolutionary cues in a minute.) Dur-
ing the first two trimesters, neurons begin to stretch tentacles out to each other,
establishing synapses at the rate of two million a second! Three months before
birth, a baby’s brain has more neurons than at any other time in its life.
Just weeks before birth, cutthroat competition begins. Groups of neurons
compete with each other like political parties before an election to recruit other
neurons into their expanding network of specific functions. Those that lose die
off in a Darwinian weeding process. Those that win survive as parts of function-
ing neural nets, already partly tuned to detect, receive, and comprehend the
world in a particular way. By a baby’s second day of life, all of its sensory
organs function (vision develops last), soaking up information to speed to the
developing brain. For the next eighteen months a baby’s brain is a learning
machine—learning for the sake and joy of learning—with no need for context or
relevancy for the incoming information.
The question is: What evolutionary cues and predispositions direct this vast
brain development? What neural nets survive the Darwinian competition?
The mass of humanity has learned to read and write only in the past few
hundred years. Logical, expository, and argumentative forms first emerged per-
haps 5,000 years ago. But humans have been telling stories for 100,000 years or
more. Evolutionary biologists tell us that 100,000 years of story dominance in
human interaction has rewired the human brain to be predisposed before birth
to think in, make sense in, and create meaning from, stories. For more on this
important concept see Nelson (2003), Donald (1991), Plotkin (1982), Tomasello
(1995), Bruner (1990), or Pinker (2000).
Many researchers have studied the reactions and mental processes of babies.
Their work has confirmed that, at birth, humans think in story terms. Bruner’s
(1990) long years of clinical studies have shown that we are born preprogrammed
to search for, and to create meaning from, story elements. Others who have
explored the link between babies’ neural processing and story structure include
Nelson (2003), Shreeve (2005), Newquist (2004), Pinker (1997, 2000), Tallal (1994),
Bransford and Brown (2000), and Huttenlocher and Dabholkar (1997).
Gopnik et al. (1999) summed up thirty years of his own research and that of
three other eminent developmental psychologists with, collectively, forty years
 STARTING AT THE TOP: A NOD TO THE NOODLE 25

of clinical research experience. ‘‘Our brains were designed by evolution to de-

velop story representations from sensory input that accurately approximate real
things and experiences in the world. Those programs . . . let us predict what the
world will be like and so act on it effectively. They are nature’s way of solving
the problem of knowledge.’’ Their research confirms that stories are a primary
way that humans interpret the world around them.
Babies arrive predisposed to focus on characters and their behavior. At birth
babies can discriminate human faces and voices from other sights and sounds
(Gopnik et al. 1999). In the first few months of life—many months before they
develop language—babies learn to evaluate, observe, understand, and emulate
the details of human emotional behavior.
Let’s summarize the brain’s story-related development as reported in the
research. At birth, babies know to link voice with face and to study facial
expression and emotion (character traits). By one year, they understand sequen-
tial actions and canonical (normally expected) behavior. They have mastered the
general concepts of goals and motives. They have learned to look where others
point, and to point where they want others to look. This implies that they
understand wants (having you look at what they want you to look at) and to act
(point) to satisfy those wants. It also implies that they understand that you think
and process as they do so that they can expect you to respond to their action as
they want you to.
By eighteen months babies understand desire, goals, conflict in the name of
goal pursuit, and cause-and-effect sequencing and connections between events.
By two years they become empathetic (character understanding) and under-
stand ‘‘trouble’’ as a deviation from accepted or expected norms.
Just as their verbal skills are emerging, story structure is already firmly
locked into their thinking. Gopnik concluded his research by saying, ‘‘The
baby’s computers start out with a specific program for translating the inputs
they get into accurate representations of the world and then into story-based
predictions and actions’’ (Gopnik et al. 1999).
Hardcastle (2003) reports on a series of research studies (especially Miller 1994
and Miller et al. 1990) to develop the idea that children in the two- to four-year-old
range actively model and mimic parents’ story structure from ‘‘a brief assertion of
an event to an adventure with a point and emotional representation.’’ Young chil-
dren automatically and naturally strive to learn and use story structure.
By the beginning of kindergarten, my own informal research shows that the
concepts of story ‘‘trouble,’’ character, temporal sequencing, cause-and-effect
sequencing, and goal are well fixed and known. Given a character and a goal,
children will easily identify the type of trouble that is most likely to occur and
will correctly identify that trouble will emerge to block a character from reach-
ing the stated goal. Additionally, they know to search for hints of upcoming
trouble. They know what to expect from a story and will adjust their percep-
tions and their interpretations of narrative inputs to find (or create) it.
By age six, most children include the concept of threat to a main character in
their stories (Applebee 1978). That is, they have mastered the concept of conflicts
and danger as drivers for their story creations.
For additional discussions of this early development pattern, I suggest
Gopnik et al. (1999), Bruner (1990), Pinker (2000), Bransford and Brown (2000),
Nelson (2003), Donald (1991), Dunbar (1993), Kotulak (1999), or Huttenlocher
and Dabholkar (1997).
26 STORY SMARTS

CELLS THAT FIRE TOGETHER WIRE TOGETHER

Humans arrive depending on story scripts evolutionarily woven into the
hardwiring of our brains. But Huttenlocher (1984), a University of Chicago neu-
robiologist, experimentally established the plasticity of childhood brains. Chil-
dren’s brains are capable of major rewiring and restructuring. But that plasticity
is temporary. Like slowly hardening cement, the brain sets up and fixes its neu-
ral linkages and pathways. Huttenlocher showed that brain plasticity fades
beginning at age seven or eight and is gone by age twelve or thirteen. ‘‘If you
want to significantly influence a child’s ability to think and to acquire knowl-
edge, the early childhood years are very critical’’ (Huttenlocher 1984). Recent
research indicates that adult brains remain more plastic than previously thought
(Begley 2007) but are still far less plastic than are the brains of children.
So humans may arrive as story-dependent creatures, but does typical develop-
ment during key plasticity years affect that neural wiring? The answer is, if any-
thing, our use of, and dependence on, story during childhood years reinforce
(and actually strengthen) the story wiring inside human minds.
Why does it happen? Partly because of the natural hardwiring that creates a
story predisposition. Partly it is because that predisposition is reinforced
throughout childhood by repeated reliance on story. Surveys show that the vast
majority of parents read extensively, and read primarily stories, to their young
children. This exposure reinforces and develops the dominance of story struc-
ture in the brain (Bransford and Brown, 1993).
Bransford and Stein (2003) stated, ‘‘Experience builds structures of the mind
by modifying structures of the brain.’’ The steady diet of stories that children
experience modifies the brain to render it more predisposed to think in story
terms. Kotulak (1999) stated: ‘‘Things that a child experiences become part of his
mental architecture, laid down in the neural connections that are retained. Con-
nections that are not reinforced by stimuli from the outside world are pruned
away, dead branches that no longer flower.’’
What does a child experience? Stories. Stories read, stories viewed, stories lis-
tened to, stories told by parents for entertainment and for information. Cliatt
and Shaw (1988) stated, ‘‘Children learn and internalize story structure from a
diet of told and read stories.’’ Nelson (2003) (supporting work by Donald 1991
and Dunbar 1993) observed, ‘‘Infants and toddlers use story to explain and to
create meaning because that’s what parents and their culture do.’’
Cells that fire together wire together—and strengthen their connections and
their propensity to fire together at the next opportunity (Kotulak 1999). A steady
diet of information, experience, and entertainment successfully interpreted in
story form means that story-based neural nets are steadily strengthened, and
that the likelihood of their continued use as an integrated whole increases, while
the brain is malleable and plastic during childhood.
Johnson (1987) said, ‘‘Our earliest encounter with explanation comes in the
form of stories told to us by our parents. From the beginning of our language ac-
quisition, we must learn how to construct our own story fragments in response
to our parents’ questioning of our actions. (‘How did that happen?’ ‘What have
you done?’ ‘Where are you going?’)’’ After researching young children’s
responses, he concluded, ‘‘For children, to explain is to tell the right story that is
appropriate to the situation, one that has a chance of successfully answering the
questions put to them.’’
 STARTING AT THE TOP: A NOD TO THE NOODLE 27

Crossley (2000) (following earlier work by Langellier and Peterson 1996 and
by McAdams 1993) said, ‘‘We are inculcated from a very early age to seeing
connections between events, people, and the world in a certain way through the
stories told in our families.’’
Bruner (1990) (and before him Fillmore in 1968 and 1977) stated that research
clearly shows that a young child is early and profoundly sensitive to goals,
motives, and the actions taken for their achievement (for example, ‘‘all gone,’’
‘‘uh-oh’’). That is, they are sensitive to understanding events through story
structure.
Because of this hardwiring and reinforcement, it’s stories, not other narrative
forms and structures that humans understand and use. As Bruner stated (1990),
‘‘Children produce and comprehend stories long before they are capable of han-
dling the most fundamental Piagetian logical proposition that can be put into
linguistic form.’’ We master stories first because they arrive already loaded into
the childhood brain. Other forms of expository narrative, logic, and critical
thinking must be taught and painstakingly learned.
Our species thinks, perceives, and acts according to story structure. The more
we do it, the more likely we are to do it in the future and the greater is the pre-
disposition for story thinking that we evolutionarily engineer into future genera-
tions. That is the story of human brains.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR US

Three key truths have emerged from recent neurological research.
1. One hundred thousand years of human reliance on story has evolutionarily
rewired the human brain to be predisposed to think in story terms and to
use story structure to create meaning and to make sense of events and
others’ actions.
2. Cells that fire together wire together. The more a child (or adult) engages
their story neural net to interpret incoming sensory input, the more likely
they are to do it in the future.
3. This evolutionary predisposition is reinforced by the dominant use of story
throughout childhood. Children hear stories, see stories, have stories read
to them, and read stories themselves. This dominance of story exposure
through the key years of brain plasticity results in adults irrevocably hard-
wired to think in story terms.
This story tendency is certainly not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing—for
you. It provides a ready, proven pathway into the core of human thinking. It is
as if the brain, once understood, offers a roadmap to its internal processes. We
call the core of that roadmap a story. To extend the metaphor, story is emerging
as the interstate express carpool lane into the mind. Why? Just as traffic engi-
neers designed those special lanes to speed traffic into major cities, so, too, evo-
lution and the brain’s experience during its plastic years have engineered story
pathways as express routes into the human mind.
Why tell and teach stories as the basis for all language and writing develop-
ment? Because they work better than other narrative forms. Why do they work
so well? Because that is how human brains are wired to think. But to under-
stand the true effect of that wiring, we must turn to the mind.
 CHAPTER 4

NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE

MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES

Seven guiding principles define the story information human minds require in
order to understand, to make sense of, and to create meaning from incoming
narrative and experiential information.

Brain is the hardware. Mind is the software. The mind is what you do with the
amazing wiring that constitutes the neural net of your noggin. Minds compare
new input to data (experiences, thoughts, interpretations) already stored in the
brain, interpret and understand the new information, and create meaning
from it.
Try this: Imagine a submarine. Imagine a group of people singing ‘‘Happy
Birthday.’’ Imagine your neighbor. These are all images based on your remem-
bered experiences. Now imagine the submarine painted yellow and your neigh-
bor looking out a porthole of that yellow submarine as it floats through the air
with a crowd of people standing on the deck singing ‘‘Happy Birthday.’’
This can’t be based on experience. You created this image. You imagined it.
And you likely imagined it as easily as (or even more easily than) you recalled
your actual experiences. What magic does the mind do to create images as easily
and vividly—as real—as real images from experience? How do chemicals, fibers,
electrical impulses, blood, and gooey tissue create and then hold onto these
images?
We will not explore all of the functions and processes of the mind. Our con-
cern is with stories. But how the mind processes, interprets, and acts on incom-
ing narrative information is the key to understanding the power of story.
The goal of the mind is to sift through the constant bombardment of inputs
and interpret and evaluate each so that it can decide: Should I pay attention? If
so, how does it relate to me? Within what context can I place this information?
What does it mean to me? Should I remember it?
30 STORY SMARTS

For our purposes, the key steps in this complex, speed-of-light neural process
are:
1. Interpretation and Evaluation. As we saw in the last chapter, this happens
before processed information is passed to the conscious mind for examina-
tion. This is where information is shaped into story. We need to see how
the mind does that and what story form it naturally uses. If you shape
your material into that specific story structure, then it will pass through to
the conscious mind with few, if any, internal alterations, additions, and
restructurings. Your story reaches the conscious mind, not some other story
created by the receiver’s own mind.
2. Decision Making. What criteria does the mind use to determine if incoming
story information is worthy of receiving attention and being remembered?
3. How does memory work? How is information filed into memory? How is
it recalled from memory? I’ll separate this topic into its own chapter
(Chapter 6).
Turner (1996) concluded, ‘‘Story [emphasis added] is a basic principle of
mind,’’ and ‘‘Most of our experience, our knowledge, and our thinking is organ-
ized as stories.’’ Raw inputs—like lumps of Play-Doh—are shaped into story
form before evaluation by the conscious mind. Because the mind uses hard-
wired, fixed templates (neural maps) to guide this construction process, the
mind is willing to create any missing bits of key information in the raw input.
Why is it important to study the mind in order to understand narrative?
Applebee’s research (1978) concluded that any narrative ‘‘is a product of the in-
ternal workings of the mind, and must reflect the complex processes of that
mind more directly.’’ Applebee (1978) and Holland (1978) both showed that
each reader creates a unique reconstruction of the material that the text provides
based on that person’s internal story scripts. If we study the mind’s activity, we
will understand how to control the reconstruction each mind creates.
Much of this chapter is based on the work by a handful of giants in the fields
of developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, neural biology, and cogni-
tive sciences: Pinker, Bransford (see Bransford and Brown or Bransford and
Stein), Bruner, Schank, Turner, Egan, Applebee, Anderson, Kotulak, Crossley,
Lakoff and Johnson, and Fisher. I refer you to their excellent work for more gen-
eral treatises on mental functioning. I have had to cull through the broader
research by these scientists to locate the limited gems that pertain to the inter-
section of mind and story.
In the few years since the inception of cognitive sciences in the late 1970s,
neural scientists have made many startling and fascinating discoveries. Lakoff
and Johnson (1999) reported on research showing that most thought is uncon-
scious, operating below the level of the conscious mind. As an example, during
every second of a conversation you are:
¥ Accessing memories relevant to what is being said.
¥ Comprehending a stream of sound as language, and forming the sounds
into words and sentences.
¥ Assigning a structure to the sentences in accordance to grammatical
constructs.
¥ Assigning meaning to words and groups of words.
¥ Making semantic and pragmatic sense of the sentences as a whole.
 NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES 31

¥ Framing what is said in terms relevant to the conversation and the speaker.
¥ Performing inferences relevant to what is being discussed.
¥ Evaluating the conversation flow in terms of your own goals and objectives
for this conversation.
¥ Constructing mental images where relevant of conversation information.
¥ Filling in gaps in the discourse with stored experience and structural story
maps.
¥ Noticing and interpreting body language and comparing this interpretation
to your interpretation of the meaning of the language.
¥ Anticipating where the conversation is going.
¥ Planning what to say in response.

Most of this thought is unconscious. Partly because of these types of internal

processings, most conversation is with yourself. You talk to yourself in story
conversation far more than you talk to others. We humans seem to enjoy talking
to ourselves and seem to process and digest mentally much better through inter-
nal conversation than through external conversation.
An example (this from Bickle 2003) of what such a conversation looks like:

I stare at my closet on Friday morning and my little inner voice commences: Pais-
ley shirt or the canary one? Canary. That’s what you feel like. But you gotta dress
up on Monday. Canary shirt today means doing laundry this weekend. Paisley!
But wait. Aren’t you going to meet Sharon for a lunch meeting? Isn’t she the one
who joked about paisley before? Canary. No. Maybe I can use whatever snide jokes
she makes to my own advantage. Paisley! Wait. Do I care if I irritate Sharon?
Would I ever want to date her? No. Fine. Paisley it is.

That conversation would roar through your mind in a matter of seconds and
would likely be complicated by a half dozen additional variables that your
unconscious mind would stream into the story for comparison and evaluation.
And that is just one of hundreds of such internal conversations we each employ
every day. You typically will have 30 or 40 such internal conversations for every
one you share with another person (Baars 1997).
As another example of the new insights that arrive annually, Kotulak (1999)
reported on extensive research showing that ‘‘the ability to form abstract
thoughts is now seen as a consequence of the brain’s learning to read.’’ Abstract
thought and reading wouldn’t seem to be linked. However, cultures who do not
read do not use abstract thought. Once they do learn to read, they are capable
of, and use, abstract thought. Consider the following:

All bears in Yellowstone are black. Bernard is a bear in Yellowstone. What color is
Bernard the Bear?

Easy. Right? Bernard is black. It’s simple logic based on your ability to con-
duct abstract thought and deductive reasoning. However, when even the most
intelligent members of nonliterate societies are asked, they can’t answer. Typi-
cally they say, ‘‘I have never been to Yellowstone and I have never met Bernard
the Bear. How could I possibly know what color he is?’’ (This phenomenon was
also reported by Egan 1997, Bertelson and DeGelder 1988, and Scholes and
Willis 1991.)
Perry (1995), a Baylor College of Medicine neuropsychiatrist, said, ‘‘A thou-
sand years ago in medieval England most people did not think abstractly. How
32 STORY SMARTS

superstitious they were is not dissimilar from the way eight- and nine-year-old
children today view the world.’’ He also stated (and this encourages my hope to
someday learn telepathy and teleportation), ‘‘In the same way that we developed
certain abstract cognitive capability as a function of our ability to read, there is
every reason to believe that there are other untapped abstract capabilities of our
brains that are not being developed by our traditional education system.’’
No, the final chapter in the human mind owner’s manual has certainly not
yet been written. Luckily for us, those chapters that deal with processing narra-
tive are far more concrete and proven.

OWNER’S MANUAL FOR THE HUMAN MIND: THE

CONCEPTS THAT GOVERN THE MIND’S STORY MAP
Cognitive scientists have reached good agreement on how the mind processes
incoming narrative or experiential information. The growing sophistication of
neural net modeling has allowed neurobiologists and neuropsychologists to test
assumptions about brain and mind function. Combined with improved medical
imaging technology, scientists can build neural nets (computer and physical
models), assess outcomes, observe human behaviors and mental functions,
compare the two, and adjust the models’ operation to accurately mimic human
mental function (Pinker 1997).
As I have read this research, I have been struck by a relatively few simple
principles that scientist after scientist describes as the governing concepts that
direct how human minds accomplish this task. I have identified seven of these
principles in my reading and, being a Western buff as a kid in the 1950s and
1960s, instantly named them The Magnificent Seven. The names are mine. The
concepts are regularly described in the literature.
Supporting these concepts, scientists describe a series of more specific mental
techniques (tools) that minds use in order to apply these concepts to incoming
information. I found eleven of them and so named this mental model ‘‘The
7-Eleven Approach’’ to understanding how your mind makes sense of the
world. (See technique #6 to see why this name is so easy for you to remember.)
The 7-Eleven stores are no longer open only from 7 A.M. to 11 P.M. as they
once were. Most are open twenty-four hours a day. Thus, the 7-Eleven store is
an always-available source of needed energy and sugar rush snacks. The term
7-Eleven also stands for the human mind’s always-available system for process-
ing incoming narrative information.
These Magnificent Seven concepts and their empowering specific techniques
describe a more accurate image of what the mind thinks a story is and create a
rational foundation for us to use in building a more succinct and meaningful
definition of story.
What does it look like when the mind uses these concepts to process narrative
information? Here are three sentences:

He went to the store.

Fred died.
Sharon went hungry and wept.
After describing these guiding mental concepts, I’ll show you how you used them
to interpret those three sentences. But first several questions to whet your appetite.
 NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES 33

Did you assume that the ‘‘he’’ in sentence #1 is Fred? Did you try to connect
the first two sentences and wonder if Fred died because he went to the store or
while at the store? Did you presume that Fred went to the store to get some-
thing for Sharon to eat? Did you assume that Fred and Sharon were connected
and that she wept in part because Fred died? Did you deduce that the store Fred
went to was a grocery store?
These are all signs of the Magnificent Seven Concepts at work.
The Magnificent Seven are:
1. Play It Again, Sam
2. Order in the Court
3. Get My Meanin’?
4. Intent Drives the Car
5. Mad about What’s Missing
6. Every Story Is Somebody’s Story
7. Such a Struggle

Play It Again, Sam: What Worked Before Will Work Again

Experience builds expectation. As Bransford and Brown (2000) put it, ‘‘Expe-
rience builds structures of the mind [neural maps] by modifying physical struc-
tures [synapse connections] of the brain.’’ Neurons and circuits that fire together
wire together so that they will always fire together in the future. If using story
maps to interpret experience and narrative input worked before, we assume it
will work again and automatically engage those same sets of neural circuits to
process the next batch of incoming information.
In Pinker’s (1997) words, ‘‘The mind is a system of organs of computation,
designed by natural selection to efficiently solve the kinds of problems our ances-
tors faced.’’ What successfully solved problems for past generations becomes
hardwired into future generations as automatic mental functions.
Respected neural net modeler J. Anderson (1993) has noted the necessity to
strengthen the likelihood of using a specific pathway each time that pathway is
used. He has needed to incorporate that concept into his computer models in
order to accurately mimic the functioning of actual human minds. The more
you use it, the more you rely on it.
Bruner (2003) observed, ‘‘Why do we use story as the form for telling about
what happens in life and in our own lives? Because, most often, life follows
story form and format. We use it because it usually works. Because it usually
works, we have learned to rely on it as our primary mental model.’’
Crossley (2000) showed through her research and writing that ‘‘for the most
part it is ‘normal’ for us to experience things as stories because, for the most
part, things do, after all, make sense and hang together in story sequences.’’
This human tendency for story is further reinforced by a powerful feedback
loop. Bruner (2003) stated, ‘‘We cling to narrative models of reality and use
them to shape our everyday experiences. . . . Stories, including fictional narra-
tives, give shape to things in the real world and often bestow on them a title to
reality.’’ Because we each view our past experience and lives in story terms,
viewing new experiences and narratives in story terms ‘‘fits’’ better with our
banks of previous experience and makes the new experience seem real and
meaningful. We continue to rely on mental story structures to interpret and
34 STORY SMARTS

understand events because we have relied on them in the past. We assume that
mental story maps that worked before will surely work again.

Order in the Court

We assume that all parts of a narrative or event are connected, and that we
can—and must—impose order and common structure on new narrative infor-
mation and sequential experience. Another way of saying this is: We require
that It Makes Sense. We’ll create (mentally invent) what we have to create to
make it make sense by using such mental tools as cause-and-effect sequencing,
temporal sequencing, centering around a common theme, character analysis, etc.
If we can’t detect that some order exists in a narrative, we tend to discount and
ignore the source material.
Bransford and Brown (2000) stated, ‘‘Particularly important is the finding that
the mind imposes structure on the information available from experience and
interprets (creates meaning for) experience through this story structure.’’ Cross-
ley (2000) called story ‘‘the organizing principle for human action,’’ and she said
that ‘‘humans always seek to use story structure to impose order and organiza-
tion on the flow of experience.’’
Anderson (1993) used computer neural net models at Carnegie Mellon
University to show that ‘‘cognitive skills are realized by production rules that
forcibly impose order on sensory inputs.’’ He concluded that ‘‘this is one of the
most astounding and important discoveries in psychology and may provide a
base around which to come to a general understanding of human cognition.’’
Readers construct a mental representation of a situation and actions that
seems rational and reasonable and then use this mental model to interpret and
evaluate later statements in the text. Readers tend to remember the mental
model they constructed from a text, rather than the text itself (Bower and
Morrow 1990, Johnson-Laird 1983, Sanford and Garrod 1981).
Close (2000), said, ‘‘Our minds have to explain irregularities . . . in story
terms.’’ We need for narrative information to appear orderly and understand-
able and will invent such story-based information as needed in order to explain
any apparent irregularities.
Examples of this mental ordering and connecting abound. You do it every time
you read new information. The three sentences I offered near the beginning of
this chapter are an example. Crossley (2000) has shown that ‘‘if you present three
pictures or sentences to a person, they will automatically connect them together
to form a story, an account that ascribes motives and goals to the elements pre-
sented and that relates the provided images or pictures in some patterned way.’’
Any three sentences or pictures will do. As an example, here are three new ones.

John quietly locked the door and pressed his back against it as he leered at the chil-
dren in the room.
The ship’s horn blasted three times as the last line was cast off the forward bollard
and the gap between ship and dock began to grow.
A glowing full moon, harsh as a spotlight, made him blink as he crept from the shad-
ows into its merciless gaze.

Three random sentences. There is no connection. But don’t you naturally want
to connect them, to make them fit together? Why was John leering? What’s on the
 NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES 35

ship that relates to John and the children? Them? The children’s protector? Who
stepped out into the moonlight? Was he hiding? From whom? Why did he creep?
Your mind naturally wants to impose order and linkage on any narrative.

Get My Meanin’?
Patrick Henry might have said, ‘‘Give me meaning, or . . .’’ Well, there is no
‘‘or.’’ Human minds demand meaning. To accommodate that demand, we
assume that narrative always has meaning and that all of the information fits to-
gether to reveal that meaning. We are willing to create what we need to create
in order to obtain the meaning of a narrative or situation. If we see no meaning,
we ignore the narrative.
Why is meaning so centrally important? Johnson’s research concluded that
‘‘every one of us is actively plotting our lives, both consciously and uncon-
sciously, by attempting to construct ourselves as significant characters within
what we regard as meaningful life stories. As soon as people secure the most
meager existence, they begin to worry about the meaning, value, and purpose of
their lives’’ (Johnson 1999). We demand meaning from narratives because we
seek it as a primary goal in our lives.
When we listen to a melody we do not consider individual notes as isolated
elements. Rather, each note is understood as part of a sequence as a whole. Each
note takes on meaning only in relation to the note that has preceded it and in
anticipation of that which will succeed it. Human minds do the same thing with
narrative. But instead of using melody to impose meaning, we use mental story
templates (maps). Individual experiences only assume meaning within the con-
text of a time-based, sequenced story.
Miller and Johnson-Laird (1986) studied strategies for pursuing meaning and
concluded that humans use story structure to fabricate meaning from narratives
and experiences. Hardcastle (2003) concluded from her study, ‘‘From the begin-
ning, children try to understand the world and self as meaning something by
creating stories with plot and temporal sequence.’’ Sperber and Wilson (1982)
concluded, ‘‘We characteristically assume that what somebody says must make
sense, and we will, when in doubt about what sense it makes, search for or
invent an interpretation to give it sense.’’
In his multidecade study of the concept of meaning, Bruner (1990) showed
that story elements are prelinguistic and are relied on from birth to extract
meaning from the events and actions of others. He also concluded that ‘‘stories
achieve their meanings by explicating deviations from the ordinary in a compre-
hensible form.’’
We think we understand normal behavior and have predetermined its mean-
ing. So we tend to pay no attention to such expected behavior and narrative.
However, we need story structure to explain deviations from those expected
norms and to extract appropriate meaning from those deviations. To accomplish
this monumental mental juggling feat, we use mental tools such as assumptions,
implications, inferences, and presuppositions.
What does this search for meaning look like in action? Here is a two-line con-
versation:
Person 1: ‘‘Where’s Jack?’’
Person 2: ‘‘Well . . . I didn’t want to have to tell you. But I saw a yellow VW parked
in front of Susan’s.’’
36 STORY SMARTS

Those two sentences introduce four characters: Persons #1 and #2, Jack, and
Susan. Read the sentences twice and you will typically begin to construct rela-
tionships between these four people and histories to those relationships in order
to ascribe meaning to the event presented in the two quotes. Jack could have
gone to Carol’s to study and his mother, Person #1, doesn’t want him to get
good grades and go to college. Carol’s may be a restaurant and Jack has gone
there to break his diet. The relationships you envisioned are your own fabrica-
tion, created by your own mind just to satisfy your own demand for meaning.
We assume it makes sense first, and figure out how to create or find that
meaning second.

Intent Drives the Car

We assume that what characters do and what they say—how they act—are
the result of, and a reflection of, the characters’ intent. Intent is made up of goal
(what a character wants) and motive (why the goal is important to them). Both
goal and motive are representations of the character’s beliefs and values. Inten-
tions dictate and control behavior. Behavior reveals those goals, beliefs, and val-
ues. Intent steers and the body follows.

¥ Johnson (1999) stated, ‘‘The myriad acts we perform each day . . . are done
for some purpose or other. Most of the time we pursue these purposes with
little or no conscious reflection or awareness. Still, we constantly direct our
energies toward realizing goals.’’
¥ Bower and Morrow (1990) observed, ‘‘Readers assume automatically that a
goal is viewed as causing actions that, in turn, lead to outcomes.’’
¥ Bruner (1990) stated, ‘‘People have beliefs and desires. Actions are based on
these desires and are logical attempts to fulfill desires.’’
¥ Neurophysicist R. Montague (2006) noted, ‘‘Remarkably, the single property
that all biological and mechanical computational systems require is goals.’’
¥ Pinker (1997) agreed that beliefs and goals drive behavior. But Pinker went
further, showing that, if we are to truly understand behavior, we must first
understand beliefs and goals.
An example: Sally smells smoke and leaves the building. Those are actions.
But a correct interpretation of the meaning of those actions depends on under-
standing her goals and motives. We can’t see into another’s mind and have to
make decisions based on available partial information. So we use ‘‘rules of
thumb,’’ stereotypes, and other techniques to fill in a ‘‘most probable’’ goal to
explain the behavior we see.
Sally left because she believes that smoke means danger and she wants to be
safe. Right? Maybe. But maybe she left because she set the fire and wants to
vamoose before she’s caught. Maybe she left because she is a known pyroma-
niac and fears arrest even though she didn’t set it. Maybe, though it is only the
smoke from her roommate’s pipe, she has a morbid fear of being burned, pan-
icked, and fled.
The same actions can have radically different meanings depending on the
goals and motives of the actor. Typically, however, we assume the most com-
mon, expected motive.
Pinker (1997) said it most succinctly. ‘‘Our minds explain human behavior by
their beliefs and desires because experience shows that people’s behavior, in
 NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES 37

fact, is driven by their beliefs and desires. We learn their beliefs and goals by
studying people’s behavior.’’
A classic example of how dependent we are on goal in order to interpret and
explain action was first created by Heider and Simmel (1964) and again by
Michotte (1963). Both created a movie. Here is the plot: A protagonist strives to
attain a goal. An antagonist interferes. Thanks to a helper, the protagonist finally
succeeds. This movie, however, stars three dots. One dot moves some distance up
an inclined line, back down, and up again, almost reaching the top. Another
abruptly collides with it, and the first dot moves back down. A third gently
touches our ‘‘main character’’ and moves together with it to the top of the incline.
Viewers see only the motion of these three dots. Still, all observers—all (and
this test has been given to three-year-olds and up)—see the first dot as trying to
reach the top, the second as hindering it, and the third as helping it to reach its
goal. Actions have no meaning without goals and motives.
This human goal dependency starts early. Bruner (1990) and Fillmore (1968
and 1977) clearly showed that a young child is early and profoundly sensitive to
goals, motives, and their achievement (for example, ‘‘all gone,’’ ‘‘uh-oh’’).
Research with twelve-month-olds shows that babies interpret cartoons of mov-
ing dots as if the dots were seeking goals with purpose and intent (Pinker 1997).
Further, this dependence on goal and intent is universal. Pinker (1997) stated,
‘‘Contrary to widespread belief that cultures can vary arbitrarily and without
limit, surveys of the ethnographic literature show that the peoples of the world
share an astonishingly detailed universal psychology.’’ He went on to show that
character and goal were central to the core stories of every known culture.
Science can’t even describe the actions of a gene without assuming goal and
motive. In his book The Selfish Gene (2006) Dawkins’s central thesis is that genes
achieve their goal by the way they build human brains to enjoy life, health, sex,
friends, relationships, and struggles.
Bransford and Stein (1993) showed that specified goals define a story and
define the appropriate actions and events that are relevant to that story. Con-
sider the impact of knowing a character’s goal on your ability to create meaning
and to remember. Read this list of seven simple sentences (Bransford and Stein
1993) once and try to remember them:

The fat one bought the padlock.

The skinny one purchased the scissors.
The toothless one plugged in the cord.
The barefoot one climbed the steps.
The bald one cut out the coupon.
The kind one opened the milk.
The poor one entered the museum.

Cover the list. Do you remember which one purchased scissors? Which cut out
a coupon? Which one climbed steps? Which bought a padlock? Probably not. Now
reread the sentences with the addition of a stated or strongly implied goal for each.

The fat one bought the padlock to place on the refrigerator door.
The skinny one purchased the scissors to use when taking in her pants.
The toothless one plugged in the cord to the food blender.
38 STORY SMARTS

The barefoot one climbed the steps leading to the vat of grapes.
The bald one cut out the coupon for a hair restoration clinic.
The kind one opened the milk to give to a hungry child.
The poor one entered the museum to find shelter from the snowstorm.
Easier to remember? Of course. Because goal creates relevance and meaning
for an action. Also notice that, with the addition of a goal, your mind tends to
create a vivid picture of the scene and (usually) to extend the scene forward and
backward through time into a complete story. That is the effect of story intent.
Here is another example of the power of goal on readers (Bransford and Stein
1993). Read this paragraph:

Sally let loose a team of gophers. The plan backfired when a dog chased them
away. She then threw a party but the guests failed to bring their motorcycles. Fur-
thermore, her stereo system was not loud enough. Sally spent the next day looking
for a ‘‘Peeping Tom’’ but was unable to find one in the Yellow Pages. Obscene
phone calls gave her some hope until the number was changed. It was the installa-
tion of a blinking neon light across the street that finally did the trick. Sally framed
the ad from the classified section and now has it hanging on her wall.

Confusing, isn’t it? Note, however, that this is a plot, a series of actions or
events. It is also frustrating and meaningless. Plot alone cannot convey meaning.
However, if I add Sally’s goal and motive, you will easily make sense out of it.

Sally hates the woman who moved in next door (motive) and wants to drive her out
(goal).

Now reread the paragraph and see if your mind doesn’t conjure images and
sequences that make sense to you. Goal and motive provide structure, purpose,
and organization to a narrative. Intent lies at the core of human narrative
understanding.

Mad about What’s Missing

Incomplete is good enough for human minds. Incomplete is not only good
enough, it is the expected norm and is even preferred by human minds. Our
minds are designed to work with partial information and fill in the missing infor-
mation to arrive at understanding (Pinker 2000).
When a Pleistocene-era enraged wooly mammoth burst through the trees or a
horde of spear-wielding strangers jogged into your clearing, there was no time
to gather a complete understanding. Was the mammoth running toward some-
thing or away from something? Was it aiming toward you or arching off toward
the path to your left? Did the squad of newcomers want to chat or to kill? Were
they friend or foe?
There was no time to gather complete information and make an informed de-
cision about appropriate action. He who hesitates is lost—and in these cases
usually dead. Human minds developed the ability to make instant decisions by
combining partial information with rules of thumb, with assumptions, with nor-
mal expectations, and with mental story maps. Working with incomplete infor-
mation became our standard operating procedure.
Neural researchers say that this constant flow of partial information creates
constant ambiguities. We use an iterative process where assumptions are made
 NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES 39

that result in calculations that are used to check and correct the assumptions
and reduce future ambiguity (Pinker 1997).
Possible combinations of meanings based on these assumptions are pre-coded
and pre-connected in the brain before cognitive processing. Only the possible
meanings that are consistent with our assumptions and neural models and maps
are allowed in for cognitive consideration. That is, we only initially consider
meanings and interpretations that we expected to find, that we are predisposed
to find. We instantly assess based on preconceived stereotypes and other base
cues.
The other six concepts I describe in this chapter are, in fact, rules of thumb
created to deal efficiently with incomplete narrative and experiential informa-
tion. We don’t need to quiz a dozen spear-wielding strangers about their
individual intentions. We glance at their face and body posture and use character-
based story assumptions and stereotypes to quickly decide—stay or run.
Our system of filling in around incomplete information with what we most
expect is the basis of countless visual tricks and illusions. It is the foundation
of magic. You see what you expect to see and are fooled every time by what
you didn’t see because you never expected it and so never looked for or
observed it.
We assume that walls and floors are rectangles meeting at right angles and so
fall prey to carnival ‘‘shrinking room’’ illusions. We expect that, when a magician
shuffles a deck of cards, that the cards will change order in the deck. We expect
that, when a magician says he’s picking up the top card on a deck, and when it
looks like he’s doing what we’d do to pick up the top card, that, in fact, he has.
Presto! We’re amazed when it’s not and give credit to the magician rather than
blame our own sets of assumptions for dealing with incomplete information.
Another visual example is the oft-used Kanizsa triangle (Zeki 1993, 263). This
picture is a geometric diagram of solid bars, shaded rectangles, lines, and
angles. A triangular-shaped void in the middle is only partially outlined and
defined by the places where this space intersects and seems to overlay the bars,
shaded areas, and lines. Still, all viewers ‘‘see’’ the triangle that isn’t there
because we are used to working with incomplete information and filling in to
make the entire image make the best possible sense.
The same concept applies to narrative information. We assume cause-and-
effect relationships and we assume that actions are designed to achieve goals.
We assume rational character behavior. We use our neural story maps to define
what we expect based on even the scantiest information we are actually given.
Why? Because these assumptions normally work and because they allow us to
make instant decisions without waiting to gather more complete information.
Consider Goldilocks. The story never says why she ventured into the bears’
house. She heads for the kitchen and eats. So we guess that she must have been
hungry (as opposed to her being a compulsive glutton). She pokes around a bit,
so we assume she’s a curious kid (as opposed to a thief casing the premises).
She wanders upstairs to take a nap, so we assume she must be tired.
These are all assumptions we come to after the fact based on what she does.
Upon careful review, none of these makes much sense—especially since she is
traipsing through a house where one swipe from any paw of any resident could
kill her. Still, we launch happily into the story without knowing her intent
because we don’t mind working with incomplete information and believe that
we’ll figure it out soon enough.
40 STORY SMARTS

Incomplete information may be fine with the receiving mind, but it is a bane
for the writer or speaker. Each mind will fill in with its own version of goals,
motives, values, beliefs, attitudes, cause-and-effect relationships, etc. That is,
each mind will create and remember its own meaning from your material, not
your intended meaning. The more carefully you deliver the core information a
receiving mind needs, the less creative work that mind is forced to do, and the more
likely it is that your actual messages are received, considered, and remembered.

Every Story Is Somebody’s Story

It seems obvious. Amazingly, most ignore it when preparing informative
articles, essays, textbooks, and presentations. It may be the information you
want to communicate, but it is the story characters that make it relevant, mean-
ingful, and compelling (worth remembering) to readers and listeners. We don’t
understand events, actions, narratives, without viewing them from the perspec-
tive of a character.
Olmstead analyzed over a thousand successful articles, essays, and short sto-
ries and found that each focused on character, intent, and emotional state to cre-
ate meaning from events. ‘‘Too often we are taught that essays are about ideas.
They are discussed in terms of logic, argument, theory, and delivery. Yes, essays
are about ideas, but the writer is telling the story of that idea and stories are told
through characters’’ (Olmstead 1997).
Try it. Imagine any favorite movie. Now remove the characters. Describe the
events without reference to the characters. Did you lose the meaning? Did it
make sense? Now describe everything you know about the characters, their
goals and motives, their attitudes and characteristics, and the conflicts/problems
and risk/danger they must face. Easier? More interesting? Character is central
to your understanding of narrative.
Writers and storytellers have long known this fundamental truth.
¥ Syd Lieberman (2005), a leading American storyteller and an author of
several story collections: ‘‘It is the human effort that fascinates, excites, and
empowers. Put a human face on the effort.’’
¥ John Gardner (1978), novelist: ‘‘The first thing that makes a reader read a
book is the characters. The more memorable the characters, the more mem-
orable the novel.’’
¥ El-Youssef (2006), a Palestinian author and journalist: ‘‘A novel (story) has
opened people’s minds and awareness as my fact-based essays and articles
never did and never could.’’
¥ Steven King (2000) begins each book by envisioning a stressful situation.
He then looks at each character present and marches backward through
their lives to see who they are and how they got into this situation. Story,
for King, is about the characters.
Researchers have come to the same conclusion. Rule and Wheeler (1993) stud-
ied writing elements that produced reader interest and concluded, ‘‘A story is
about people. About people in trouble or conflict. Caring about the main charac-
ter makes readers care about the story.’’
In his book on myth and mythic writing, Frey (2000) devotes an entire chap-
ter entitled ‘‘What It’s All about Is WHO.’’ That chapter is just on the main char-
acter. He presents a separate whole chapter on the antagonist (The Evil One)
 NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES 41

and the interaction of these two pivotal positions. Character is the focus of
story.
Taylor (1996) spent considerable time establishing the notion that we literally
need to watch characters face and make decisions and that these decisions—in
order to have any significance to the reader—require a goal that is important to
the character.
‘‘Whether a story is believable depends on the believability and reliability of
character’’ (Fisher 1987). Readers make this decision by applying the Magnifi-
cent Seven concepts to assess a character’s decisions and actions and deciding
what values, motives, and intents those actions represent. Readers view actions
(plot) to understand character (not the other way around). Beyond mere believ-
ability, Bower and Morrow (1990) showed that readers attribute competence
and noble motives to the character with whom they identify, especially when
that character faces significant conflicts and obstacles.
Supporting the concept of Mad about What’s Missing, Fisher (1987) showed
that readers search actions to determine character values and then assess the
character by comparing those values against their version of known archetypes
(town marshal, knight-errant, schoolmarm, greedy banker, etc.). Again, the
value of narrative actions is that they help readers evaluate characters.
In a 1986 experiment, Bruner read story passages to subjects and recorded the
subjects as they retold the story. Subject story versions were universally character-
based renditions of the story (not plot-based) and often dealt more heavily in
character feeling, thinking, and internal emotions than did the original. (‘‘They
each converted the story into a tale of character—character and circumstance’’
[Bruner 1986].) Plus, many of these ‘‘tell backs’’ added themselves as a character
in their telling, including their experience of hearing the story as a source of
viewpoint and perspective for their listeners.
This focus on character as the central organizing concept for narrative under-
standing begins early in life. While studying London school children, Applebee
(1978) concluded that children grasp that stories don’t have to be about real
things long (a year or more) before they accept that the characters in those
fictional stories might also be fictional.
Similarly, Egan (1997) showed that story abstractions (in Peter Rabbit, for
example) are meaningful to young children when the children can base their
understanding on the motives, intentions, hopes, and fears of characters that
seem familiar and real to children. Somebody has to venture into the bears’ house
and dig herself into deeper and deeper trouble as she gobbles breakfast and
smashes furniture so that readers can see the dangers of excessive spontaneous
curiosity. It doesn’t have to be Goldilocks. It could be anyone. But it has to be a
specific someone.
Not only do we demand that characters exist in narratives so that we have a
viewpoint through which to assess and evaluate story information and events,
we demand to know enough about these characters to be able to assess them as
a way to evaluate events and information. Narrative writing is all about
character.

Such a Struggle
Readers search for meaning not through successes and achievements, but
through conflict and struggle. Conflict is energy. It is tension. Conflict is the
42 STORY SMARTS

engine that drives excitement in a story. But it is the struggles of a character

against these conflicts and problems that reveal meaning to readers. Lyon (2003)
observed, ‘‘The universality of human suffering and struggle compels your
reader—a stranger—to invest in your story.’’
Bransford and Stein (1993) showed that ‘‘a suitable story problem exists when
there is a discrepancy between the initial state and a desired goal state, and
when there is no ready-made solution for the problem solver.’’
The key there is the ‘‘no ready-made solution’’ part. It is easy to demonstrate.

Mary desperately wanted—needed—some ice cream. So she walked into the kitchen
and got some. The End.

It’s just wrong. It’s not worth telling, hearing, or remembering. Such a story
is even offensive to many. It violates some core tenet of narrative structure. We
need it to be hard for Mary. We need for there to be no ready-made way for her
to get her ice cream and we need her to exert great effort and to face risk and
danger en route to her ice cream. We need her to struggle so that we will find
meaning and value through her struggle.
We don’t care about Mary, her ice cream, or her story until she struggles.
Struggle unlocks the key to successful story structure. You may want to commu-
nicate accomplishments and achievements, but it is the character’s struggles to
get there that give those accomplishments any meaning or relevance to the
reader, that give them meaning and value.
Zaltman (2003) reported on a study using an illustration of two running mon-
sters in a long, receding tunnel (originally drawn by Roger Shepard in 1990).
Both monsters are actually identical in every detail. One is placed in the fore-
ground, the other in the background—apparently farther back in the tunnel. The
second monster seems to be bigger because the perspective lines of the tunnel
make it appear to fill the tunnel. In the study, people viewed the illustration for
four seconds. All viewers then reported seeing a large monster with an angry
expression chasing a smaller one with a frightened expression who was trying to
get away. Even after people were told and shown that the monsters were identi-
cal, they still viewed the two monsters in the same way, insisting that one
looked angry and the other looked frightened. They still insisted that one was
struggling to escape and that one was struggling to catch. The illustration made
no sense without character purpose based on implied struggle. Study research-
ers concluded that essential story emotions and elements were more powerful
than facts. We need to see characters struggle to obtain or do something that is
important to them.
Children writers I work with habitually want life to be easy for the characters
they create. They tend to give their main characters super powers and then find
that they have no story to tell that isn’t boring for readers. Why? Life is too easy
for the character with the most power. So we only appreciate the king when he
seems racked by woes and wistfully wonders ‘‘what the simple folk do.’’ Even
the lordly king has to struggle if we readers are to care.
Think of the Lone Ranger. He sits in his hotel room polishing tarnish off of
his silver bullets when he hears a cry, ‘‘The bank’s being robbed!’’ In a flash our
beloved ranger has strapped on his gun belt and donned his mask and jangling
spurs. He races down the stairs and out onto the dust-blown street to find
hunched-over, eighty-eight-year-old Swedley Scramblebrain shuffling out of the
 NOGGIN KNOW-HOW: THE MIND IS WHAT THE BRAIN DOES 43

bank tapping his white-tipped cane on the wood-plank sidewalk muttering,

‘‘Ha! I stole a penny! I stole a penny!’’
The Lone Ranger snatches Swedley up under one arm, hustles him to jail,
and locks him up. Case closed!
And we readers are totally dissatisfied. Anybody could have made that arrest.
In fact, our sympathies run with poor, blind Swedley and we’re angry with our
hero for not showing a bit of compassion.
What’s wrong? No struggle for the Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger only earns
our respect and admiration when he struggles. We are only on his side and care
about his issues and concerns when he struggles to reach them. We want Swed-
ley to be backed by a gang of twenty ex-NFL thugs armed with rifles, shotguns,
pistols, and knives and carrying double bandoliers of ammunition. We want
Swedley to have stolen $100,000—the entire savings of everyone in town. We
want the Lone Ranger to have been captured, rolled up in barbed wire, and
tossed onto the train tracks with the ‘‘2:10 to Yuma’’ express train only sixty sec-
onds away and barreling down the tracks. And we want the Lone Ranger’s only
available weapon to be a small pocket comb with two teeth missing.
Now we care. Now we’ll root for the Lone Ranger. Why? Now he has to
struggle, facing grave risk and danger to get free, arrest Swedley, and save the
town. How characters deal with problems as they try to reach goals will remind
readers/listeners of their own struggles and goals. It creates context and rele-
vance for story information.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN IN ACTION

Let’s return to our three-sentence demo and see how these concepts lead you
toward creating meaning from three random sentences. The sentences were:
He went to the store.
Fred died.
Sharon went hungry and wept.

1. You assume that there must be some organization, order, and connection
between the three sentences and search for possible sequencing that will
provide clues as to what that connection is.
2. With no obvious linkage between sentences, you activate your neural story
map to create enough information to garner meaning and to understand
the narrative. Why? Because it has worked well for you in the past. If, on
the other hand, you decide that these sentences are pointless and meaning-
less, you discount and ignore the narrative. People often do that when they
aren’t given sufficient story information with the data and technical
information.
3. You don’t mind that you are given grossly insufficient information in these
three sentences. Incomplete is good enough. You are willing to create the
missing elements and you assess what information you need.
4. You assume that the story is about Fred and Sharon (it has to be some-
body’s story) and assume that ‘‘he’’ in sentence #1 must be Fred—even
though English grammar rules tell you that ‘‘he’’ refers not to the follow-
ing noun, ‘‘Fred,’’ but to some unknown masculine noun listed some-
where above.
44 STORY SMARTS

5. You impose a relationship to your characters in order to create story order.

You assume that Fred and Sharon are somehow linked and that Fred’s
actions (going to the store) and Sharon’s actions (weeping and going hun-
gry) are also connected.
6. You assume cause-and-effect sequencing in order to impose story structure
on this narrative information. You figure that Fred went to the store and
then died and that because he died and never got back from the store,
Sharon wept and went hungry.
7. Having created a general story structure, you search for intent. (Actions
are always the results of goals.) Why did Fred go to the store? What did he
want to do or buy? Why did Sharon weep? What was Fred to her?
8. You seek struggle in order to make sense of the story. Did Fred die because
he went to the store? Was it too far for his weak heart? Did he try to carry
too much back? Does Sharon now have to deal with the heartbreak of the
loss of a loved one?
9. If your conscious mind is interested in what you have created so far and it
sees meaning and relevance in this story creation, you will typically try to
flesh out the characters and invent character traits for Fred and Sharon that
make them seem real and believable.
The Magnificent Seven have spun straw into gold and handed you the core
elements of a plausible story complete with meaning and relevance. Human
minds use these concepts as guides to create stories to feed to the conscious
mind out of virtually every narrative and experiential event.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR US

Human minds use a specific story structure to impose order onto incoming
narrative and experiential information. These seven concepts represent the
themes by which the mind accomplishes this amazing feat. Story creators and
users need not only to be aware of these concepts, they need to accommodate
and support them by giving readers what they need in order to deliver the
original message, meaning, and intent to the conscious mind.
Review your narrative creations not just for content accuracy and complete-
ness, but also for story completeness. Have you presented sufficient information
about the characters in your narrative (real or imagined)? Do we clearly see their
intent? Do we see their struggles? If the story elements draw a reader in, the
content information will be relevant and worthy of being remembered.
 CHAPTER 5

MIND MECHANICS

The goal of the mental gymnastics we perform on incoming information is to

create context and relevance for the conscious mind.

Chapter 4 concepts lay the foundations for how the mind processes narrative in-
formation in its effort to create meaning, context, and relevance for the con-
scious mind. There are a series of specific techniques reported in the research
that the mind uses to enforce these concepts on incoming information. These
techniques further reveal the key pieces of information the mind seeks (or cre-
ates) for every narrative. We will use these core bits of narrative information to
develop a more coherent definition of story in Chapter 7.
These techniques are employed at the automatic, subconscious level. Our
minds rarely notice when we employ them individually or (more commonly) in
combination to complete the wondrous mental gymnastics required by the con-
scious mind. We only notice their combined output, the results of their activity
and of the story maps they use.

ELEVEN MENTAL TOOLS

I have identified eleven of these mental tools from the research. Seven con-
cepts; eleven techniques—hence the 7-Eleven approach to how we humans proc-
essing narrative information:
1. Assumptions
2. Cheat Sheets
3. Expectations
4. Inference
5. Pattern Matching
6. Prior Knowledge
46 STORY SMARTS

7. Binary Opposition
8. Blending
9. Language and Syntax Rules
10. Emotions Rule
11. Details

Eleven techniques is a lot to wade through when part of you wants to jump
straight to a better definition of story and then assess the research. But your time
here will be well rewarded in an improved understanding of the elements that
give stories their power and effectiveness and that will form the core of our
definition.

Assumptions
I used the word assume many times in the last chapter describing how human
minds employ the Magnificent Seven concepts. We make myriad mental assump-
tions and then treat them as reliable truth to ease and speed the processing of new
experiences. We take relationships and propositions for granted without man-
dating supporting evidence. That’s an assumption.
Here’s a quick demonstration of our tendency to make assumptions. Consider
these two sentences:
John felt lonely. He rang the neighbor’s doorbell.

1. We assume, and try to forcibly construct, a logical linkage between the two
sentences.
2. We assume that John wanted company (a goal) and that he believed that
company would relieve his feeling of loneliness (a motive).
3. We assume that he went next door and rang the bell in order to achieve
that goal (an action to achieve his goal).
4. We assume that he wanted someone to answer.

We make instant assumptions based on what we consider to be normal

behavior to fill gaps in the information required by our story neural maps. They
aren’t necessarily true. We simply assume they are until new information proves
otherwise. The person next door might be an elderly, invalid man. When John
feels lonely, he might turn mean and have decided to harass the neighbor for a
laugh by making him struggle out of bed. The two sentences might not relate at
all. We only assume that they do. John’s job might be to ring doorbells and that
action may not affect his feeling of loneliness in any way. Without more infor-
mation, it’s all assumptions—assumptions we are always willing to make in
order to complete our neural story map.
Here are a few of the major narrative and experiential assumptions we make.
These may all seem commonsense and reasonable. But they are just assumptions.
Each of the Magnificent Seven mental concepts is backed by an enabling men-
tal assumption. We assume that the concepts are accurate and valid. Key among
these activating assumptions are:
¥ Written or told narratives always make sense. As Sperber and Wilson
(1982) said, ‘‘We characteristically assume that what somebody says must
make sense, and we will, when in doubt, search for or invent an interpreta-
tion of the utterance to give it sense.’’
 MIND MECHANICS 47

¥ All actions are designed to achieve goals.

¥ The parts of a narrative always connect and have an organizing order.

Other key assumptions include:

¥ Everyone thinks as I do. We assume that all rational humans process infor-
mation in the same manner and base their thinking on the same underlying
principles that govern our own thinking. They don’t consciously think our
thoughts, share our values, and draw our same conclusions. But they are
the same in that they base actions on their intent, use the same general con-
cepts to supply their conscious thinking, use their own values and beliefs
to govern their thought processes, and draw conclusions and meanings
based on others’ behavior.
¥ What people actually say is new and important. Through his studies of
how people interpret and respond to narratives, Bruner (1990) concluded,
‘‘What one does not utter is assumed to be presupposed or given. What one
does utter is assumed to be new’’ (emphasis added). For example, it would
not normally make sense for someone to say, ‘‘This room has walls.’’ That
is automatically assumed, a given—unless this were new and uncommon
information when, for example, you were in a tropical island village where
the huts are commonly built without walls.
In this way, we judge everything a character says to be (in their view)
new and significant information that will reveal character and provide key
story information to the reader.
¥ People act rationally according to accepted norms. We assume that people
act pretty much the way we do. School children learn these behavioral rules
beginning in kindergarten (for example, keep your hands to yourself; wait
your turn; don’t interrupt; don’t hit). Deviations from these extensive and
detailed cultural norms require explanation. Without explanation, we
assume these behaviors represent serious character flaws or are the result
of some antisocial goal.
We have, as a culture, taken this concept of normative behavior so far
that it also applies to defining alien intelligence. Science fiction author
David Alexander Smith (who created the first definition of alien intelli-
gence) said that, in order for an alien to be perceived as intelligent, ‘‘You
have to be able to observe the alien’s behavior and say, ‘I don’t understand
the rules by which the alien makes its decisions, but the alien is apparently
acting rationally by some set of rules’’’ (Smith 1982).
¥ People agree on appropriate setting-specific norms of behavior. Bruner
(1990) said, ‘‘We take for granted that people behave in a manner appropriate
to the setting in which they find themselves.’’ In the library, they will act library.
At a square dance they’ll act square dance. At work they’ll act office. When peo-
ple act in accordance with these situational norms, their behavior is taken for
granted, needs no further explanation, and merits no further attention.
¥ Temporal sequencing is appropriate and reliable. We assume that it is
appropriate and valuable to organize events according to temporal
sequence. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) observed, ‘‘We take for granted
that locating things in time is the correct way to think about them.’’ Ricoeur
(1984) concluded that ‘‘plot is events placed in time sequence with cause
and effect links established.’’ However, this is, at its core, an assumption.
48 STORY SMARTS

Some Arabic tribal cultures believe that things simply happen according to
the will of Allah and that temporal or other sequencing is irrelevant.
¥ Past explains the present and predicts the future. This assumption is a
subset of temporal sequencing. It is the justification for temporal sequenc-
ing. This assumption allows us to convert temporally sequenced events into
meaning and into predictions of future events.
¥ A person’s face reveals their beliefs, values, attitudes, and emotions. Lakoff
and Johnson (2003) said, ‘‘In our culture, we look at a person’s face—rather
than his posture or movements—to get our basic information about what a per-
son is like.’’ We assume that facial expressions are unrehearsed and not con-
sciously controlled and thus project a character’s true reactions and feelings.
When you detect a discrepancy between what someone says and the way
they say it—their facial expression and vocal tone—you will always believe
the expression and discount the words. Always. If someone curled their
lips, rolled their eyes, and sneered, ‘‘Oh, don’t you look nice today,’’ you
would never feel complimented even though the words were a compli-
ment. We believe the expression.
¥ Cause-and-effect sequencing defines how things really happen. Again
from Lakoff and Johnson (2003): ‘‘Causation is one of the concepts most of-
ten used by people to organize their physical and cultural realities.’’ Infants
first learn cause-and-effect relationships when they learn that they can
directly manipulate objects around them—pull off their blanket, throw their
bottle, drop their spoon (Piaget 1956).
Our willingness to make, and to rely on, assumptions keeps our minds from
getting stuck in information gaps, endlessly spinning our mental gears searching
for something that doesn’t exist.

Cheat Sheets
Neural researchers call them cheat sheets or neural maps. Narratological and
educational researchers call them neural schema, or just schema. The closest fit
for ordinary folk is ‘‘rules of thumb.’’
Pinker (1997) described them this way. ‘‘We mortals have to make fallible
guesses from fragmentary information. Each of our mental modules solves this
unsolvable conundrum by a leap of faith about how the world works. We
use prefabricated mental cheat sheets to guide the making of indispensable
assumptions—the only defense for which being that the assumptions worked
well enough in the world of our ancestors.’’
These neural cheat sheets take a few bits of fragmentary incoming information
(for example, a sound, a glimpse, a tone of voice, a quick scan of a new situation)
and, in two grand leaps, provide the mind enough information to make rational
decisions. First, cheat sheets identify the additional bits of information that the
mind will need. How do they know? Cheat sheets are accumulated banks of experi-
ence. They are lists of what was needed and what was successfully used in the past.
Second, cheat sheets activate banks of prior knowledge to identify the ‘‘best
guess’’ for each missing bit of information. It is an amazing magic trick. Cheat
sheets spin a few incoming signals into entire scenarios complete with character
profiles, intents, dangers, possible actions, and likely outcomes.
As Lakoff’s and Johnson’s (2003) research showed, this neural mapping is not
an abstract, metaphoric process. It is a physical process that creates real synaptic
 MIND MECHANICS 49

structures (neural circuitry linkages and neural clusters called nodes) in the
brain. Each successful use of a cheat sheet gives that neural map impetus to
recruit new neurons into its net, to strengthen its linkages, to increase the likeli-
hood of its use in the future.
Cheat sheets serve a second purpose. Pinker (1997) reported on neural biol-
ogy findings that the brain can process only limited amounts of information at
any one time. So instead of taking the time to compute complete theorems, the
mind relies on crude rules of thumb and cheat sheets to speed processing. Cheat
sheets are a mental efficiency device.
Bruner (1986) described cheat sheets this way: ‘‘As our readers read, as they begin
to construct a virtual text of their own, it is as if they were embarking on a journey
without maps—and yet they possess a stock of maps that might fit this journey, or
might give hints, and besides, they know a lot about journeys and a lot about map
making.’’ He also said that humans’ primary vehicles for processing incoming
narrative or experiential information are our neural story maps (Bruner 1986).
Schank (1990) went so far as to conclude, ‘‘Scripts replace thinking. The think-
ing people do is to decide which script to apply.’’ Later he said that humans auto-
matically select story scripts to understand narrative and experiential information.
Stereotypes are a good example of a cheat sheet element. Character cheat
sheets assume that the more an individual resembles a stereotype, the more
likely he is to belong to that category and will exhibit the full set of stereotypical
behaviors and beliefs for that category. When Gunsmoke’s Marshal Dillon sees a
stranger wearing a black shirt, he becomes suspicious. If that stranger also sports
a black hat and twin, pearl-handled .45s, he fits the Gunsmoke stereotype for a
bad guy and the good marshal took action without waiting for proof positive.
Combining the research of many researchers here are the assumptions most
often cited as being part of human’s story cheat sheet or neural map. (See Pinker
1997, Bruner 1990, Lakoff and Johnson 2003, Schank 1990, Johnson 1996, Fisher
1987, Cooper 1997, and Polkinghorne 1988.)
¥ Time. We organize events chronologically and assume that this will reveal
order, connectedness, meaning. (Things don’t ‘‘just happen.’’)
¥ Cause and effect. We assume that events in the past cause events in the
present and that present events will cause events in the future.
¥ Goals. Goals, beliefs, and motive exist for all characters and for all of their
actions.
¥ Characters act. All characters act to fulfill their goals and desires. Charac-
ters’ actions reveal their beliefs and desires.
¥ Goal driven. All actions are driven by beliefs and goals. Actions are
designed to achieve goals in a manner consistent with beliefs.
¥ Only needed actions. Characters only act to fulfill goals they have not yet
achieved and then only act if they believe an action is required to achieve a goal.
¥ Future actions. A character’s future actions can be predicted by knowing
their past actions and their beliefs and desires.
Consider this paragraph from Cooper (1997) as an example of neural cheat
sheets in action.
Andrew was having a great time at his party. He was playing games and opening
presents. When it came time to blow out the candles on the cake, he blew and blew
but they would not go out. As soon as he thought he had blown out the candles,
they would light again.
50 STORY SMARTS

Notice that, even though events and actions are never explained, you have no
trouble following, picturing, and understanding them. From the opening sen-
tences, we assume this is a birthday party. The provided information fits with
prior experiential knowledge our party cheat sheets dredge out of memory
about birthday parties. From these same banks of knowledge, we know about
cake and candle birthday rituals. From the last two sentences, our story maps fill
in character emotions, motives, goals, beliefs, and probable ages. We can imag-
ine who put the trick candles on the cake and why. We know why Andrew tried
so diligently to blow out the candles. We imagine all other party goers laughing,
know why they laughed and how they felt. We can fill in the entire sequence of
a typical party and know that ice cream is nearby even though not mentioned.
However, individuals from a culture that did not put candles on a cake to
represent age, or that did not have trick candles, or that did not give presents to
the birthday celebrant, would be totally lost and unable to understand this para-
graph since their story maps could not overlay these events into their expected
norms of behavior and activity.
Both Polkinghorne (1988) and Culler (1981) offered the following to demon-
strate the central role of cause and effect in our story maps.
The king died. The queen died.

These sentences trigger neither temporal sequencing nor cause-and-effect

linkage and so do not activate story maps. They are received merely as facts.

The king died and then the queen died.

Here we have temporal sequencing but no hint of cause and effect. Mild curi-
osity might arise about a linkage between the two deaths or even about their
effect on the population and country. But story maps are not yet activated.

The king died and then the queen died from laughing too hard.
This version includes cause-and-effect linkage. Now your story maps can be
activated and you no longer accept the statement as a simple fact. You begin to
wonder about the character and personality of the king and queen and about
their relationship. (Did she laugh so hard because her husband died? Is that how
she really felt about him? Had he banned laughter from the kingdom while he
lived and now she was at last free to indulge?) You begin to make assumptions
about character beliefs, desires, and past actions. These wonderings and
assumptions are signals that your neural story map has been activated and is
trying to locate or create the essential information to expand this fragment of in-
formation as a complete story. That’s what cheat sheets do.
Cheat sheets are powerful, efficient, and are standard operating procedure for
human minds. But they also limit the range of information readers seek and
consider. Once you understand this human reliance on neural story maps and
learn their key elements, you can consistently provide the essential elements that
control how readers select and apply cheat sheets to use with your narrative.

Expectations
We expect things to be as we expect them to be. Bruner (1990), a leading
researcher in this field, said, ‘‘We take for granted that people behave in a
 MIND MECHANICS 51

manner appropriate to the setting in which they find themselves.’’ We have

fixed expectations for places, events, people, and behavior.
Bruner (1986) said,

Our central nervous system seems to have evolved in a way that specializes our
senses to deal differently with expected and with unexpected versions of the world.
Unexpected versions (unexpected in that they violate the neural maps or ‘‘models
of the world’’ stored in the brain) most often alert the cerebral cortex through dis-
charges of impulses in the so-called ascending reticular system, a tangled skein of
fibers that runs in parallel with orderly sensory nerves, both working their way
upstream to the upper brain.

When events, environments, people, or situations match our expectations, we

take little if any note of them. Our sensory system blocks them from reaching
our conscious mind. It cuts down on the clutter the mind must process and con-
sider. Any exception to expectations, however, is flagged for full attention.
A man with only one arm draws stares. Why? We expect humans to have
two even though we know it is possible to have only one. A person with three
arms would draw more attention since that would violate both expectation and
our full range of plausibility. Our expectations control our attention. Again from
Bruner (1986), ‘‘The more unexpected the information, the more processing
space and time it is given. . . . It means that perception is . . . an instrument of the
world as we have constructed it in our expectations.’’
These exceptions to the ordinary must be explained. Such explanations, con-
cluded Bruner (1990),

. . . will always take the form of a story and include reasons (intention, motive,
viewpoints) to make the extraordinary make sense and, within its own context,
seem ordinary. . . . All such stories seem to be designed to give the exceptional
behavior meaning in a manner that implicates both the intentional state of the pro-
tagonist (a belief or desire) and some canonical element in the culture. The function
of the story is to find an intentional state that mitigates or at least makes comprehensible a
deviation from a canonical cultural pattern.

Expectations and surprise are tightly linked. Bruner (1986) showed that ‘‘sur-
prise is a response to a violated presupposition.’’ In his 2003 book, Bruner revis-
ited this concept and concluded that ‘‘story making is our medium for coming
to terms with the surprises and oddities of the human condition. Stories provide
context and structure to render the unexpected less surprising and more
understandable.’’
Bruner (1990) reported that research shows that very young children focus on
the effort to establish and record canonical behavior (expected normative behav-
ior) and to explain deviations from this expected norm. For example, infants
perk up, stop sucking pacifiers, stare longer, or look surprised when something
happens that they did not expect. Expectations begin at birth and define our
view of the world.
As an example of how expectations direct our attention through a story, con-
sider this shipping record:

A three-masted sailing ship, the Fair Wind, sailed on September 13, 1849, from Hali-
fax, Nova Scotia, with a complement of forty-eight sailors and a full load of lumber.
It never reached San Francisco, California, its destination.
52 STORY SMARTS

There is no real interest for readers here. All provided information falls
within the range of our normal expectations. Change the cargo to include the
final treasure trove of Captain Kidd, who hid it along the coast of Canada before
he was hanged. This is of slightly greater interest because it is less expected but
still seems reasonable. Change the cargo again to 300 women being shipped
around to California as mail-order brides in the California gold fields. Now it’s
surprising—even startling. Why? It violates all of your expectations.
The ship sailed uneventfully. No interest there. Change it so that the ship
vanished in a blink less than one-quarter of a mile from the San Francisco docks
as over 500 people stood and watched. Again, this is interesting because it vio-
lates your expectations.
In both cases, you require some explanations. You want to know the story in
order to make sense out of this violation of your expectations. Breaking expecta-
tions creates interest, but also requires explanation.

Inference
We regularly infer one thing based on how we interpret another. Infer sug-
gests the arriving at a decision or opinion by reasoning from known facts or evi-
dence. You begin with your banks of prior knowledge and then consciously
infer from them to some new situation. Inference differs from assumption in
that an assumption is taken for granted and not necessarily based on reasoning
and logical deduction.
Inferences allow us to create connections within a narrative by consciously
associating information in the story domain with our blocks of prior knowledge
in order to make reasoned predictions. Crossley (2000) said, ‘‘When we ask,
‘What does this mean?’ we are asking how something is related or connected to
something or someone else. It is the connections or relationships (real or
inferred) among events that constitute their meaning.’’ Inferences allow readers
to increase their number of relevant connections to a text and thus increase its
personal meaning.
Lakoff and Johnson (2003) have conducted extensive research on the concept
of information transfer from one mental domain to another. They concluded,
‘‘Do we systematically use inference patterns from one conceptual domain to
reason about another conceptual domain? The empirically established answer is
absolutely ‘yes.’’’
You see a black rock against a field of white snow and glance up to see if
there is a small, dark cloud that could be shading the rock. Seeing a clear blue
sky, you infer even lighting across the entire field and conclude that the rock is,
in fact, black.
Bruner (1986) went to extensive lengths to demonstrate that readers use infer-
ence and presupposition (all based on past experience and existing scripts) to
make sense out of narrative. Consider this now familiar example:
Person 1: ‘‘Where’s Jack?’’
Person 2: ‘‘Well . . . I didn’t want to have to tell you. But I saw a yellow VW parked
in front of Susan’s.’’
To make sense of this passage, you study person #2’s line and make two
inferences that form the foundation of whatever relationships and scenario you
imagine to explain the situation. First, you infer that Person #2’s reluctance to
 MIND MECHANICS 53

speak means that the presence of a yellow VW outside Susan’s will be inter-
preted as bad news by person #1. Second, you infer that the location of the yel-
low VW reveals (or at least strongly implies) Jack’s location. With these two
reasoned inferences in hand, you are free to make additional assumptions that
explain the relationships and complete your quest to create plausible meaning.

Pattern Matching
Anderson (1993) studied mental function by building and adjusting computer
neural nets to match the production of human minds. He determined that pat-
tern matching is a key ‘‘reality check’’ by the mind and defined the term this
way: ‘‘Pattern matching refers to the process of determining if a production’s
conditions (narrative input or the result of some mental assessment) match the
contents of working memory.’’
The mind constructs a story domain (image of the place, events, situations,
and characters) based on provided information and then compares this domain
to other real and fictional domains stored in memory. Readers and listeners will
not accept the new story domain if it seems to violate established physics, rules,
expectations, and plausibility without suitable explanation. Typically, readers
react to such violations by being pulled out of the story.
If, in a story, an eight-year-old boy walked unchallenged onto a top-secret,
heavily guarded research lab, most readers would react by saying, ‘‘No way! He
couldn’t do that.’’ Those readers are pulled out of the story and, worse, tend to
automatically discount other story information.
In some versions of an American folk tale, Lazy Jack (sometimes titled, ‘‘Obe-
dient Jack’’), Jack’s mother beats him each time he comes home. It pulled me
out of the story. It seemed wrong to me. The only way I could match her behav-
ior to any known pattern was to say that she was an abusive mother and I
should call child protective services. But that’s not what the story is supposed to
be about. It’s supposed to be a funny, upbeat story. In order to tell the story, I
had to change her behavior to match patterns that were acceptable to me for a
loving and supportive (although certainly frustrated) mother.
Familiarity with, and greater experience with, the patterns and form of story
make it easier to read and understand information in story form. Cooper (1997)
studied this and concluded, ‘‘Students generally have more difficulty reading
expository texts than story texts because they have had less experience with
them and because these texts tend not to follow clear-cut, established patterns.’’
The common structural patterns of a story (even if unconscious) are fixed and
established in every person’s mind. Using this pattern enhances meaning by
increasing the number of inferential connections that readers can make by
matching new story domains into existing story patterns.

Prior Knowledge
Cooper (1997), consistent with other researchers, defines it this way: ‘‘Prior
knowledge is the sum of a person’s previous learning and development and the
experiences that precede a learning situation, story, etc.’’
There are two general types of prior knowledge: topical and structural. Topi-
cal prior knowledge includes all of the banks of information we each have
stored in memory about specific topics, characters, situations, places, events,
and experiences. It’s everthing you have learned and know from the value of p
54 STORY SMARTS

to fifteen decimal places to how to bake a souffle to the address of the houses
you used to live in.
Structural prior knowledge refers to knowledge of the structures we use to
convey information from lists to movies, to songs, to all forms of narrative.
Pinker (2000), Cooper (1997), Bransford and Stein (1993), Durkin (1981), and
many others concur that knowledge of story architecture is the most used of all
of these structural banks.
We employ topical prior knowledge to identify plausible meaning from
poorly worded or unclear sentences.
Dr. Tackett gave a talk on the moon.
We know, topically, that there are no humans on the moon. So grammatically
we now know that ‘‘on’’ means not location but ‘‘about.’’
Cooper (1997), Anderson and Pearson (1984), Adams and Bertram (1980),
Barr et al. (1991) have all clearly stated that research over the past two decades
has established that the process of constructing meaning through reading, writ-
ing, speaking, and listening is based on the prior knowledge that individuals
bring to the situation.
Here is an example (this from Bransford and Stein 1993) of the extent to
which previous knowledge affects your ability to create meaning from, and
remember, text. Consider the following sentences:

John walked on the roof.

Bill picked up the eggs.
Pete hid the ax.
Jim flew the kite.
Frank built the boat.
Harvey flipped the electric switch.
Ted wrote the play.

Before you read any further, cover the sentences and see how many you can
remember. Who build the boat? Who flew the kite? You understand the sentences,
but have no context or relevance for them and so you don’t remember them.
Now let’s shift only the character identity to invoke culturally available prior
knowledge to aid you in creating meaning and memory. I will change only the
names of the seven people.

Santa Clause walked on the roof.

The Easter Bunny picked up the eggs.
George Washington hid the ax.
Benjamin Franklin flew the kite.
Noah built the boat.
Thomas Edison flipped the electric switch.
William Shakespeare wrote the play.

You probably laughed when you read this revised list. Of course you can
remember these seven sentences. You already knew each one. And that’s the point.
As soon as a sentence linked to banks of your prior knowledge, it became relevant
to you and you had a context within which to understand and remember it.
 MIND MECHANICS 55

Here is another example (from Bransford and Stein 1993) of how we humans
use topical and structural prior knowledge to create meaning.

A thirsty ant went to the river. He was carried away by the rush of the stream and
was about to drown. A dove, sitting in a tree overhanging the water, plucked a leaf
and let it fall. The leaf fell into the stream close to the ant and the ant climbed onto
it. The ant floated safely to the bank. Shortly after, a bird catcher came and laid a
trap in the tree. The ant bit and stung him on the foot. In pain, the bird catcher
threw down his trap. The noise made the dove fly away.

Here is how most humans put prior knowledge to work in that paragraph.
First we activate topical (biological and environmental) knowledge. You know
that the ant walked to the river and the dove flew to the tree. You know that a
tree is tall with sturdy branches that could support the dove. You understand
that the ant could drown (in contrast to a fish) and that the dove plucked the leaf
with its beak. You know that gravity made the leaf fall and that leaves will float.
Once you understand the biology and ecology of the event, you activate story
structural knowledge in the form of neural story maps and try to fill in missing
information to create meaning. Most people assume that the dove plucked the
leaf on purpose to save the ant, that the bird catcher planned to capture the
dove, and that the ant bit the bird catcher to repay the dove. You create goals
for each character and cause-and-effect relationships between events to create
meaning.
Now compare your easy interpretation of that paragraph with this one (also
from Bransford and Stein 1993)

Pete argued that data gathered from a NASA voyage to Venus called into question
current theories about the formation of our solar system. Part of his talk empha-
sized the importance of mass spectrometers. He then discussed the isotopes of ar-
gon 36 and argon 38 and noted that they were of higher density than expected. He
also cited the high values of neon found in the atmosphere. He has a paper that is
already written, but he was aware of the need for further investigation as well.

Most people struggle to understand, and to create meaning from, this para-
graph. Why? There are no banks of topical prior knowledge to use to under-
stand the basic relationships and statements. Because no character information
(for example, goals, reactions, or feelings) is given, you can’t use story structure
to gain insight into unfamiliar topical areas.
Interestingly, I have used this example paragraph at NASA workshops.
There, everyone had huge banks of prior topical knowledge. They not only
understood the information, but tried to figure out which satellite was being ref-
erenced and who Pete must be and what papers he would have written on the
topic. They were quite disappointed when I admitted that, as best I knew, Pete
was a fictional character and the paragraph was created by a developmental
psychologist in 1993 for demonstration purposes.
Prior knowledge is a central key to understanding and to the creation of
meaning. It will have a prominent presence in Chapter 9 as we review research
that links story to comprehension and to memory. The more banks of prior
knowledge activated by an incoming narrative, the greater the reader involve-
ment and relevance. When the topic (subject) of a narrative is unfamiliar, famil-
iar story structure becomes a valuable form of prior knowledge to activate in
order to guide the reader toward creating meaning and memory.
56 STORY SMARTS

Binary Opposition
The concept of binary opposition was mentioned back in Chapter 2. It will
come up again in Chapter 9 when I present research results. Of all researchers,
Egan (1997) and Levi-Strauss (1978) have most thoroughly analyzed binary
opposition.
Egan (1997) showed that all concepts, situations, and characters are first
presented in binary terms such as hot/cold, big/little, rich/poor, tall/short,
clever/dumb, patient/impatient, beautiful/ugly, culture/nature, public/
private, active/passive, and obedient/disobedient. Forming binary oppositions
is a primary tool in our sense-making ability.
His research showed that young children (by the age of four) understand
abstract concepts (for example, freedom/oppression, security/fear, knowledge/
ignorance, or independence/disobedience) when placed in binary opposition
within the context of stories (Peter Rabbit, Hansel and Gretel, Pinocchio, Star
Wars). However, they are unable to understand them through logic argument or
rote memorization (Egan 1997).
Paley (1990, 1984) showed how children use binary opposition and story
structure to make sense of their experiences. Levi-Strauss (1978) thoroughly
demonstrated that binary structure is basic to all myths and that the exposure to
such a structure is the key to their proper interpretation. Polkinghorne (1988)
showed that meaning comes from constructing opposing relationships among
things such as same as (or not), similar to (or not), an instance of (or not), stands
for (or not), part of (or not), and caused by (or not).
Egan (1997) developed the idea that human understanding comes from devel-
oping binary opposites and then creating terms that mediate the space between
these two extremes. Thus, hot and cold establish a space within which we can
understand temperature. But the understanding comes through terms that medi-
ate between the binary opposites (warm, cool, tepid, scalding, freezing). The
concept even applies to binary opposites that are discrete and have no mediat-
ing categories (for example, animal/human). Humans then tend to spin fantasy
story worlds wherein the technique of mediation can play unconfined by reality
to produce mythic half-human, half-beasts.
Binary opposition is also the basis for our understanding of abstract concepts
(good/evil, fair/unfair, loyalty/selfishness). ‘‘If abstractions like oppression,
resentment, justice, fairness, revenge, revolt, and their relationships, were not in
place by age four, the typical child would be unable to understand the story of
Robin Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or even Peter Rabbit’’ (Egan 1997).
Binary opposition is an essential tool of meaning. New concepts (both con-
crete and abstract) are more readily understood when presented in binary oppo-
sition. Egan (1997), Levi-Strauss (1978), Paley (1984 and 1990), Polkinghorne
(1988), Crossley (2000), and others have shown that story structure enhances
presentation of, and understanding of, binary opposites.

Blending
Blending is the process of overlaying one set of mental knowledge or images
(called a domain) onto another. You hear someone talk about his struggle to get
to work through the snow and, in your mind, you overlay your own experiences
on top of his to create meaning by comparing the two. Parable, proverb, meta-
phor, analogy, and simile are all forms of blending. Some researchers call this
 MIND MECHANICS 57

process projection. Information from one mental domain is projected onto

another to create new meaning.
While entire books have been devoted to this one mental technique and to its
importance for creating meaning, Lakoff and Johnson (1999 and 2003—focusing
on the power of metaphor) and Turner (1996—focusing on parable) have
devoted more analytical effort to studying the blending process than any other
researchers. Johnson (1999) showed that ‘‘our most important moral concepts
(e.g.: will, action, purpose, duties, rights, laws) are defined by systems of meta-
phors,’’ and that ‘‘we understand morally problematic situations via conven-
tional metaphorical mappings.’’
While middle school students view metaphor as a new and arduous gram-
matical form they must master, Egan (1997) and Winner (1988) demonstrated
that, by age three, children clearly understand metaphors that refer to real-life
situations. ‘‘Seeing is believing,’’ stems from the ‘‘Knowing is seeing’’ metaphor
and starts literally: ‘‘See Daddy come in.’’ ‘‘See the mess I made.’’ Seeing occurs
simultaneously with knowing. From there it advances to ‘‘See what I mean?’’
and ‘‘I see your point’’ (Johnson 1999).
‘‘Affection is warmth,’’ is another example of a literally based story metaphor
that develops during early childhood, built from the experience of being held
(affection) and the warmth of physical contact with another human body. Thus,
a metaphoric association is made because both sets of neurons fire together:
physical sense of warmth and feeling of affection. It grows into ‘‘He’s a warm
person’’; ‘‘She’s cold’’; and ‘‘She’s like ice today’’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1999).
Egan (1997) provided extensive empirical data to support the conclusion that
very young children use metaphor easily, frequently, and naturally. He also pre-
sented data to support the claim that children understand story and metaphor
by age three; logic and reason between the ages of ten and twelve.

Parable and Proverb

Turner, a well-regarded cognitive scientist and neuroscientist, focused on the
use of parable as a mental blending tool. He concluded, ‘‘Parable is the root of
the human mind—the root of thinking, knowing, acting, creating, and plausibly
even speaking’’ (Turner 1996).
In the same 1996 book, Turner said, ‘‘Story is a basic principle of mind’’ and
‘‘Most of our experience, our knowledge, and our thinking is organized as stories.’’
He reconciled these two seemingly inconsistent statements by saying, ‘‘The mental
scope of a story is magnified by projection. One story helps us make sense of (create
meaning from) another. The projection of one story onto another is parable, a basic
cognitive principle that shows up everywhere, from simple actions . . . to complex
literary creations like Milton’s Paradise Lost’’ (emphasis added) (Turner 1996).
A parable is a short story of familiar characters, things, and events that have
hidden symbolic meaning through an allegorical relationship, an analogy with a
moral or religious lesson. The parable of the Good Samaritan is a well-known
example. As you hear the story, you activate your neural story maps and begin
to fill in information about the characters, their intents, and actions. In addition,
you overlay your own life and your own characteristics on top of this story.
Then you compare the two to apply the story’s moral to yourself, asking ques-
tions like, ‘‘If I had passed by, would I have stopped to help?’’ ‘‘Should I stop to
help in the future?’’
58 STORY SMARTS

A proverb is an abbreviated parable (for example, ‘‘Look before you leap,’’

‘‘While the cats away, the mice will play’’). A proverb is the essence of the les-
son or moral of a parable. Though only one phrase in length, proverbs still acti-
vate the same blended space in listener’s minds in order to understand the final
moral provided by the proverb (Turner 1996).
Turner (1996) made extensive use of a story of a proud and clever donkey and
an ox. The ox complained about all the work he had to do. The donkey bragged
that he was so clever he could get the ox out of doing any work. His plan worked
and the farmer, having lost the use of his ox, made the donkey do the ox’s work.
Listeners use neural story maps and story structure to create a story space in
which animals can talk and think as do humans. Listeners then overlay their
prior knowledge of farm life and farm work on top of this talking-animal space
to envision the work that must be done. Finally, they overlay their own experi-
ences and their understanding of character stereotypes (‘‘proud,’’ ‘‘clever,’’ etc.)
to evaluate the actions and outcomes for each character. Listeners then instantly,
automatically blend all of this into a single, seamless whole and extract meaning
to apply back into their own lives. That’s the power of mental blending in action.
The ox and donkey story does it in parable form. The proverb ‘‘Pride cometh
before a fall’’ accomplishes the same mental reasoning and blending in proverb
form.

Metaphor
A metaphor ascribes characteristics of some known concept (mental domain)
onto an unknown or unknowable concept in order to better understand the lat-
ter. The terms and characteristics from the first domain take on new meaning
for the target domain within the space and context of a metaphor.
Lakoff and Johnson (1999) said it this way: ‘‘Because so many of the concepts
that are important to us are either abstract or not clearly delineated in our expe-
rience (emotions, time, ideas, value, peace, etc.) we need to understand them by
means of other concepts that we understand in clearer terms (spatial orientation,
journey, objects, etc.).’’
What do metaphors look like? Examples include: he was a shooting star; you are
my sunshine; I am a rock; I am an island; life is just a bowl of cherries; war is hell.
Lakoff and Johnson (1999) showed that ‘‘our conceptual system (how we
understand the world and create meaning) is largely metaphorical.’’ They also
stated, ‘‘Primarily on the basis of linguistic evidence, we have found that human
thought processes are largely metaphorical.’’
There exists ‘‘a huge body of empirical evidence gained from many different
methods of inquiry that reveals and confirms the central role of metaphor in
abstract thought’’ (Lakoff and Johnson 2003). In the same book, they stated,

After twenty years of research by hundreds of investigators, vast bodies of empiri-

cal evidence for conceptual metaphor have been gathered from studies in a wide
range of fields within the cognitive sciences [e.g., Boroditzky 2000, Gibbs 1994 (both
psychological studies); McNeill 1992 (gesture studies); Narayanan 1997 (discourse
analysis); and Johnson 1999 (language acquisition)].

Examples of how metaphors permeate our daily thinking and conversation

abound. Lieberman (2002) reported that the average American uses almost six
metaphors or metaphoric references per minute of spoken language. The
 MIND MECHANICS 59

metaphor we choose dictates our thoughts by defining which groups of concepts

and images we can blend to create meaning.
Through which metaphoric lens do you view argument?

Argument is war.
Argument is a dance.
Argument is a fight.
Argument is a gift of energy and idea.

The metaphor you choose defines your viewpoint, expectations, strategy, and
actions. It defines how you create meaning and how you view and understand
the world.
How do you view love?

Love Is War: Love conquers all. All you need is love. Love is you and me
against the world. Are you on my side or not?
Love Is Madness: I’m crazy about her. I’m head over heels in love. I’m drunk
on love.
Love Is a Collaborative Work of Art: Let’s build our love.

No metaphor is either right or wrong. They simply create radically different

views of the world. The same is true for other common metaphors. Is time
money? Is it ‘‘a river I go swimmin’ in’’? Is time a predator? Is it a gift? Does
time stand still or ‘‘keep on rollin’’’?
What metaphor would you use to characterize an idea? Is an idea a physical
place? (His idea is far out.) A physical blockage? (He’s trying to get around our
ideas. We ran into a brick wall. She’s logically backed into a corner.) A personifi-
cation? (His ideas explained the movement of stars. His ideas gave birth to a new
field of physics.) Are ideas food? (His ideas left a bad taste in my mouth. That
idea’s half-baked!) Or are they buildings? (Is that the foundation of your theory?
When I presented my data, his ideas fell apart.)
In a comprehensive study of the form and use of metaphor, Debatin (1995)
states: ‘‘My main argument is that the fundamental function of metaphor is that
of rational anticipation.’’ He argues that this is accomplished by treating a meta-
phor as a story in the mind and using neural story maps to create meaning from
which anticipations and predictions can be drawn.
The mental process of understanding a metaphor is deceptively complex
(Lakoff and Johnson 2003). Consider, for example, ‘‘He buttressed his argument.’’
‘‘Buttressed’’ is part of the building domain, an act of supporting and strengthen-
ing a wall or structure. Argument is a part of the argument domain (to forcefully
interact in conversation to resolve conflict).
In order to merge these two concepts into a single, meaningful image, we
have to examine character and intent. We apply attributes of the building domain
that would make sense with what we infer ‘‘he’’ wants to do. We assume that
‘‘he’’ anticipates having a future debate or argument and feels that he needs to
improve his material for that event. So, we imagine him trying to strengthen his
arguments, improving the foundation for his presentation, adding new points to
widen and heighten his argument.
By creating character, intent (goal), and actions we can extract the appropriate
attributes of the source domain (Buttress in this example) and apply them to the
60 STORY SMARTS

target domain (argument) in order to understand what he is doing and why he is

doing it. The metaphor activates our neural story map that then guides our crea-
tion of the shared space for the two domains that are merged in the metaphor.
Metaphor works through story.
The process is actually more complex than that because one concept may
simultaneously activate many source domains in our mind. Part of our meaning
of things (a chair, for example) emerges from our experience in the world
(which is different for different people). Rosch (1977) established that we under-
stand things in terms of their physical prototype (a chair has a flat seat, four
legs, a back); PLUS our experience of that object (swivel chairs, bean bags,
ledges, ergonomic chairs, barber chairs, etc.—based on the way the object looks
and feels); PLUS our history of understanding of the function of a chair (con-
fining, supporting, sitting); PLUS our experience/use of chair (how our body
moves getting into/out of a chair, what we do in a chair, etc.). Thus, the concept
chair means much more to us than is presented in the dictionary and our mean-
ing for chair depends partly on how we metaphorically define chair by mapping
other chosen domains of understanding onto it (for example, chair is a prison;
chair is a retreat; chair is a work place). The amazing human mind is able to
blend all of these possible domains together and extract appropriate characteris-
tics to create reasonable meaning for every new batch of narrative information.
A simple proverb expands in our mind into a complete story (Johnson 1999).
‘‘One good turn deserves another,’’ for example, involves the essential creation
of characters, expectation, intent, judgment, and actions (and is the appropriate
proverb for the ant-dove-bird catcher story earlier in this chapter).
Event: Person A gives something good to Person B (one good turn).
Judgment: B now owes something to A.
Expectation: B is expected to, and should, give something to A.
Goal (Intent): B wants to give something to A to relieve the debt.
Meaning is gained through the application of story structure to the proverb.
These blending forms are basic to human thinking. Each represents a con-
densed story, using story form and story elements. Even metaphors and prov-
erbs, the shortest and most abbreviated forms, activate complex mental
projections using neural story maps. The power and appeal of these forms lies
in the dense, concrete imagery they create and in their ability to activate many
banks of knowledge and blend them into a single story line.
As they say in English class in a galaxy far, far away, ‘‘Metaphors be with
you!’’

Language and Syntax Rules

A language consists of vocabulary words and the grammar rules by which
they are strung together to create meaning. We create meaning by combining
the literal (dictionary) meaning of words with the meaning created by grammat-
ical rules according to a word’s placement within the overall flow of a narrative.
It is very much like notes in a melody. Individual notes such as C, B#, and A
obtain meaning more from their relationship to other notes that precede and fol-
low them than from their absolute tonal definition. Meaning for the sentence,
‘‘Goldilocks ate the three bears’ breakfast,’’ depends on a complex set of rules
for how you interpret and string together individual words.
 MIND MECHANICS 61

However, language appears to have been acquired late in genetic evolution.

It is so new that it acts like a guest, not yet claiming a permanent position in the
brain as do vision, smell, or hearing (Kotulak 1999). Dr. Elizabeth Bates of the
University of California at San Diego agrees. ‘‘Language is a very recent phe-
nomenon. The odds are very good that we built it out of old stuff [in the brain]
that was not originally designed to process language’’ (personal communication,
12/10/06).
Recent work has confirmed that Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area (both on
the left side of the brain) are central to language (Pinker 2000), but other areas of
the brain are also activated by the processes of listening or speaking. However,
no all-controlling grammar gene or language organ has been identified (Pinker
2000). Still language and syntax encoding must exist somewhere in human
DNA. New research techniques prove that ‘‘babies know important things about
language literally from the time they are born’’ (Gopnik et al. 1999).
Pinker (2000) showed that children develop these complex grammars rapidly
and without formal instruction and grow up to give consistent interpretations to
novel sentence constructions that they have never before encountered. Noam
Chomsky (1972 and 1980) called it our Universal Grammar. Making the same
point, Engle (1995) wondered, ‘‘How is it that children, born with no language,
can develop the rudiments of storytelling in the first three years of life?’’
Language and syntax rules, however, are critical to communication and to
teaching. Our understanding of language, and the way that we learn it affects
how we see the world. For example, English-speaking children are told more
nouns by parents and are better at understanding categories. Korean children
are told more action words and are better at understanding how their actions
affect the world (Kotulak 1999).
Pinker (2000) adroitly noted the power of language and syntax when he
observed, ‘‘We belong to a species with a remarkable ability: we can shape
events in each other’s brains with exquisite precision. That ability is language.
Simply by making noise with our mouths or by scratching marks on paper, we
can reliably cause precise new combinations of ideas to arise in each other’s
minds.’’
The mind understands individual sentences as mini-stories (Turner 1996;
Pinker 2000). Each sentence includes an agent (character), an action (verb),
implied intent (motive for the action), and implied outcome (the thing the action
is supposed to accomplish, a goal). Grammar rules identify these structural ele-
ments and allow the mind to use story maps to create meaning from each sen-
tence. Grammar rules exist to communicate story meaning, not vocabulary
meaning (Pinker 2000).
Consider the possible sentences made from the three words, dog, man, and
bite.
Man bites dog.
Dog bites man.
Man, dog, bite.
Bite man, dog.
Bite dog, man.

The order of the vocabulary triggers grammar rules to identify story elements
in the readers’ mind. Meaning comes from using grammar rules to establish a
62 STORY SMARTS

main character, action, and object. From these you imply possible intents of the
character and can then envision the situation and event surrounding the utter-
ance of the sentence.
To further demonstrate the readers’ need to create sentence meaning through
story elements, Chomsky (1991) had a computer search books in print to find
words that never followed each other in a sentence. He strung these words into
a sentence:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

The sentence is grammatically correct. The vocabulary is clear, but meaning-

less. We have no banks of knowledge, no experiences, no reference maps that
allow us to create meaning.
Bruner (1986) said that words have two meanings: a timeless meaning (see the
dictionary) and a contextual meaning. Of these two, the contextual meaning is
always the more important for creating meaning in readers’ or listeners’ minds.
An example:

Yesterday I saw a bird. The bird was singing.

The shift from indefinite (general) to definite (specific) article signals that it is
the same bird (only because we have agreed to refer to things that way). It’s like
a movie zooming in from an establishing panorama to one small point that will
be the focus of the scene. However, if you reverse the articles:
Yesterday I saw the bird. A bird was singing.

Now we have no idea which bird was singing—just because I switched the
two articles and now violate our syntax conventions.
As a final demonstration, consider how inserting the word even into the sen-
tence ‘‘John will marry Elise’’ at different places radically shifts your interpreta-
tion of the sentence’s meaning and how you interpret John’s intent, attitude,
and feelings as well as your evaluation of Elise. These changes do not come
from the literal meaning of the sentence, but from the banks of experience you
activate when you interpret the sentence using you neural story map.
John will marry Elise.
Even John will marry Elise
John will even marry Elise.
John will marry even Elise.

Emotions Rule
This mental tool needs little explanation. We automatically scan a person’s
face, body, posture, gestures, and actions to interpret their emotional state. From
this information we decide if their emotions are what we consider appropriate
for the setting and situation. If they are, we pay them no more mind. If not, our
conscious attention is drawn to that person and we seek an explanation.
Pinker (1997) called humans ‘‘feeling machines’’ and spends considerable
time describing the integration of feelings into interpretation and meaning as
well as the influence of feelings on cognitive understanding and meaning.
‘‘Humans seek meaning through feelings’’ (Pinker 1997).
 MIND MECHANICS 63

Hardcastle (2003) concluded that ‘‘early emotional experiences form a ‘core’

around which we structure our views of ourselves and the world.’’ Eder (1994)
came to the same conclusion by saying that affective emotional ties are the most
fundamental relationships and that we build our world view from there.
Hardcastle (2003) also showed that ‘‘our experiences—the ones we remember,
anyway—are those that have both sensory and affective (emotional) dimensions.
In some respects the emotional side is the more important for it allows us to
structure our world.’’ (See also Damasio 1994 and Greenspan and Benderly
1997.) Emotional information triggers memory!
Mallan (1997) showed that ‘‘stories differ from other narratives (arguments,
scientific reports, articles) in that they orient our feelings and attitudes about the
story content.’’ He concluded that this emotional engagement is why informa-
tion presented in the structure of a story is more easily remembered.
Story readers/listeners, then, need emotional information in order to judge
and to relate to narrative characters. Story structure more readily provides that
information than do other narrative forms.

Details
The idea of details, and of their importance in narrative presentations, is cer-
tainly neither new nor unexpected. By second grade, every student has heard
teachers plead for more details in his or her writing. The cry becomes a univer-
sal teacher’s writing mantra, ‘‘More details. . . . More details.’’
We humans are good at noting, recording, remembering, and recalling sen-
sory details. I perform an hour-long story in which a side character appears
twice—once near the beginning and once (49 minutes later) at the end. On sev-
eral tellings, I have mentioned his black hair when he first appears and casually
noted his brown hair at story’s end. It always gets a reaction. A murmur rum-
bles through the audience. Something is wrong.
There is no reason for them to remember this character or his hair. Neither is
important to the story. Yet, they do. We automatically remember the details.
They are precious and critically important to us.
Think of any past (childhood) event. What pops back into your conscious mind?
Mostly sensory details such as what things looked like, sounded like, or felt like.
We tell our stories from remembered sensory details. We use observed sensory
details to make a variety of important decisions about situations, people, and places.
Turner studied mental mapping processes associated with parables and con-
cluded that ‘‘specifics (details) of source and target stories allow the mind to
overlay and create cross-identity.’’ Details create the blended space through
which the mind creates understanding. ‘‘It is not possible to blend two stories
without some counterpart connections of the details between them (source and
target) to guide the blending’’ (Turner 1996).
Tannen (1999) studied the nature and effect of details on listener/reader per-
ceptions and ability to retain content information. She concluded: ‘‘Details create
the images that serve multiple purposes. First they set the scene. Second they
provide a sense of authenticity. Third, they facilitate memory.’’ Details create
mental reality. In Tannen’s words, ‘‘Details create mental images, making possi-
ble both understanding and involvement.’’
Sylvia Plath (quoted in Hughes and McCullough 1984) advised that one
should write about the common, everyday details of life, because that is where
64 STORY SMARTS

the magic begins. ‘‘Write about the cow, Mrs. Spaulding’s heavy eyelids, the
smell of vanilla flavoring in a brown bottle. That is where the magic mountains
(involvement, understanding, and memory in her terms) begin.’’
How do simple details accomplish this massive task? Tannen concluded,
‘‘Story merges abstract information with common sensory details to create con-
text and relevance for the abstract. An example from Tannen (1999):
‘‘I wish you were here to see the sweet peas coming up.’’
The first half is abstract and not engaging. It is conceptual information. The
second half is pure sensory detail and engages the reader’s attention, emotions,
and mental imaging process.
We’ve all heard of details, but what, exactly are they? From the dictionary:

Detail: n.: Any of the small parts that go to make up something as of a pic-
ture, statue, setting, building, etc. (from Webster’s College Dictionary)
The purpose of details is to provide the specific references that create mental
images and allow the receiver to overlay their own maps and banks of experi-
ence over the new material by matching detail points.

WHY DO WE DO IT? WHAT IT MEANS FOR US

Why do we do it? Why consume massive amounts of time and mental energy
concocting and rearranging information to enforce the 7-Eleven system on narra-
tive and experiential inputs? The answer is to create meaning in the conscious
mind and to facilitate memory. The key to that process is that the 7-Eleven con-
cepts and techniques determine if it is possible to create two essential commod-
ities: context and relevance that form the gateway to meaning. By definition
(Webster’s New World College Dictionary):

Context is: ‘‘The parts surrounding a specific word or passage that determine
its exact meaning; the whole situation, background, or environment rele-
vant to a particular event, person, creation, etc.’’
Relevance is: ‘‘Bearing upon or pertinent to the matter or person at hand;
implying close relationship with and importance to the matter under
consideration.’’
In a practical sense, context identifies the banks of prior knowledge you can
use to make inferences, to blend with the new information, etc. Relevance
describes how this new information relates to you, personally. Learning that the
moon is dusty and that moon dust is both corrosive and jagged with the poten-
tial to grind like pumice might be interesting to you. You have a context for in-
formation about the moon and can integrate it into your existing bank of
knowledge. However, that information does not relate to your life. It has no
relevance—unless you are an astronaut slated for the next moon mission. Then
this information is vitally relevant. Context and relevance trigger the conscious
mind to pay attention and to remember.
Bransford and Brown (2000) showed that

the research shows clearly that ‘‘usable knowledge’’ is not the same as a mere list of
disconnected facts. Experts’ knowledge is ‘‘conditionalized’’ to specify the context in
which it is applicable and its relevance to the topic and individual; it supports under-
standing and transfer (to other contexts) rather than only the ability to remember.
 MIND MECHANICS 65

Learners of all ages are more motivated when they can see the usefulness
(relevance) of what they learn and its impact on their own lives (McCombs
1996, Pintrich and Schunk 1996, Bransford and Stein 1993). Knowledge that is
not provided within a contextual framework is often ‘‘inert’’ because it is not
activated, even though it is relevant. The same is true for contextual information
that is not relevant (Glaser 1992, Bransford and Brown 2000).
While assessing the continuing effectiveness and popularity of classic chil-
dren’s stories (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, etc.), Crossley (2000)
showed that ‘‘stories provide the context and relevance for conceptual informa-
tion.’’ Crossley concluded (as had Howard 1991, Priest 1996, and McLeod 1997
before her) that story structure creates context and personal relevance within
which a child can ‘‘play out conflicts of good and evil.’’
Approaching the topic from a more mechanistic perspective, Schank showed
that if a person has index labels in memory (similar to the labels on file folders
in a desk drawer) and past experiences filed under those labels, then new expe-
riences they read about are deemed ‘‘relevant.’’ The person pays attention and
remembers the new information. If the person lacks appropriate index labels, or
if no experiences are filed under those labels, then the new narrative is deemed
meaningless and uninteresting. ‘‘The determination of relevance determines the
suitability of something to enter into memory’’ (Schank 1990).
‘‘In the most general sense, the contemporary view of learning is that people
construct new knowledge and understanding within the context of what they al-
ready know and believe and do it only when they can see how the new informa-
tion is relevant to them’’ (Cobb 1994). Our elaborate mental system of neural
story maps, story frameworks, concepts, and techniques exists to create these
two demands of the conscious mind if it is going to pay attention: context and
relevance.
 CHAPTER 6

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

Information is remembered better and longer, and recalled more readily and
accurately when it is remembered within the context of a story.

For anyone with a message to convey—any teacher, manager, leader, scientist,

trial lawyer, or clergy—what’s the brass ring you stretch to grab? What’s a gold
medal performance? It’s lodging your message in its original form—as you con-
ceived and delivered it—into the receiver’s active memory banks. Thus, there
exists one more aspect of mental function we must review before we can construct
our definition of effective stories: memory. Why do we remember some things and
not others? What things do we chose to remember? How does memory happen?
While assessing the goals of any communicator, Schank (1990) said, ‘‘The goal
is not merely to say the information, but to lodge that information into the mind
and memory of the listener and to convince them to believe and use the content
information. This is accomplished by linking content information into stories
that will trigger memories and index labels in the mind of the listener.’’

MEMORY MECHANICS: MAKING MEMORIES

Kotulak (1999) described the bioelectric-chemical version of memory this
way: Prompted by some neuron, a neurotransmitter (glutamate) races between
neural cells like a bicycle messenger yelling to the gateway controllers on other
cells (called NMDA signal boxes), ‘‘Pay attention, there’s something coming you
might want to learn!’’ That causes the signal box to open a door into the cell. An
electrical charge from energy-carrying sodium atoms surges through those
doors. Other cell doors open to allow a squirt of calcium to enter and, like a
car’s spark plug, ignite the sodium-based electrical charge into a streaking bolt
that slams across the cell. This prompts the cell to alter and adjust its synapse
connections forging new memory pathways to record the new information.
68 STORY SMARTS

In 1984, Northwestern University’s Aryeh Routtenberg discovered a chemical

inside brain cells called PKC that forms short-term and long-term memory.
Once a cell is alerted (by glutamate) that it needs to form a memory, and as so-
dium and calcium rush in, a second chemical messenger notifies PKC. PKC then
runs over to another protein, F1, and pitches a phosphate molecule at it. The
phosphate wakes up F1 and, as an electrical charge explodes across the cell, F1
trundles down the branches of the cell (axons) to make those appropriate
changes in the synaptic connections. Presto, memory!
If we step back to the level of brain areas, Newquist (2004) described brain
anatomy including memory controllers. The hippocampus and the amygdala
work together to help you understand and deal with emotions (yours and
others’) and nonverbal sensory information. The emotional tag created by the
amygdala controls the strength of a memory and the likelihood of its recall.
You may not remember the first time you touched a dog, but you will
remember the first time a dog bit you. You won’t remember the first time you
kissed your grandmother, but you will remember the first time you were kissed
on a date. (However, you don’t remember your twentieth kiss on a date because
it was less emotional and had a weaker emotional tag.)
Schacter (1997) reported that the same areas of the brain are engaged and
activated for the recall of true (experienced) and for false (imagined, created, or
planted) words and events. The same is true for the parts of the brain that
implant true or false events into memory. Human memory circuits don’t seem
to distinguish between real and false memories. That job is left to the reasoning
power of the conscious mind.

REMEMBER THE ALAMO!: WHAT YOU REMEMBER

Smith (2003) studied the process of remembering and (supporting earlier
research by Korte 1996) concluded that ‘‘vivid memories have four features:
they break a script (an expectation), they are consequential (have impact), they
involve emotional charge, and they have value (meaning) for the person remem-
bering.’’ The things you remember have meaning to you, break your expecta-
tions (and so require attention and explanation), and are relevant to you. These
are all techniques or concepts we have previously visited that the mind uses to
filter and prepare information for the conscious mind.
Given those characteristics for a memory, what do you remember? Pinker (1997)
said, ‘‘When you put down a book, you forget almost everything about the wording
and typefaces of the sentences. What you take away is their content, or gist.’’ Experi-
ments by Schank (1990), Schacter (1995), and Smith (2003) have shown that only a
tiny percentage of humans remember word-for-word what they hear or read. We
remember the gist and create our own wording to file into memory and to recall.
The gist comes from the original text, but also includes your interpretation of
it and the meaning you create from it (Pinker 2000). Thus, no two people
remember exactly the same gist even though they witnessed the same accident,
read the same article, or heard the same speech. Schank (1990) offered extensive
research to support his way of making the same point: ‘‘This act of mental story
composition profoundly affects memory. Memory tends to lose the original (sen-
sory input) and keep the revised copy (mental story map creation).’’
Least this sound like the story mapping and story creating process harms
memory in some way, in his seminal work Mandler (1984) drew together
 THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES 69

extensive evidence to show that: Experiences not framed into story suffer loss in
memory. Story structure enhances memory and improves our memory of content
information.
Zaltman (2003) concluded, ‘‘Storytelling is central to memory.’’ Similarly,
Carey (2007) stated, ‘‘Numerous studies show that people tend to remember
facts more accurately if they encounter then in a story rather than in a list [or
other narrative forms].’’ Zaltman (2003) also said, ‘‘Storytelling is not something
we just happen to do. It is something we virtually have to do if we want to
remember anything. The stories we create are the memories we have.’’
Concurring with this idea, Bruner (1987) concluded, ‘‘I believe that the ways of
telling and the ways of conceptualizing a story that go with them become so habit-
ual that they finally become recipes for structuring experience itself, for laying down
routes into memory.’’ While assessing why stories are easier to remember, Schank
(1990) concluded, ‘‘A story, remembered as a story, is a unit that can be easily
found, easily recalled and told, and be made useful for a variety of purposes.’’
Smith (2003) split memory into fact-based memory and story-based memory
and showed that story-based memory creates intent, form, structure, sequenc-
ing, coherence, and meaning. ‘‘The stories we tell time and again are identical to
the memory we have of the events that the story relates.’’ The mind creates sto-
ries from events and then remembers the created stories believing that they are
identical with the original event.
Compounding this phenomenon, Schacter (1995) showed that ‘‘the output of
human memory differs—often substantially—from the input.’’ He concluded
that ‘‘remembering can fail not only because information is forgotten over time,
but also because it is changed and distorted during memory and recall.’’
Neimark (2004) described research by psychologist Henry Roediger of Wash-
ington University in St. Louis. Roediger stated, ‘‘People never capture anything
literally. Whenever you encode an experience you filter it through your own
awareness.’’
Moreover, memory automatically brings with it an interpretation that alters
the factual presentation of the memory because we view past events from our
present perspective and with our present knowledge (Freeman 2003). For exam-
ple, the memory, ‘‘And that was the last time I saw her, the last words she ever
spoke,’’ takes on far greater significance not because of the historic event, itself,
but because of our present knowledge of its significance. Present knowledge
always alters the past.
Would you remember the Alamo if the Mexican army had decided not to
attack and had drifted on, leaving the defenders to fend for themselves? Would
you remember that Crockett and Bowie were there if none of the men had died?
Would you remember Bowie if his knife design hadn’t survived him to become
well-known now?
Other work reported by Neimark (2004) and by Schank (1990) confirms that,
each time you tell a remembered story event, you create additional sensory
detail and then cannot distinguish between original (true) detail and the newly
created (false) detail. You then remember it all as if it were all true, original
detail. Schank theorized that this is why personal stories grow and drift over
time with repeated telling.
Gopnik et al. (1999) studied what patients recalled from past events and con-
cluded, ‘‘When we remember our past, we recapture not just the physical details
of what happened, but what we felt about what happened.’’
70 STORY SMARTS

Tannen also focused her studies on the effects of details on memory. ‘‘Images
created by sensory details, I am suggesting, are more convincing and more mem-
orable than abstract propositions’’ (Tannen 1999). We remember details (including
those we created) and we remember the emotions we felt during an event.
Neimark (2004) reported that Harvard Professor Richard McNally believes he
can prove that people routinely make up memories. Neimark stated, ‘‘His
research suggests that all memories—even false ones—are not just accessories of
experience. Memory is experience.’’
Neimark (2004) also reported on work by Dr. Kathy Pezdek, psychologist at
University of California, Irvine, who has been able to implant false memories
into people in lab studies (for example, that they were lost in the mall as a child,
that they hugged Bugs Bunny at Disneyland—there is no Bugs Bunny at Disney-
land). These false memories were as real to subjects as actual memories.
What we remember is what breaks expectations and is relevant in some way.
Then we remember the gist. We remember the sensory details of an event and
how we felt. But what we remember is not explicitly what happened. We
remember the stories we mentally create about what happened, augmented by
details we inadvertently create, and altered by the process of remembering and
recalling and by repeated telling. Ultimately, what we remember are our own
mental story creations.

REMEMBER ME FONDLY: HOW YOU REMEMBER

Memories are not fixed and solid things. They are not like cement that, once
set up, can never change or be altered in shape and structure. Research has al-
ready been mentioned that has established the variability of recall and the lack
of precision in our memories.
Loftus and Ketchum (1996) concluded that ‘‘memories don’t sit in one place
waiting patiently to be retrieved. They drift through the brain, more like clouds
or vapor, than something we can put our hands on.’’ Considerable effort has
been required to make any definitive statements about how information gets
into, lingers in, or comes back out of memory.
As an example of how variable human recall is as a function of present mood,
Braun-LaTour and Zaltman (2006) report on an experiment they conducted.
Moviegoers recorded their initial impressions of a movie immediately after
viewing it. Some of those expressing a negative opinion were, later, shown a
positive review of the movie and then asked to recall and describe their initial
opinion. Virtually all recalled their own initial opinion as being more positive
than it had been—though none thought they were changing their initial opinion
in any way and all believed that they were accurately recalling their initial state-
ments. Others who were not shown the positive review accurately recalled their
initial negative opinions. Merely reading a positive review affected how people
recalled their own memories.
Research has been able to identify common trends that strongly influence
how and why humans tend to remember.

Information in Story Form

As mentioned above, Mandler (1984) and Mandler and Johnson (1977)
showed that experiences not framed into story suffer loss in memory. Schank
 THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES 71

(1990) went further, saying, ‘‘The major processes of memory are the creation,
indexing, storage, and retrieval of stories.’’ He also stated, ‘‘We have great diffi-
culty remembering abstract concepts and data. However, we can easily remem-
ber a good story. . . . Stories provide tools, context, relevance, and elements
readers need in order to understand, remember and index the beliefs, concepts
and information in the story’’ (Schank 1990).
In an interesting twist on memory studies, Foer (2006) studied the memory
systems competitive memory champions use to remember new strings of ran-
dom information. The most common scheme involves creating a character,
action, and object for each thing to be remembered (the order of cards in a deck,
for example) and then stringing those prememorized images along a temporal
pathway (plot). Those are all common elements of stories. Memory champions
remember by creating a story that provides context and relevance for meaning-
less information.

Details
A neurocomputer modeler, Anderson (1993), reverse-engineered human
memory retrieval. He found two overriding factors that determine the ease of
retrieval: the perceived relevance of the information at the time it was commit-
ted to memory, and the density of attached sensory details. He also found that
the more often you recall something out of memory, the easier it is to do so
again in the future.
Squire (1997) and Schacter (1997) both studied the different features of learning
that contribute to the durability or fragility of memory. While comparing people’s
memories for words with their memories for pictures of the same objects, both
showed consistently significantly superior memory for the picture due, primarily,
to the greater density of sensory details associated with the picture.
Foer (2006) concluded his study by saying that successful rememberers regu-
larly ‘‘link the thing they want to remember to colors, familiar names, events,
visual images, and then string individual items along familiar paths in order to
associate more of their already established sensory images with a new bit of
information to remember.’’ They tie new information to existing remembered
details to facilitate memory of the new information.

Events That Have Emotional Impact

Anderson (1993) also showed that emotional coloring of experience strongly
influences memory storage and the likelihood of recall. How you felt about the
new information at the time you remembered it is a key part of making the
information readily retrievable. You meet hundreds—if not thousands—of
people each year. Typically, the only ones you remember are those that gener-
ated a strong emotional reaction in you. Your emotional reaction coded that
person for memory and recall.
Mallan (1997) showed that ‘‘stories differ from other narratives (arguments,
scientific reports, articles) in that they orient our feelings and attitudes about the
story content.. . . This emotional engagement is why info presented in the struc-
ture of a story is more easily remembered.’’
Neimark (2004) described several recent studies that showed that vivid visu-
alization accompanied by emotions trigger far more activation in the brain in
72 STORY SMARTS

the visual processing systems than did the images alone. Emotions create the
mental associations (activity) that facilitate memory.

Attaching Index Labels to an Event

Schank (1990) spent decades studying the process of memory and concluded,
‘‘Memory, in order to be effective, must contain both specific experiences and
index labels.’’ He continued, ‘‘Stories are effective because they contain many
possible index labels that allow the listener to attach the story into memory in
more ways and into more existing indexed experiences and memories.’’ Index
labels are reference points in the new material that access banks of prior knowl-
edge or key information points in neural maps. Because of a story’s ability to
create more index labels in the human mind, Schank concluded that ‘‘human
memory is story-based.’’
Similarly, Bransford and Stein (1993) showed that ‘‘researchers have found
that memory is affected by our ability to relate new information to previous
experience and knowledge.’’ Bransford and Stein called the process elaboration.
It is the same mental process that others call blending.

Context and Relevance

Foer (2006) also studied S. V. Shereshevski, the most famous ‘‘natural’’ mem-
ory champion (as opposed to those who devise and use a memory system).
Shereshevski could recall long lists of numbers memorized decades earlier and
complete poems he learned when he was four years old. His problem (and tor-
ment) was that he couldn’t forget anything. How did he finally learn to forget?
He learned to convince himself that the information he wanted to forget had no
meaning or relevance to his life. With no meaning or relevance, unwanted mem-
ories faded from his mind.
Neimark (2004) similarly concluded that the many studies into false memo-
ries that have reported inconclusive results all ignored relevance and meaning
and that this omission explained the scatter in their data. We remember better
what our mind says is meaningful and relevant to us.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR US

Both the acts of remembering and of recalling are triggered by a greater den-
sity of sensory detail, by an emotional impact, by the presence of known context
and relevance, and by the presence of multiple indexing labels. These, in turn,
are all created by story structure. Using stories enhances memory and facilitates
information recall. That applies both to the story, itself, and to pertinent
information (for example, concepts, facts, attitudes, and beliefs) contained
within the story.
Note that whether the story is historically accurate and truthful or fiction,
and whether the pertinent information is fact or fiction, does not enter into the
process of creating and recalling memories. It is the form, not the veracity of the
content, that determines how memorable each receiver determines it to be.
I am not saying that everything should be woven into story form. Not at all. I
am saying that the narrative structure I call a story significantly improves the
likelihood that your content will be remembered and recalled. That structure, of
 THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES 73

course, does not come for free. It means that a quick cost-benefit analysis is in
order. The benefits of story—as we have and will continue to see—are remark-
able. But that narrative advantage comes at a price. You must be able and will-
ing to mold your material into story form and to develop and present the
essential informational elements that form the core architecture of stories. Stories
require more verbiage, more time, and more developmental effort.
If you can, terrific! The rewards of story are yours. But there are many
instances where it is either not feasible or not appropriate to create and present
stories. Not everything either can be or should be delivered in story form. But it
is always worth checking. When you can, the benefits are staggering.
 CHAPTER 7

THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY:

A BETTER DEFINITION

The key elements of human mental processing provide a more accurate and
meaningful definition of what we really mean when we say ‘‘story.’’

Fireman et al. (2003) concluded that ‘‘good’’ stories are coherent, organized,
meaningful, and compelling. Schank (1990) said that ‘‘stories should be compel-
ling, concise, and easy to remember.’’ Those are characteristics we seek. Our defi-
nition of story should guide creators toward stories that deliver those effects.
Pinker (1997) put it succinctly. ‘‘It is irrational to insist that story structure
remains unexplained after all of the manifestations of it have been explained
and accounted for.’’
By reviewing the mental activities presented during the past four chapters,
we will identify those key narrative elements that direct the mental gymnastics
readers and listeners employ to create context, relevance, and meaning from
incoming text. These same elements define a story for the human mind and will
be the elements we use to create a more rational and definitive (and certainly
more useful) definition of story than that offered by most dictionaries.
Search Chapters 3 through 6 and you will find a surprisingly short list of
these core elements. I find five around which all others revolve. These are the
five narrative elements researcher after researcher has identified as critical to the
processes of creating understanding, interpretation, meaning, context, and
relevance.
All five must be presented (or created) in order for the mind to relate to,
understand, and decide to pay attention to, an incoming narrative. These then
are the informational elements that uniquely define a story.
1. Character. You need a viewpoint character to see who is doing the action
and to gauge relevancy by assessing this character. To do that, you need
perspective, viewpoint, and sufficient detail about the character to interpret
76 STORY SMARTS

emotional state, beliefs, attitudes, and to activate our ‘‘character’’ banks of

prior knowledge and experience as well as your neural story maps to cre-
ate meaning and relevance.
2. Intent. You need to know what story characters are after and why. As dis-
cussed, intent is composed of two key elements: goal—what the character
is after (goal defines story outcome or resolution)—and motive—why that
goal is important to the character. Goal and motive reveal the point and
purpose of a story as well as of every scene and event in it.
3. Actions. You need to see what characters do to achieve their goals. You will
assess character’s beliefs, attitudes, and values by comparing their actions to
banks of expected or ‘‘normal’’ behavior. The definition for actions corre-
sponds to the dictionary definition for a story (‘‘a narrative account of a real
or imagined event or events’’). Actions are the plot. In a story, you want to
see those events—and only those events—that relate to a character’s efforts
to reach a goal. Stories exist to explain and to illuminate characters.
4. Struggles. Struggles are never easy or trivial. Struggles break with
expected, normal behavior. Struggles are actions characters take in the face
of risk and danger. Actions make no sense and elicit no interest unless we
see that these actions represent an attempt to reach an important goal.
However, there can be no struggle unless there is something to struggle
against: obstacles that block a character from reaching a goal. Obstacles
may either be conflicts (blockages created by other characters—or entities—
in the story) or problems (blockages not created by a character). Obstacles
may either be internal (the best fighting is against yourself) or external (cre-
ated by something outside the character). The risk and danger they create
need not be physical. Emotional, mental, social—any kind will do as long
as it is real to the character.
To establish context and relevance, we need to know that something is
at stake. We need to be aware of the risk and danger a character will have
to face and we need to see the character act and make decisions in the face
of those obstacles and that risk and danger.
5. Details. Details about the character, settings, actions and events, and
objects that drift through a story create the mental imagery that you use to
envision and evaluate the story. Details facilitate blending and memory.

DO RESEARCHERS AGREE?
Before I combine these essential elements into a concise definition, do other
researchers agree with the elements I have identified and the approach I have
presented here?
Dalkir and Wiseman (2004) stated, ‘‘All stories are narratives. But not all nar-
ratives are effective stories.’’ Stories are a specific subset of the more general
narrative characterized by specific structural elements.
Bruner (2003) concluded, ‘‘Everyone will agree that it (a story) requires a cast
of characters who are free agents with minds of their own. These characters
must have recognizable expectations about the ordinary state of the world—the
story’s world. The story begins when there is a breach in the expected state of
things. Something goes awry. Otherwise there is nothing to tell about. And
finally there is an outcome, some sort of resolution.’’
 THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY: A BETTER DEFINITION 77

He lists characters, goals (intentions), problems and conflicts that cause some-
thing to go awry, struggles, and resolution. But central among these elements is
character. ‘‘Every story is somebody’s story. Every story is about a character’’
(Bruner 1990). And about that character’s intentions, he said, ‘‘There is wide-
spread agreement that stories are about the vicissitudes of human intention’’
(Bruner 1987).
Turner (1996) broke an overall story (his term is STORY!) into a series of min-
iscule, ‘‘small spatial events.’’ (He calls these ‘‘stories.’’) To Turner, a story consists
of just an agent (character or object) and an action. ‘‘The ball rolled,’’ is a story. So
are each of the following sentences. ‘‘She stooped to pick it up. Her arm swung.
Her hand released the ball. The window shattered.’’
Turner (1996) developed the notion that conversion of such a series of atom-
level stories into a composite STORY! requires the addition of intention to bind
individual atoms into a coherent and cohesive chain molecule of a story. As an
example, here is an action (a story):
Mother pours milk into a glass.

To convert this to a STORY!, Turner says that we must add intent (goal and a
motive to explain why that goal is important), conflicts for ‘‘Mother’’ to struggle
against, and a point of resolution. As an example Turner offered:

Mother has been crippled by a stroke, her left side partially paralyzed. She fights to
regain the use of her left hand and arm, feeling that her independence and dignity
depend on being able to use that hand to fulfill her normal motherly functions. But
her left arm is frightfully weak, her grip alarmingly uncertain. The milk carton she
used to pour into glasses each day for her children is painfully heavy and slippery.
It slips and falls; she spills; she misses the glass; she overfills it, sending a white
flood across the counter and dribbling onto the floor. Through tears of embarrass-
ment and frustration, she is determined to pour a simple glass of milk for her son.
She has to. She struggles to will her arm to make one more try.. . .

Now it’s becoming a STORY! We still need to know what happens—whether

she succeeds or not and how she (and her family) feels about it. But the ele-
ments are in place to turn the original action into a compelling story. Character,
a character’s intention, and a character’s actions leading to resolution of that
intent form the core of Turner’s story model.
Cliatt and Shaw (1988) put it more simply: ‘‘All stories are based on
character.’’
Taylor (1996) defined story as ‘‘the telling of the significant actions of charac-
ters over time.’’ He then explained the word significant to mean moments that
define the flow of the story toward some important goal and moments where
characters face important choices. The choices characters face is a central
theme of Taylor’s work. ‘‘We remember characters from stories long after
we’ve forgotten plot, language, and theme. The allure of character is the mes-
merizing attraction of watching people struggle to make decisions’’ (Taylor
1996).
Classical dramatist and theoretician Kenneth Burke (1969) concluded from
his studies of theater and drama that ‘‘well-formed stories’’ are composed of a
pentad of elements: actor, action, goal, scene, and instrument—plus trouble.
He defined trouble as an imbalance between any of the five elements of the
pentad.
78 STORY SMARTS

Note that Burke claims that goals must exist before trouble (problems and con-
flicts) can arise. Trouble, for Burke, must be resolved in order to reach a goal,
but solving trouble, itself, is rarely the main goal of a successful story.
Egan (1997) researched one specific defining aspect of a story—the ending.
Agreeing with Kermode (1966), Egan (1997) concluded, ‘‘The crucial feature of
stories is that they end. In life we are always ‘in the midst’ and so cannot deter-
mine and ascribe meaning to events.’’ Egan’s research also showed that ‘‘we
know we have reached the end of a story when we know how to feel about the
events that make it up.’’
He introduces an important point here. Egan showed that meaning requires a
character-based perspective point that includes knowledge of a story’s end.
Value comes from applying that meaning to our real lives that so rarely have
definitive ending points. Readers know that they’ve reached the end when the
goal of the main character is resolved—one way or the other. Readers know
how to feel about the story by seeing how the main character feels after resolving
his or her goal.
Bransford and Stein (1993) tried to approach story understanding by focusing
on the nature and purpose of story problems. ‘‘A problem exists when there is a
discrepancy between the initial state and a desired goal state, and when there is
no ready-made solution for the problem solver.’’ Several important concepts are
woven into this statement. First, stories have a desired goal state different from
the initial condition. Second, the character cannot have ready access to his or
her goal. Third, the story must force this character to struggle (face risk and dan-
ger as they attempt to solve problems and conflicts) in an attempt to reach his
or her goal.
Johnson (1999) studied the structure of stories deemed ‘‘successful’’ by his
test audiences and concluded that story is differentiated from a mere event
(something that happened)—as Yale psychologist and historian Ricoeur (1984)
said—by the presence of seven features:

1. Goals (Actions are directed toward goals.)

2. Motives (Actions and goals are explained by giving reasons why they were
identified and performed.)
3. Agents (Some character must adopt the goal and perform the action.)
4. Contextual Circumstances (Actions are embedded within a morally significant
context that determines their character.)
5. Interactions with Others (Events unfold as protagonist interacts with other char-
acters in the story.)
6. Meaningful Existence (All goals and actions are part of an intentional hierarchy
of thoughts and actions that leads to an attempt to lead a meaningful, fulfilled
life.)
7. Responsibility (Agents must be responsible for their actions.)

A simple event (flipping on a light switch) becomes a compelling story only

when these features are added. Is the goal of this action to surprise a burglar?
To see if the power has been turned back on? To find a treasure map? Or to
prove that the crippled fingers after a stroke have regained enough control to be
useful? Who is the person who flips the switch and why is this action important
to them and significant (relevant) to the reader? How does our character interact
with other characters as a result of this simple action? Now we are well on the
way to creating a story. When these features and events are mixed in a temporal
 THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY: A BETTER DEFINITION 79

ordering (a plot) they will create meaning and understanding in the reader
(Johnson 1999, Ricoeur 1984).
Finally, Denning (2001) used trial-and-error methods to devise stories that
would be successful in changing attitudes and policies in a large international
agency (the World Bank). He concluded that ‘‘stories that were successful for
me had certain characteristics. They were told from the perspective of a single
protagonist who was in a predicament that was prototypical of the organiza-
tion’s business.. . . The story had a degree of strangeness or incongruity for the
listeners so that it captured their attention and stimulated their imaginations.
Yet at the same time, the story was plausible, even eerily familiar.’’ Thus, Den-
ning found the same core elements not through rigorous research, but from the
vantage point of a trial-and-error practitioner.
These examples represent the thinking and conclusions of many other
researchers. Prominent examples that I omitted from this chapter include Snow-
den (2000), Prince (1987), Bal (1985), Barthes (1982), Bruner (1990), Ambruster
et al. (1987), Polkinghorne (1988), Frye (1957), Fisher (1987), Rubin and Greenberg
(2003), Shank and Abelson (1995), Knitch and Van Dijk (1975), and Steffen (1977),
among others.

WHAT IS A STORY?
The wording of this new and improved definition is mine. However, every
term in it is supported by extensive evidence presented in the past four chap-
ters. It is consistent with results from the researchers mentioned above. It is fully
consistent with documented activity of the mind.
It would be easier if we had a separate word to use to avoid confusion.
Unfortunately, we don’t. So I will use the word story for my definition even
while acknowledging that many you encounter will use the same word in the
more general and less accurate sense presented in the dictionary in which story
and narrative are virtually synonymous.
A Better Definition: What we really mean by the word, STORY:

Story: n.: A detailed, character-based narration of a character’s struggles to

overcome obstacles and reach an important goal.
Compare this definition with the dictionary’s: ‘‘a narrative account of a real
or imagined event or events.’’ The dictionary’s definition focuses on event or
events and is thus plot-based. In plot-based narratives, this happens, then that
happens, and then that happens. Plot-based narratives do not spark your inter-
est or create meaning.
Stories are character-based and are driven by the details that describe that char-
acter’s goals, motives, obstacles, and struggles. Through the addition of charac-
ter, goal, motive, and obstacles to the definition lies a world of difference that
creates story’s unique power and effectiveness. Events happen not for their own
sake, but to explain the struggles of a character.
The general term, narratives, may be plot-based event descriptions, stories
(character-based), or information-based articles, reports, data sets, and other
similar documents. Information-based narratives provide just the new essential
information and assume the reader has adequate banks of relevant topical
prior knowledge to create context and meaning and sufficient related personal
experience to create relevance. Science writing tends to be in the form of
80 STORY SMARTS

information-based narratives. It’s like Sergeant Friday on the 1960s TV show

Dragnet: ‘‘Just give me the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.’’
All three types of writing are narratives. Only stories are structured around
the character-based informational elements receivers need in order to trigger
and successfully drive the mental processes that lead to understanding; to the
creation of meaning, context, and relevance; and to active memory.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR US

This definition lays out the pathway to mastering stories. Stories are centered
on character and are structured around the goals and motives that drive charac-
ters and then on the obstacles that block them from achieving those goals. Plots
are formed of the characters’ struggles to try to overcome obstacles to achieve
goals. Only those actions and events that are relevant to a character’s struggles
are relevant to the reader.
While analyzing the structure of hundreds of life stories, McAdams (2005)
discovered the health and therapeutic value of redemptive stories. By definition,
redemption is ‘‘a deliverance from suffering to a better world.’’ McAdams found
that patients who told their stories as redemptive stories healed faster than those
who didn’t.
‘‘Every dark cloud has a silver lining.’’ ‘‘When life gives you lemons, make
lemonade.’’ ‘‘No pain; no gain.’’ ‘‘It’s always darkest just before dawn.’’ These
are metaphoric expressions of a redemptive outlook expressing the general view
that ‘‘good can come from bad,’’ or that ‘‘you can transform a negative into
some kind of positive.’’
McAdams (2006) showed through his research that ‘‘redemptive stories pro-
mote psychological health and maturity.’’ Redemptive stories create hope, sup-
port, determination, confidence, and perseverance in the patient. Patients with
redemptive outlooks view their story as leading from current suffering and
struggle to a place of wellness. Research shows that such a positive attitude sig-
nificantly affects healing. Redemptive stories alter patient moods and tend to
convert their moods and outlooks to redemptive ones (McAdams 2006).
Redemptive stories do not avoid struggle and suffering. Just the opposite.
They require it. Redemptive stories abound in folk literature. Research by
McAdams and others has established the unique power of redemptive stories to
impact the listener and to alter listener mood and outlook in a positive way. The
point to emphasize here is that redemptive stories are not specifically ‘‘happy’’
stories. Redemptive stories emphasize problems and suffering. Redemptive sto-
ries require struggle—the more the better. Redemption is only gained through toil
and suffering. Research shows that ‘‘simply telling or writing upbeat, happy, opti-
mistic stories does not correlate well to measures of self-esteem, life-satisfaction
and life coherence. Redemptive stories do’’ (Taylor 1996).
Any narrative can be converted into story form by reorganizing the material
around the character instead of around information or events (plot). With this
improved understanding of the substance of, and meaning of, story, we can turn
to the research with a better sense of what each researcher means and estab-
lishes when they describe their research.
 PART 2

STORY PROOF
 CHAPTER 8

A PEEK AT THE ANECDOTES

Anecdotal experience provides compelling and dramatic evidence of the effec-

tiveness of stories.

It’s time to examine the evidence to support the value of and use of story. In
addition to mounds of quantitative and qualitative research, I have collected an-
ecdotal experiences from over 1,300 practitioners (950 teachers, 100 librarians,
110 storytellers, and the rest split between youth and community program direc-
tors, writers, clergy, businessmen, organizational leaders, and clinicians). It is
worth repeating: every bit of this mass of anecdotal data concludes that stories
and storytelling are powerful, beneficial, and effective. None—not one—
reported a negative experience.
What does this anecdotal evidence look like? I mentioned several such per-
sonal anecdotes in Chapter 1. Here are six others, typical in scope and specificity
to many of those I have collected.

SIX EXAMPLES OF ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE

High-School Music Teacher (Music from on High)
Dan Fossler, a California high-school music teacher, took a one-week summer
storytelling course from me and created a story of the Italian composer Vivaldi
for his final exercise. The story was a rousing hit. So he told it to his student or-
chestra the next fall before assigning them a Vivaldi piece to learn. He was
amazed at how quickly this orchestra mastered the difficult music.
He scanned their home practice logs and found that this group was practicing
an average of 20 percent more on this piece than had his previous orchestras.
When he asked them why, they replied that Vivaldi was ‘‘cool’’ and that they
liked him and his music. Ten students had gone to the library to check out
84 STORY PROOF

additional reading material on Vivaldi. In short, Fossler’s story made Vivaldi

real, meaningful, accessible, and interesting in a way that the music alone never
had. It created context and relevance. Stories do that.

High-School Biology Teacher (Evolutionary!)

David Crenshaw, a Sacramento, California, area high-school science teacher
took a similar summer course from me in the late 1990s. Charles Darwin was
his favorite scientist. For the day he talked about Darwin in his Introduction to
Biology course, he came to class dressed in period costume and had worked his
Darwin material into first-person story form. He casually noted that students
did better on test questions about Darwin and evolution than they did, on aver-
age, for other test subjects. He assumed it was because everyone knew about
and liked Darwin.
Then he took a story course and realized that he was telling his Darwin mate-
rial in story form. He decided to test the hypothesis that stories are a better way
to teach factual and conceptual science information. He chose three other promi-
nent scientists (Gregor Mendel, Sir Isaac Newton, and Louis Pasteur), created
appropriate costumes, and converted his lectures on these three into stories. He
also isolated questions on quizzes, chapter tests, midterms, and finals that
related to material he delivered in story form.
The Intro course was offered once a year. After two years (about 60 students)
he was already able to say with certainty that students absorbed significantly
more information—in an absolute sense—on story days than on lecture or activ-
ity (experiment) days. More impressively, he could show that students were bet-
ter able to apply the information they learned through stories into new
situations. Crenshaw considered this a miraculous accomplishment that
matched his definition of the highest form of learning. Stories create learning.
Students learned more, learned it faster, retained it longer, recalled it more
accurately, and could apply this new knowledge better if the information was
delivered in story form. As a side bonus, he found that his use of stories as a
teaching vehicle made reluctant science students more interested in class and in
studying science. Absentee and cut rates dropped. The class’s rate of successful
homework completion rose. Story is a more effective and efficient way to teach.
David planned to wait for two more years to compile a larger sample size
before publishing the statistical results of his classroom study. Unfortunately,
after the second year of his four-year plan, he moved out of the state and was
unable to complete his study.

Corporate Lecturer on Knowledge Management

(The Real ‘‘Stick’’)
Through several articles, Seth Kahan (2001a) described a story-based process
he uses. He has presented a story poem to begin his presentations at hundreds
of conferences and sessions with KM (knowledge management) business leaders.
Following this recitation, he passes a Native American talking stick from person
to person, giving them a chance to relate what they experienced or thought
about during the poem. (The person holding the talking stick has the floor.)
He reported that this simple activity literally shifts ‘‘who’’ is in the room from
job titles and corporations to parents, partners, and community members with
deep concerns, personal struggles, fears, hopes, and passions. The story induces
 A PEEK AT THE ANECDOTES 85

them to listen ‘‘with both their cognitive and emotional minds.’’ His story
encourages participants to share personal information outside the strict context
of their jobs. It makes each participant relevant to others and creates a new level
of context through which they can work with each other.
Kahan says that ‘‘first of all, this type of community storytelling invites the
whole person into the workplace conversation—tacit knowledge and all.’’ A
well-chosen story creates relevance and context for a different aspect of the par-
ticipants than just job title and position. ‘‘Second, the end product of this type of
storytelling interaction is people working better together’’ (Kahan 2001a).
Illinois storyteller Dan Keding created a warrior story whose last line is: ‘‘My
grandmother always said, ’You can never hate someone once you’ve heard their
stories.’’’ Kahan has demonstrated the truth of this statement in the high-stress
world of knowledge management seminars.

Middle-School Librarian (Raising the Sky to Raise the Scores)

Barbara McBride-Smith is an internationally renowned storyteller and a
long-time middle-school librarian in Oklahoma. One of Oklahoma’s fifth-grade
standardized tests includes questions to assess the students’ knowledge of
library research and reference materials. One of those multiple-choice ques-
tions is typically in the form: ‘‘If you were looking for (some specific fact)
would you look in’’ and then gives four choices: dictionary, almanac, atlas, or
encyclopedia.
Barbara noted that, when the correct answer was atlas, a significant number
of students would slip (or panic under test pressure) and mark the other ‘‘a’’
word, almanac. Without changing any other teaching content or methodology,
and without telling them why she was presenting this story, she told the next
year’s fifth graders the story of Atlas—his struggles with Hercules, how he
really had to hold up the sky but is always depicted as holding up the world, etc.
That year, not one fifth grader in the entire school missed the question whose
correct answer was ‘‘the atlas.’’ Not a single student! When she asked students
why they thought everyone got that question right, she received ‘‘Well,
duuuuh!’’ shrugs and was told that everyone knows about Atlas.

Corporate Staff Development (Where Lands’ End Begins)

Lands’ End created a corporate philosophy: Guaranteed. Period. The chal-
lenge was to get all employees both to understand and to adopt this attitude.
According to Sandy Johns, Lands’ End Learning and Development Manager,
they finally settled on a system that worked: stories. Lands’ End trainers shared
stories about employees who have taken the authority to do whatever is neces-
sary to make customers happy.
According to Jackie Johnson-Gaygill, ‘‘When new employees hear the story of
Nora Halverson who sent her husband’s cuff links off to a customer because the
ordered ones were on back order, they understand the extra effort our people
are expected to extend to serve our customers. They learn it more deeply than a
lecture or mandate could ever achieve.’’
Lands’ End has now compiled booklets containing stories that demonstrate
how each employee goes the distance for customers. The stories have not only
increased commitment to Lands’ End philosophy, they have enhanced a sense
of belonging, camaraderie, and team building among sales employees.
86 STORY PROOF

Primary-Grade Storytelling Program (Changes due to Story)

New Jersey storyteller Susan Danoff is executive director of a nonprofit com-
pany providing in-class storytelling programs to inner-city schools. Her pro-
grams involve repeat visits to each participating classroom. Over an eight-year
period, she collected almost 1,000 Teacher Observation Sheets describing behav-
ioral or academic performance changes the teacher noted that the teacher felt
were caused by, and should be credited to, the storytelling program. These
sheets covered pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. All comments were quali-
tative and narrative and only included those effects the teacher felt were suffi-
cient and significant enough to merit mention.
Behaviorally, over 75 percent of preschool teachers and almost half of kinder-
garten teachers specifically noted that storytelling benefited shy children, mak-
ing them more willing to participate and volunteer. More than half credited
storytelling with increasing attention span or helping students learn to pay
attention. Almost half noted that overactive children learned to sit still and listen
through storytelling.
Academically, two-thirds of all teachers credited storytelling with improving
student comprehension skills (including 88 percent of intermediate grade teach-
ers). Ninety-three percent of kindergarten teachers said that the program
improved their students’ verbal skills. More than 70 percent of other grade
teachers agreed. Half of all teachers (kindergarten and above) believed that
storytelling significantly improved student writing skills (including two-thirds
of intermediate grade teachers.) More than 75 percent of these same teachers
said that the storytelling program improved their students’ critical thinking and
general imagining and envisioning skills.
These are all anecdotal teacher observations. Yet the consistency and acclaim
evident in these results is startling. Their value is enhanced by the fact that
teachers know their students best and are in the best position to ascribe
improvements to the correct underlying cause. A one-hour, once-a-week (in
some cases only once-a-month) storytelling program had a major and lasting
impact on student behavior and language arts achievement.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR US

Stories create context and relevance for any included concepts, attitudes, or
information and make it easy to recall and use. Want to raise test scores at
your school? Pick four questions many students historically miss on standar-
dized tests and develop and tell appropriate stories to create similar context
and relevance for that information and watch your school’s scores jump
accordingly.
Want to develop a sense of belonging and buy-in in your organization? Col-
lect and refine the stories of your group members that best embody the attitudes
and outlook you want to promote. Actively tell these stories and encourage
others to create and share their own.
The success of these anecdotal applications of story demonstrates the value of
stories to more effectively introduce units, themes, and topics. Let the story act
as both reference point and as frame for the coming study or learning. Stories
create interest, context, and relevance for subsequent information and material.
Stories increase learning, interest, and enthusiasm. They make learning fun and
 A PEEK AT THE ANECDOTES 87

involve story receivers (for example, students, employees, and co-workers) in

the material you want to teach.
Stories effectively and efficiently convey factual and conceptual information
as well as values, beliefs, and attitudes. Efficiency is an important concept. Many
shy away from incorporating stories into already-jammed lesson plans and cor-
porate presentations, believing that stories take more time to deliver the same
core information. Yet the unique properties of story structure increase the rate
of retention of key program information so that learning per unit time actually
increases. Story listeners pay better attention.
Stories engage the entire person and evoke a sense of community and of
belonging that brings whole people into an event or space. Stories engage multi-
ple aspects of each receiver and allow them to relate to each other on those mul-
tiple levels.

THE VALUE OF ANECDOTES

These anecdotes—and thousands more—ring with the power of truth and
success behind them. But they are just anecdotes. Perhaps it was merely the en-
thusiasm of the teacher that made the difference and not the story he or she pre-
sented. Perhaps it was their performance skill more than the story content.
Perhaps it was just an unusually good class of students and they would have
done just fine without the story. Perhaps this particular company with this par-
ticular group of employees would have performed as well with some other style
of leadership.
Without rigorous control procedures and the use of recognized research
methodology, we can never be sure. That’s the problem with anecdotes—even
with thousands of them.
However, a great mass of individually impressive anecdotes from a variety
of fields that all come to the same conclusion, that all demonstrate the same
value through stories, cannot be easily dismissed. They may not—even consid-
ered collectively—constitute proof of the value and power of stories. But they
come pretty darned close. If you throw a ball into the air and it falls back to
earth, that’s interesting. If you throw it up ten times and each time it falls to
earth, that’s a pattern. It you throw it up 1,000 times and it always falls straight
back to earth, you have not rigorously proved the existence of gravity, but you
are close enough to serve as a practical guide for virtually all applications. So,
too, these massed anecdotes provide clear guidance for how to improve leader-
ship, teaching, and communications in general.
How? Use stories.
 CHAPTER 9

WE’VE REACHED THE

RESEARCH RESULTS

The findings of many hundreds of research studies unanimously confirm the

effectiveness of stories for a variety of teaching, leadership, outreach, and com-
munications functions.

It’s time to set personal experience aside and examine analytical research.
The studies I present here and their quantitative and qualitative evidence are
impressive and convincing. They are powerful, valid, and rigorous. Most have
been published through major universities or in peer-reviewed journals. The
individuals I reference are all established, respected researchers in their fields.
You should read and understand this research based on the definition of story
presented in Chapter 7. I chose the research studies in this chapter because I
was relatively sure that their use of story matched the principles of my defini-
tion. I believe that, in all cases, these researchers and their results take story in
the way we have come to mean it in this book. The reader should overlay these
results onto the neural and cognitive research presented in Chapters 3 through
6. The current chapter focuses on research based on the application of story. Yet
it meshes well with previous research based on neural function. Combined, they
provide a complete and compelling view of the power and potential of stories.
I have grouped the research into eight relevant themes, organized by their
effect on the receiver (for example, develop a sense of community and identity
in the receiver, or improve narrative comprehension skills in the receiver). These are:

1. comprehension,
2. logical thinking and general (cross-curriculum) learning,
3. creating meaning from narrative,
4. motivation to learn (and to pay attention),
5. building a sense of community and involvement,
6. literacy and language mastery,
90 STORY PROOF

7. writing, and
8. memory.
While each is individually significant, their cumulative significance
is, I believe, overwhelming.
For our purposes, the specific scientific field of individual research-
ers does not matter. Studies from the field of education merge with
studies from organizational management and clinical psychology—if
they address the same effect in the receiver of the story. That, after
all, is the purpose of using stories: to have a desired impact on the
receiver.

USING STORIES IMPROVES COMPREHENSION

Reading comprehension refers to the process of interpreting and
understanding narrative text (Lehr and Osborn 2005). Pressley (2001)
defined comprehension as the ‘‘fluid and integrated articulation of a
series of individual processes: processing letters and their sounds,
word recognition, spelling, grammar, sentence comprehension, and
text processing competencies.’’
Only since the mid-1990s has comprehension been a focal issue in
reading and language arts instruction (Pressley 2001; Liang and Dole
2006). Before that, the more fundamental skills such as spelling, word
recognition, and grammar were emphasized. Cooper (1997) lumped
these mechanical skills under the group heading of decoding and
showed that decoding is a precursor to comprehension.
Do readers comprehend information better and more easily if that
information is presented in story form? Does story, as a unique narra-
tive structure, improve reader comprehension? Does a conscious
understanding of story architecture improve narrative comprehension?
Readers (and Researchers who have studied reading and listening comprehen-
listeners) more
sion universally—universally—support two concepts: first, readers
readily comprehend
and retain key (and listeners) more readily comprehend and retain key narrative in-
narrative information formation and concepts when they are presented in story form. Sec-
and concepts when ond, learning story structure improves comprehension for all types of
they are presented in narrative texts—expository as well as story.
story form.
First Clymer (1968) and then Cooper (1997) conducted reading
assessments using the three levels of Barrett’s Taxonomy of Reading
Comprehension—literal (decode sequence and events), inferential (pre-
dict and draw conclusions), and critical (evaluate the text). Both con-
cluded that all three levels of comprehension were facilitated (made
easier) when reading stories as opposed to other narrative forms. Lehr
and Osborn (2005) concluded that stories are far easier for students to
understand and comprehend than are expository forms.
Armbruster et al. (1987) used controlled testing methodology to
show that students comprehended and retained information about
the building of the transcontinental railroad better if the motivations
and goals of the builders were made clear and placed in story form.
Trostle (1999) compared storytelling to story reading by measuring
both vocabulary development and comprehension. She found that
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 91

telling stories to primary-grade students improved their vocabulary

faster than did reading to them but that both oral activities signifi-
cantly improved student reading comprehension. Just listening to sto-
ries improves reading comprehension!
In her major review of comprehension studies, Maria (1998) said Learning story
that text structure was one of four elements that determined student structure improves
comprehension for
comprehension levels. She divided text into three categories: basal
all types of narrative
readers, content area books (expository texts), and children’s litera- texts—expository as
ture (story books) and concluded that children not only comprehend well as story.
stories better, but that merely reading literature improved children’s
general comprehension skills.
In a 1995 survey of 10,000 elementary teachers, 94 percent relied
on basal readers for reading instruction (Educational Product Infor-
mation Exchange 1995). The prime purpose of basal readers is to
teach how to read. The prime criticism of the basal reading system
is its lack of focus on comprehension (Maria 1998, Durkin 1985, Beck
et al. 1985, Goodman et al. 1988).
‘‘Because reading programs have centered on the basal reader, Placing information
in story form
children’s literature tends to be seen by teachers as recreational read- improves reader
ing, ‘something to do when your work is done.’ Thus, remedial read- comprehension of
ers have little or no opportunity to read children’s literature’’ (Maria that material,
1998). She suggested that this lack of opportunity for story reading, in especially for poor
part, explained the poor comprehension skills by low-achieving readers.
readers.
Supporting Maria’s conclusions, Griffey et al. (1988) conducted
studies to show that good readers strategize (summarize a text, shift
reading pace, ask themselves questions, reread passages, construct
mental structure of material, pause to think and consider, etc.) while
reading. (See also Baumann 1986, Chan and Cole 1986, Graves 1986,
Paris and Myers 1981.) Poor readers are more passive and tend not to
intervene with new strategies when they don’t comprehend. While
reading stories, however, poor readers become more active. Reading
stories helps them develop the skills and strategies used by good
readers (Griffey 1988).
Here, then, are two great story advantages. First, placing informa- Reading stories
develops the skills
tion in story form improves reader comprehension of that material,
that improve
especially for poor readers. Second, reading stories develops the skills comprehension of
that improve comprehension of any written material. any written material.
Smiley et al. (1977) conducted a series of experiments showing that
poor readers were also poor listeners and that reading comprehen-
sion and listening comprehension depended on the same mental
processes. Improvement in comprehension through either activity
improved comprehension in both. Further, either activity—listening
to stories or reading stories—improved comprehension.
‘‘Stories center on problems in human interactions. Stories in
trade books are more popular and comprehensible to students
because they have more conflict and more information about the
protagonist and the protagonist’s point of view’’ (Bruce 1990).
Bruce, Maria, and Griffey agree that stories contain the structural
elements that readers need and want to be engaged by, and to make
92 STORY PROOF

sense out of, what they read. Story structure facilitates both compre-
hension and enjoyment.
In Cooper’s study (1997) student comprehension scores were
50 percent higher for information presented in story form than for
similar information presented in any of the expository forms he stud-
ied. The Texas Education Agency (2002) and the National Reading
Panel (2000) also noted significantly higher comprehension scores for
material delivered in story form over material delivered in the vari-
ous expository forms. Data from Smiley et al. (1977) showed that both
first-grade and middle-school poor readers, while they struggled with
both mechanical decoding and content comprehension for all texts,
performed markedly better (comparable to ‘‘good’’ readers) when
tested on their comprehension of stories.

Why Are Stories Better?

If you want students (or people in general) to comprehend new
material (concepts, values, factual information), place that informa-
tion within the context of a story to increase comprehension. Stories
effectively teach because people comprehend them better.
But why? Research has focused on three contributing factors:

1. Stories evoke prior knowledge

2. Stories provide details
3. Stories improve comprehension

Use Story to Evoke Prior Knowledge

Prior knowledge refers to accessible banks of information already
held in the mind of the reader about any aspect of the material being
read. Schema theory holds that comprehension depends on integrat-
ing new knowledge into a network of prior knowledge—structural or
topical (Harris and Hodges 1995, National Reading Panel 2000).
Relevant banks of prior knowledge include the subject matter of
the narrative, personal experience relevant to the processes or situa-
tions being described, the characters themselves, and the natural
structure of the narrative in which it is being delivered (Pinker 2000,
Bransford and Stein 1993). There are many demonstrations that read-
ers who possess rich prior knowledge about the topic of a reading
usually understand the reading far better than classmates with low
prior knowledge (Anderson and Pearson 1984).
Prior knowledge of Maria (1998) concluded, ‘‘Prior knowledge of the reader is one of
story architecture
the most important factors in comprehension.’’ However, as men-
gained through early
childhood story tioned, there are many types of prior knowledge that can be evoked
exposure aids to aid in comprehension. Studies that have isolated different aspects
comprehension. of prior knowledge have concluded that topical prior knowledge is
most useful (Maria 1998).
But evoking other forms of prior knowledge has been shown to
benefit comprehension. Cooper (1997) concluded, ‘‘Students generally
have more difficulty reading expository texts than story texts because
they have had less experience with them.’’ After extensive
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 93

quantitative testing and after a review of other research, both

Armbruster et al. (1987) and Spiro and Taylor (1980) reached a similar
conclusion: children (they researched up through seventh grade) have
more difficulty reading, comprehending, and recalling expository
than story texts because they understand story structure and can
access banks of prior story knowledge to know what to expect and to
watch for in the text.
Prior knowledge of story architecture gained through early child-
hood story exposure aids comprehension. Armbruster et al. (1987) fur-
ther concluded that young children ‘‘learn, internalize, and rely on the
elements of story structure when trying to comprehend any texts.’’
When studying how people learn from texts about familiar and
unfamiliar topics, Bransford and Stein (1993) concluded that the use
of familiar story structure aided both interest in and understanding
of texts. They stated, ‘‘If you know a lot about a topic, it is much eas-
ier to elaborate the new information and remember what you have
read or heard.’’ However, ‘‘when the topic is unfamiliar, the creator
must lead the elaboration process. All are familiar with story struc-
ture and with character goal, motive, and struggles. Creators can use
these to guide elaboration.’’ (Elaboration is the process of activating
banks of prior knowledge in order to comprehend.)
Texas Education Agency (2002) concluded, ‘‘Readers who lack suf- When the topic is
unfamiliar, the
ficient background knowledge of a topic or process typically fail to
creator must lead the
comprehend and to learn.’’ Their term process corresponds to under- elaboration process.
standing the narrative structure used to present the text information. All are familiar with
In their review of effective comprehension strategies, the National story structure and
Reading Panel (2000) said, ‘‘One effective method of reading about with character goal,
motive, and
other people, in fiction or social studies (or science, etc.) is to ask stu-
struggles. Creators
dents to think of their own experiences and how their lives compare can use these to
with the life situation of someone that is described in a text.’’ This guide elaboration.
text-to-self-comparison technique evokes prior knowledge of the
reader’s personal experience and places it in story context (What
were you trying to do? How did you feel? What problems did you
face?) in order to comprehend new narrative information. The read-
er’s personal experience and familiar story structure combine to cre-
ate comprehension of the new text. Again, the employment of story
structure (this time to format the personal experiences of the reader)
enhances comprehension.

Use Stories to Provide Greater Details That Enhance

Comprehension
Many researchers (including but certainly not limited to the
National Reading Panel 2000, Cooper 1997, and Pressley 2001) have
concluded that additional textural details support improved compre-
hension of the text. Following his extensive study of comprehension
research, Pressley (2001) concluded that one of the four successful
strategies for improved memory and comprehension of texts in chil-
dren was ‘‘constructing mental images representing ideas in the text.’’
He and other researchers concluded that text details create these
94 STORY PROOF

mental images and that stories facilitate a greater density of sensory

details.
Research by Lakoff and Johnson (2003), Bransford and Stein (1993),
Pinker (1997 and 2000), and Turner (1996), among other neurological
and developmental psychological researchers, confirms Egan’s (1997)
assertion that mental images allow the transfer of concepts from one
mental domain to another. Anderson (1993), Schank (1990), Hardcastle
(2003), and others have quantitatively demonstrated what is obvious
at a commonsense level: sensory details create images that allow
trans-domain neural mapping within the mind of the story receiver.
Tannen (1999) studied factors affecting memory and found
‘‘images created by sensory text details, I am suggesting, are more
convincing, easier to comprehend, and more memorable than abstract
propositions.’’ Story structure provides for increased details that, in
turn, create comprehension. She also studied why informal communi-
cations create greater retention and recall than do formal (academic)
narratives. She showed that the presence of additional sensory details
in informal, oral communications increases both interest in, and com-
prehension of, communication content.
Readers identify My personal classroom studies have confirmed that readers iden-
what they read as a tify what they read as a story and as a good story (as opposed to an
story and as a good
story by the
article, essay, or encyclopedia entry) by the increased density of sen-
increased density of sory details and character information. The form and structure of
sensory details and story facilitates the inclusion of essential sensory details and other
character elements such as rhythm or repetition essential to greater under-
information. standing, general learning, and comprehension.
Rule and Wheeler (1993) concluded that effective writers must cre-
ate a real world for their readers by using densely packed, rich details
in addition to information and fact. Foer (2006) studied memory
champions and found that they use associative sensory details to
enhance natural memory. Sensory details create strong, vivid images
that are far easier to remember than factual information alone.
In this way, details create reality in readers’ and listeners’ minds
that increases comprehension. I tell a short story about a girl and a
frog and place part of that story on a bridge. If I know enough of the
local geography, street names, or store names, for example, I will of-
ten claim that the bridge is in the town where I am performing and
will add invented details about the history and construction of the
bridge to make it seem more vivid. It amazes me how often people
come up to me after such a performance and want to talk about that
bridge. They discuss it as if it were real. Relevant sensory details have
made the fictional bridge real—even for listeners who have lived in
the town for many years.

Use Story Structure Instruction to Improve Comprehension

Without exception, and without equivocation, research studies
conducted over the past quarter century quantify and praise the abil-
ity of story structure instruction to improve comprehension. Period.
Literally hundreds of studies have substantiated that conclusion.
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 95

This positive effect of instruction on story structure has been well-

documented for both good and poor readers and for the comprehen-
sion of both stories and expository narratives (Spiegel and Fitzgerald
1986; Buss, Ratcliff, and Irions 1985; Bransford and Stein 1993; Liang
and Dole 2006; Snow and Burns 1998; and Griffey et al. 1988). Braun
and Gordon (1983) and Morrow (1983) both concluded that knowl-
edge of story structure strongly impacts comprehension.
Greenwald and Rossing compared comprehension scores for a test
group of third graders who followed a standard basal program with
an experimental group that surrounded the same basal stories with
instruction on story structure and the core structural elements of a
story. Their work with each group lasted four weeks before final
assessment. ‘‘The experimental group significantly outperformed the
control group on free recall, guided recall, and retelling post tests’’
(Greenwald and Rossing 1986).
They concluded, ‘‘There is ample research evidence to indicate that Without exception
children’s knowledge of the structure of stories is critical to compre- research studies
conducted over the
hension by providing an organizational framework within which past quarter century
incoming information can be integrated and by providing motivation praise the ability of
and encouragement to engage this neural mapping process.’’ This story structure
conclusion was supported by studies by Mandler and Johnson (1977); instruction to
Rumelhart (1975); Stein and Glenn (1979); Dreher and Singer (1980); improve
comprehension.
and Sebesta, Calder, and Cleland (1978).
Greenwald and Rossing’s experimental group continued to signifi-
cantly outperform the control group for all comprehension measures
five months after the end of training. Long-term comprehension bene-
fits developed from even this short-term instructional program.
In 1987, Armbruster et al. studied eighty-nine students in London
and documented over 50 percent improvement in student ability to
recall central narrative themes after story structural training. ‘‘Stu-
dents’ ability to abstract the content and gist of expository articles
was significantly improved by training in story structure.’’ Tested
material included both story and expository texts. Brown et al. (1996)
reviewed over thirty previous studies and concluded that every study
showed statistically significant improvements in comprehension after
instruction on story structure.
Short and Ryan (1984) compared fifty-six fourth-grade ‘‘less
skilled’’ boys (reading at least two grades below their actual grade)
with fourteen ‘‘skilled’’ boys as a control (those who read above
grade level). Using detailed post-test free and probed recall, they
found that even short-term training (five sessions over three weeks)
in story structure elevated the poor readers to actually outperform
the good readers!
They concluded, ‘‘The present findings support the powerful Children’s
knowledge of the
impact of story grammar training in remediating comprehension fail-
structure of stories is
ures.’’ The importance of this finding grows more dramatic when critical to
you remember that they trained students on story structure, but comprehension.
tested them with both stories and expository narratives.
Griffey (1988), confirming earlier research by Short and Ryan
(1984), demonstrated that ‘‘the use of story grammar (structural)
96 STORY PROOF

training significantly eliminated comprehension failures.’’ Poor

fourth-grade readers (reading at two or more grades below assigned
grade) performed as well on comprehension assessments as skilled
fourth graders (reading at one or more grades above assigned grade)
following even limited story structure training. Quentin’s poor-
reading test group correctly answered significantly more post-session
teacher-generated multiple choice comprehension questions (average
of 18 percent more) than did a control group of skilled readers even
though the poor readers correctly answered only one-third as many
correctly on similar testing taken before story structure training.
Buss, Ratcliff and Irions (1985) divided fifty-two third-grade stu-
dents into three groups: good readers, poor readers in their test
group, and poor readers in a control group. They found that none of
the groups showed adequate pretest knowledge of story structure.
(Only eight of fifty-two tested as adequate.) Thus, they concluded
that the need for story structural training is both great and
widespread.
‘‘There does appear Tests following a story structural instruction program conducted
to be a direct and with the test group showed that the test group now outperformed
significant the good reader group on comprehension texts while the control
relationship between group of poor readers did not improve and remained almost two
knowledge of story grades behind the good readers. Their conclusion: ‘‘There does
structure and
comprehension of appear to be a direct and significant relationship between knowledge
narrative and of story structure and comprehension of narrative and expository
expository texts.’’ texts.’’
Liang and Dole (2006) and Snow and Burns (1998) conducted
reviews of comprehension literature and strategies for the federal
government. Both of these studies placed central emphasis on inte-
grated use of multiple strategies as combined into five instructional
frameworks they summarized. All five of these frameworks assume
that readers possess an awareness of story structure and use that
structural awareness as a frame for partner- and teacher-based
questioning.
But is that a reasonable assumption? Gillet and Temple (1984)
(agreeing with Buss, Ratcliff and Irions) found that students could
not consciously describe the elements of a story, even though they
easily recognized them and knew their significance for the story.
Similarly, in a small 2003 study I conducted with 550 second- to
fourth-grade students in eight schools spread over three states, I
found fewer than 10 percent who could articulate the elements of
story that made them understand the story at the beginning of one of
my programs. Eighty percent recognized those key informational ele-
ments when they heard them in a story. However, only 45 percent—
even with my asking leading questions—were able to articulate what
it was that they had just learned. After a one-hour story structural
workshop, these three percentages increased to 65 percent, 92 per-
cent, and 73 percent respectively—a most dramatic increase in struc-
tural awareness from a one-hour workshop.
Correctly interpreting text structure guides encoding, recall, and
reproduction of the essential points of any text (van Dijk and Kintsch
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 97

1983 and Armbruster et al. 1987). But middle-grade children have sig-
nificant difficulty forming and understanding structures for exposi-
tory text (Brown and Day 1983, Taylor 1986). Story structure study
facilitated this task (van Dijk and Kintsch 1983, Taylor 1986). These
four studies all concluded that training in story structure improved
comprehension of expository text as well as narrative. Supporting this
concept, Bruner (1990) concluded, ‘‘Children produce and compre-
hend stories long before they are capable of handling the most funda-
mental Piagetian logical proposition that can be put into linguistic
form.’’
In his previously cited study, Pressley (2001) said, ‘‘A large num- Correctly
ber of experiments conducted in the late 1980s and 1990s showed that interpreting text
structure guides
readers do not automatically relate new factual information to their encoding, recall, and
own prior knowledge. In many cases, more is needed for prior reproduction of the
knowledge to be beneficial to reading comprehension.’’ One of two essential points of
techniques he recommended was to make students more familiar any text.
with the form and structure of story. In their study of this technique,
Brown et al. (1996) concluded, ‘‘The authors were impressed that
when researchers used this comprehension strategy with primary-
level students, the children benefited greatly from it.’’
The National Reading Panel (2000) reviewed 481 research studies
on comprehension and chose 205 for detailed assessment. This list
included seventeen that addressed story structure instruction. They
concluded, ‘‘This learning gives the reader knowledge and proce-
dures for deeper understanding of narratives and allows the reader
to construct more coherent memory representations of what occurred
in the text.’’

What It Means for Us

Available comprehension research conclusively shows four things
that you can use to improve the efficiency of your teaching and
communications.
1. Information delivered in story structure is easier for readers and
listeners to comprehend—especially when the topic of informa-
tion is unfamiliar to the receiver. This improved comprehension
relates to the familiar structure, greater inclusion of sensory
details in story formats, and story’s ability to engage banks of
prior topical and structural knowledge in the receiver’s mind.
It may be the information you want to communicate, but it’s
the story that creates context and relevance for that information
and makes it memorable. It may be an accomplishment or final
achievement you want to get across, but it’s the story obstacles
and struggles that make it memorable and comprehensible to
readers. It may be the concepts you want to present, but it’s story
characters and their intentions that give readers reason to care
about those concepts.
2. Improving comprehension through the use of story structure
also increases information memory and recall.
98 STORY PROOF

3. If you teach the essential elements of story structure to students,

their ability to comprehend both story and expository material
significantly increases.
4. Time spent reading, writing, and telling stories significantly
improves students’ ability to read and comprehend all types of
texts.

While studying the shortcomings of existing reading programs,

Goodman et al. (1988) concluded, ‘‘Basal reader developers . . . try to
avoid offending anyone, and so may end up offending readers—who
just want a good story.’’

STORY STRUCTURE IMPROVES LOGICAL

THINKING AND GENERAL (CROSS-
CURRICULUM) LEARNING
Without doubt, the specific structure of stories aids in reading
comprehension. That’s valuable. But does the benefit of story extend
to math and science? Does it extend across the curriculum and
beyond the classroom to the far more general sense of teaching that
applies to virtually any communications activity? Does story struc-
ture improve logical, mathematical and critical thinking?
After all, the goal of any communications, outreach, or educational
program is to communicate in such a way that the reader learns the
desired information, concept, attitude, or belief. Several of the anec-
dotes presented in Chapter 1 and 8 suggest that it does. What does
the research say?
Polkinghorne (1988) concluded that ‘‘stories have application and
value in science, therapy, history, fiction, natural science, human sci-
ence, etc. Stories are universal.’’ He defined what he meant by univer-
sal by saying, ‘‘Story is the primary form by which human experience
is made meaningful.’’
As early as 1987, the National Council of Teachers of English
(NCTE) combined the classroom experiences of literally tens-of-
thousands of teachers and concluded,
‘‘Story is the best Story is the best vehicle for passing on factual information. Historical
vehicle for passing figures and events linger in children’s minds when communicated by
on factual way of a narrative. The ways of other cultures, both ancient and living,
information.’’
acquire honor in story. The facts about how plants and animals
develop, how numbers work, or how government policy influences
history—any topic for that matter—can be incorporated into story form
and made more memorable. (NCTE 1992)

In a particularly interesting and innovative bit of research, O’Neill,

Pearce, and Pick (2004) studied the storytelling ability of preschool
students in Ontario, Canada, and found good correlation between
early storytelling activity and later math abilities. They suggested that
time spent on early storytelling skill development (telling and read-
ing stories to children and allowing them to tell) in preschool years
seems to improve math skill upon entering school. More important,
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 99

this study clearly establishes storytelling skill (structural knowledge

and story thinking) as both predating, and as precursor to, logical
thinking and critical thinking development.
The human ability to learn through story begins virtually at birth.
Miller (1989) showed that two-year-olds are better able to verbalize
about, discuss, create sequential discussion of, and tell feelings of
past events when they structure those events into classic story form.
They include five times as many evaluation devices in stories as in
other speech.
The superior ability of humans to learn through stories also
extends into adulthood and throughout the expanse of learning situa-
tions and subjects. Coles (1989) compiled eighteen years of testing
data for his college students on the effect of teaching through litera-
ture. He focused on the effect of classic stories on the learning of stu-
dents in the technical, science/math fields of law, business, and
medical classes. Coles concluded that stories enhanced recall, reten-
tion, application of concepts into new situations, understanding, and
learner enthusiasm for the subject matter. ‘‘Stories enhanced and
accelerated virtually every measurable aspect of learning.’’
Coles attributed this broad-spectrum academic benefit to the struc- Storytelling skill both
ture of stories. ‘‘Stories provide an additional kind of truth besides predates, and is a
precursor to, logical
scientific fact. This is character truth that creates context, relevance, thinking and critical
and empathy for both factual information and for struggles of each thinking
character.’’ Characters represent surrogate models for the reader and development.
allow the reader to interpret and understand text content. The mean-
ing for facts, data, or concepts does not come from those facts alone.
Rather it comes through characters and requires story elements (for
example, intention, struggle, conflicts, and reaction) in order to be
understood by readers.
Trousdale (1990) demonstrated that story structure provides a suc-
cessful framework to allow children to structure, understand, and
create meaning from sequential events. Similarly, Meyer (1995)
argued that exposure to story structure allows students to make sense
of experience—any experience—physical or narrative.
Both Ragan and Wittenberg-Lyles (2005) and Greenhalgh and
Hurwitz (1999) concluded from their research that the very nature of
narrative makes it a ‘‘prime instrument for all general learning.’’
Schank (1990) claimed that ‘‘storytelling has demonstrable, mea-
surable value in all teaching.’’ Both he and Dalkir and Wiseman
(2004) concluded that stories are markedly effective for communicat-
ing factual, conceptual, and tangible information and that story is a
superior vehicle for communicating tacit information and knowledge.
Dalkir and Wiseman (2004) defined tacit knowledge as ‘‘that which is
difficult to articulate, to render tangible in some form’’ (for example,
values, beliefs, attitudes, or cultural norms).
According to the organizational studies of Sole and Wilson (2004), Research confirms
stories enable ‘‘knowledge-sharing experience and accelerate the trans- the effectiveness of
story structure as a
fer of tacit knowledge.’’ They concluded that stories are good candi-
vehicle to teach
dates for promoting knowledge movement, and place no limits on the social relationships
kinds of knowledge that their research suggests stories can ‘‘transfer.’’ and values.
100 STORY PROOF

After research on student learning patterns, Taylor (2001) con-

cluded, ‘‘Story [telling] is a valuable resource for developing critical
thinking skills and insight about cultural environment that transmits
beliefs and values.’’ His research suggested that abstract concepts
and information are best understood through the structure of stories.
In her study of the form and structure of effective formal and
informal communications, Mehl-Madrona (2005) concluded, ‘‘The
telling and retelling of stories is the powerful means by which cul-
tures of families and communities are formed and maintained,
national identities are preserved, problem-solving skills are taught,
and moral values are instilled. Stories get our attention and teach us
things we will never forget.’’
Storyteller Donald Davis (1982) conducted a small experiment
from 1980 to 1982. Each Friday afternoon he collected fifteen fourth-
and fifth-grade students from a Charlotte, North Carolina, school and
told them stories. His goal was to see if, just by listening to stories,
they would internalize the structure, pattern, and organization of
effective stories. Far beyond confirming their improved ability to
understand, predict, and construct effective narratives, Davis found
that these underachieving students were ‘‘able to organize their work
better in study areas far removed from storytelling’’ (Davis 1982).
The grades of these students in core academic subjects advanced over
the course of that year far ahead of their peers who were not part of
the storytelling experiment.
Davis’s experiment did not constitute a formally organized research
project and, so, we cannot use these results alone to conclusively
prove the noted, broad-based student advancement was solely attrib-
utable to storytelling activity—even though the teachers involved in
this program believed that it was. However, using more established
research techniques, Peck (1989) and Moss and Stott (1986) similarly
concluded that children who hear stories develop a sense of story
structure and flow that facilitates all types of academic learning.
Clandinin and Connelly (2000) evaluated story in light of the six
levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (knowledge, comprehension, application,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). They concluded that ‘‘story
structure facilitates all six by providing context and relevance as well
as information.’’

The Effect of Story Structure on Learning

Several researchers have wondered why story and storytelling are
more effective vehicles for learning and teaching and have looked at
the effect not of story content, but at the effect of the structure, itself.
Egan (1997) conducted decades of study and research into how
young children learn. Children, Egan concluded, are evolutionarily
hardwired and programmed to respond to story structure first. This
dominance of story thinking is then reinforced over the early years as
it is successfully used over and over again. Egan showed that this
theory matched what he observationally documented in his in-class
studies.
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 101

Egan identified six elements that define how children learn new
material. All six are primary characteristics of story structure and
have been confirmed by many other famed researchers and practi-
tioners including Levi-Strauss (1978), Brown (1991), Turner (1996),
Winner (1988), Quine (1989), Paley (1990 and 2002), Opie and Opie
(1985), Lakoff and Johnson (2003), and Pinker (1997).
Egan (1997) states, ‘‘Narrative (stories) are accessible to the literate
and illiterate alike, to the logico-mathematically sophisticated and
unsophisticated. We might well develop a respect for narrative as
everybody’s rock-bottom capacity, but also as a universal gift, to be
shared with others.’’ He concludes by stating, ‘‘Once we recognize
story structure as a prominent feature of human understanding, then
we are led to reconceive the curriculum as the set of great stories we
have to tell children and recognize elementary school teachers as the
storytellers of our culture.’’
Brown (1991) showed that ‘‘young children universally understand
and delight in fantasy stories. They are clearly able to integrate nature
and culture in that story space and readily accept clothed and talking
rabbits without expecting story elements to translate back into their
real world.’’ Through the fantasy ‘‘reality’’ of story, children learn
and understand complex concepts they cannot grasp through logical,
factual, or argumentative presentations.
Egan (1997) states that ‘‘oral cultures discovered long ago that Story structure
ideas and values put into rhythmic story form were more easily proved equally more
effective for teaching
remembered and more accurately acted upon.’’ This contention has
theorems, facts,
been supported by extensive studies, and reviews of studies, by other concepts, and tacit
researchers such as Paley (2002, 1984, 1990), Opie and Opie (1985), information all
Tannen (1999), or Sutton-Smith (1981). Rhythm is a communications across the
concept completely compatible with story, but not with other com- curriculum and the
spectrum of human
mon expository forms.
communications.
Chafe (1982, 1985) compared effective learning from conversational
storytelling and formal academic papers and found that material pre-
sented in story structure (providing a central role for character, goal-
directed activity, and a greater density of sensory details) was learned
more efficiently and effectively than the same information presented
through traditional academic writing. Tannen (1999) conducted a
similar study and produced identical results. So did Ochs (1979) and
Scollon and Scollon (1984).
In each of these studies, researchers assessed the effect of convert-
ing information into story structure without regard for, or limit to,
the specific type of information being taught. Story structure proved
equally more effective for teaching theorems, facts, concepts, and tacit
information all across the curriculum and the spectrum of human
communications.
Chafe, Tannen, and Scollon and Scollon all noted that readers are
drawn to and become involved with narrative presented in a specific
form and are turned off by narrative presented in specific other
forms. The former corresponds to effective story structure; the latter
to typical expository and academic styles. Tannen expressed it well.
‘‘Short stories combine the ‘involvement’ that Chafe finds typical of
102 STORY PROOF

conversation with the ‘integration’ he finds typical of expository writ-

ing. The result is far more successful than are other forms of
writing.’’

Outside the Classroom

Learning is certainly not limited to the classroom. All communica-
tion is, at its root, an attempt to motivate, to persuade, and to teach.
Many large-scale and detailed business and organization manage-
ment studies have assessed the potential for stories as communica-
tions, teaching, and learning vehicles in organizations. All have
confirmed that stories are uniquely adept at the role of organizational
communications and teaching.
Patton (2002) studied communications patterns in over 100 organi-
zations. Boyce (1996) reviewed 125 other quantitative studies of story
use in organizations. Czarniawska (1997) studied the use of story in
dozens of international corporations. These and dozens of other stud-
ies all concluded that stories are a uniquely effective form of organi-
zational training and communications.
Martin et al. (1983) showed that key organizational information is
most successfully communicated through stories. Stories define and
direct the personality, culture, and direction of an organization.
Fisher (1987) defined his ‘‘narrative (story) paradigm’’ for organi-
zational communication as the bedrock of effective organizational
communication and said that ‘‘stories give reasons which provide co-
herence and order to events occurring.’’ Studies by Boje (1991), Cross-
ley (2000), and others have confirmed both the superiority of and
extensive use of Fisher’s paradigm.
These and dozens of Denning (2001), Armstrong (1999), and others have written exten-
other studies all sively to detail the success they have experienced after converting
concluded that
stories are a uniquely
their organizational training and communications into story form.
effective form of Denning (2001) concluded that springboard stories were essential
organizational to organizational redirection, management, and cohesiveness. He pro-
training and posed the following three elements as uniquely identifying such
communications. springboard stories:

1. Connectedness. Make listener instantly empathize; make them

feel connected.
2. Strangeness. The story must violate the listener’s expectations
in some way. (Psychological development theory says we don’t
pay attention to what we expect to see.)
3. Comprehensibility. The story must create context that has
direct relevance to the listener.

The conclusions of each of these studies show that stories are an

essential and inseparable part of successful organization existence.
The question is never ‘‘Do organizations need stories?’’ or even ‘‘Do
stories play an important role in organizations?’’ any more than ‘‘Do
humans breathe?’’ is a reasonable question. They do. Period. The
question of concern in these studies is: do organizations consciously
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 103

understand, use, and control the stories that define their beliefs, atti-
tudes, decisions, and actions?

Stories Are How Humans Perceive, Think, and Learn

More than just being a uniquely effective learning, teaching, and
communications tool, a number of studies have extended their
research to show that the reason behind this unique effectiveness is
that stories match how humans naturally perceive, process, think,
and learn.
Organizations are built of people and stories resonate with people. Crossley (2000) said,
In supporting research by Sarbin (1986), Crossley (2000) said, ‘‘. . . ‘‘. . . human beings
think, perceive,
human beings think, perceive, imagine, interact and make moral imagine, interact and
choices according to narrative story structures.’’ make moral choices
Bruner (2003) said, ‘‘Why do we use story as the form for telling according to
about what happens in life and in our own lives? Because, most of- narrative story
ten, life follows story form and format. We use it because it usually structures.’’
works.’’ He concluded, ‘‘Story, including fictional stories, gives shape
to things in the real world and often bestows on them a title to real-
ity. . . . It is the sense of things often derived from stories that makes
real-life references possible.’’
Similarly, Drew (2005) said, ‘‘Stories provide a template for charac-
ter and self-development and they also provide a model through
which to approach life.’’ Organizations, then, rely on story (con-
sciously or unconsciously) because people (consciously or uncon-
sciously) rely on stories.
But the value of story is not limited to education and organization Fireman et al. (2003)
concluded, ‘‘The
management. While focusing their study on successful trends in
concept of story has
clinical therapy, Fireman et al. (2003) concluded, ‘‘The concept of been called ‘one of
story has been called ‘one of the most prominent currents in late the most prominent
20th Century life.’’’ Neisser and Fivush (1994) reached the same currents in late 20th
conclusion. Century life.’’’
Harter et al. (2005) reviewed forty other studies (many, themselves,
reviews of other studies) assessing the use of story in therapy. Most
of these forty were quantitative assessments. Harter et al. concluded,
‘‘There has been a rush to narrative therapy and to use of narrative
theory in healing because study after study and in anecdotal evidence
after evidence universally confirm forty stories work. No contradic-
tory study was sighted or identified in writings by forty professionals
citing hundreds of other studies.’’ Further, they reported that all forty
studies asserted that ‘‘stories facilitate emergent social selves, rela-
tional identities, and co-cultural understanding.’’
Thus, the use of story structure as a way to organize and present
material is more effective simply because it matches the way that
humans naturally think and perceive. Humans learn better through
stories because story structure is how human minds naturally seek,
process, and understand new information. ‘‘Every one of us is
actively plotting our lives, both consciously and unconsciously, by
attempting to construct ourselves as significant characters within
what we regard as meaningful life stories’’ (Johnson 1996).
104 STORY PROOF

What It Means for Us

Research clearly supports and substantiates two important con-
cepts for education:

1. Any curriculum information will be learned better and more

effectively if presented within the context of story structure.
2. Involving students early and often with stories (storytelling,
story listening, story reading, story writing) improves logical
thinking and mathematical thinking.

Research also clearly shows that teaching outside the classroom of

factual, conceptual, and tacit information is more effectively and effi-
ciently conducted through material formed into story structure.
Story—that particular narrative structure—matches the way human
minds naturally think and process information and improves all
modes of human thinking.
We humans live, think, and learn through stories.

USING STORY AND STORY STRUCTURE

ENHANCES MEANING
The goal of every reader and listener is to create meaning from
what they read and hear; to make it make sense. Meaning is a close
companion of comprehension. The reason to comprehend is to then
create meaning. Meaning almost automatically follows after compre-
hension. Is there research that addresses the effect of story and story
structure on the creation of meaning? Actually, there is a great deal of it.
Crossley (2000) addressed the question of meaning, itself. ‘‘When
we ask, ‘What does this mean?’ we are asking how something is
related or connected to something or someone else. It is the connec-
tions or relationships among events that constitute their meaning.’’
Readers, then, seek a context within their own banks of experience
within which this new information is relevant to them. This men-
tal search is controlled by neural maps, chief among them is the
reader’s/listener’s story map.
Lehr and Osborn (2005) said, ‘‘. . . meaning resides in the thinking
processes that readers engage in as they read. The meaning they get
from their reading is influenced both by their relevant prior knowl-
edge and experiences and by the neural schema engaged to organize
that particular text.’’ Meaning, then, arrives from a process of com-
parison, interpretation, and mental filtering controlled by story
schema and by banks of relevant personal experience and prior
knowledge.

Creating Meaning in the Classroom

In her well-known books describing her kindergarten experiences,
Paley (1990 and 2002) writes compellingly and eloquently to demon-
strate that children process the world in story terms, using story as a
structure within which to create meaning and understanding. She
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 105

observes that science facts, theorems, and information gain meaning

for students only when students can place that information within
the context and relevance provided by story structure and prior story
information.
Blythe et al. (2004) reviewed existing literature to examine the ‘‘Science is a form of
effectiveness of story as an educational tool. They concluded that the storytelling. Science
meaning is
primary benefit of stories in education is that they create meaning
constructed and
(make sense) even from apparently chaotic and random events or bits conveyed through
of information. Boje (1991) agreed when he concluded that story storytelling.’’
allows participants to bring order to complex situations and to
‘‘create meaning from seeming disconnectedness.’’

Creating Meaning Outside the Classroom

Most educational research, however, has focused on comprehen-
sion. Conversely, meaning is the central focus of related research in
the fields of organizational management, narrative therapy, and psy-
chology research.
Hastings et al. (2005) and Drew (2005) both analyzed different nar-
rative data sets related to the stories used for, and created as part of,
the patient healing process. While each analyzed the narrative content
in quantified detail, an overriding truth of their research is that all
patients viewed their situation as, and constructed their narrative as,
stories. The information extracted and feelings experienced could
have been expressed (structured) in a wide variety of frameworks.
Yet all—without conscious thought—created narratives in classic
story architecture in order to create meaning from their therapy.
Hastings et al. concluded that ‘‘narrative (structure) moves readers
and listeners toward reconstructing meaning.’’
Hanninen (1999) also studied the use and effectiveness of narrative ‘‘Patients were
therapy and found that ‘‘patients were unable to promote self- unable to promote
self-recovery until
recovery until they were able to structure a successful narrative of they were able to
their addiction (including positive resolution). Successful narratives structure a
were essential in order to give meaning to patient struggles.’’ She successful narrative
stated that every patient narrative and case she studied formed their of their addiction
story with a protagonist, goal, motive, conflicts, risk and danger, (including positive
resolution).
struggles, and resolution. Successful
In her review of over 100 other studies, Mehl-Madrona (2005) narratives were
agreed, concluding that ‘‘stories and storytellers help people make essential in order to
meaning in their lives.’’ She further stated, ‘‘Narrative psychotherapy give meaning to
says that our stories contain the meaning we make of our experien- patient struggles.’’
ces. Stories hold a richness and complexity that simple declarative
facts can never grasp. . . . Story provides the dominant frame for ‘‘Stories rather than
logical arguments or
organizing experience and for creating meaning out of experience.’’ lawful formulations,
She concluded that ‘‘stories rather than logical arguments or lawful for- are the vehicles by
mulations, are the vehicles by which that meaning is communicated.’’ which that meaning
Many other studies in the fields of psychotherapy and narrative is communicated.’’
therapy have arrived at the same conclusion. Hirst (2001) stated that
‘‘stories reveal causes and consequences that form the foundation of
meaning.’’ Spicer (1998) said, ‘‘Narrative fulfills critical sense-making
106 STORY PROOF

function.’’ Spicer’s work led her to the conclusion that ‘‘if you can’t
see the story; you won’t learn the content and its meaning.’’
In a more broadly focused study of narrative, Howard (1991)
claimed that ‘‘when we think, we do so by fitting story themes to the
experience we wish to understand. . . . A life becomes meaningful
when one sees himself or herself as an actor within the context of a
story.’’
Swatton (1999) cited numerous studies to support her contention
that ‘‘stories communicate meaning,’’ and that ‘‘healing stories create
meaning within the context of struggle.’’ She concluded that ‘‘we can-
not change ourselves until we change our stories.’’
Hastings et al. (2005) conducted a statistical analysis of story
themes and content for grieving stories. Setting aside the details of
this content analysis, the broader point was that all of the patients
that were studied organized thoughts automatically along story ele-
mental lines when asked to identify any aspect of meaning. For these
patients, meaning came from and through story structure. Ryden
(2005) conducted a similar, but qualitative analysis of bereavement
stories and reached an identical conclusion on the role and function
of story.
Drew (2005), in supporting earlier work by Somers (1994), stated,
‘‘People make sense of what has happened and is happening . . . by
attempting to assemble or to integrate these happenings into narra-
tives (stories).’’ Babrow et al. (2005) concluded, ‘‘Stories provide a
way to make sense of experience. Stories provide particularly impor-
tant ways of understanding when unexpected, unpleasant, or uncer-
tain experiences challenge what had previously been taken for
granted.’’
All of the cited Harter et al. (2005) cited literally hundreds of other studies in their
studies confirm the assessment of stories and concluded that all of the cited studies con-
cognitive value and
meaning
firm the cognitive value and meaning enhancement of stories. The
enhancement of authors described stories as ‘‘occasions for the act of knowledge and
stories. meaning sharing.’’
In the most comprehensive and critical review of organizational
myths to that date, Bowles (1989) examined the relationship between
myth and meaning in work organizations. His conclusion: meaning is
now sought by many people through their work and work organiza-
tion and is defined by the organization’s dominant stories and myths.
Behind Boyce’s (1996) narrative study of how stories develop and
affect (even control) life and work, Boyce showed the more basic
truth that stories (story structure and form) are the most basic form
used to filter, internalize, make sense of, and evaluate new experi-
ences and information both for individuals and for organizations. In
all the studies and organizational examples Boyce studied, the
researchers had to place collected data within the context and struc-
ture of a story in order to create meaning and to make sense of organ-
izational communications.
Boyce (1996), Nusbaum (1982), and Boje (2001) arrived at identical
conclusions. ‘‘Meaning and sense-making come for viewing organiza-
tional communications in the form and structure of corporate stories
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 107

and myths’’ (Boje 2001). ‘‘Sense making in organizations must involve

stories and storytelling’’ (Boyce 1996).
Beginning with his experiences at the World Bank, Denning (2001)
studied the use of, and potential for, stories in organizational
management. He concluded, ‘‘Stories help us understand complexity.
Stories can enhance or change perception. Stories are easy to
remember.’’
Arriving at similar conclusions, Stone (1996), in agreeing with
Weick and Browning (1986), said, ‘‘Storytelling brings people to-
gether in a common perspective, and stretches everyone’s ability to
empathize with others.’’ Extending his analytical studies to a personal
observation, Denning (2001) said, ‘‘As opposed to logical step-by-step
explanations, I can follow stories with pleasure and with no effort at
all. I instantly perceive the meaning behind the story.’’
Famed narratology researcher Polkinghorne stated as the central
theme of his (1988) book, ‘‘The core argument that I make in this
book is that narrative is a scheme by means of which human
beings give meaning to their experiences of temporality and per-
sonal action. Narrative is the primary form by which human expe-
rience is made meaningful.’’ Another researcher from the same ‘‘Narrative is the
primary form by
field, Heidegger (1971) argued that ‘‘narrative is the primary which human
scheme by means of which hermeneutical (interpretive) meaning- experience is made
fulness is manifested.’’ meaningful.’’
Story is the structure by and through which humans create mean-
ing. McAdams, a psychologist, wrote in his 1993 book, ‘‘It is because
of the narrative nature of human minds that we are impelled as
adults to make sense of our lives in terms of stories.’’ In 1999, Swat-
ton stated, ‘‘Stories (structure of) are integral to the ability to have in-
formation and experience make sense to our lives.’’ Kaminsky (1996)
wrote, ‘‘To make sense of the world, people tend to structure the
stream of time and events into traditional story elements. It is a way
to create meaning from past events, a way to understand the present
as an outcome of the past.’’
Famed psychologist, Jerome Bruner (1990) concluded, ‘‘It is nar-
rative and narrative interpretation upon which folk psychology
depends for achieving meaning. Stories achieve their meanings by
explicating deviations from the ordinary in a comprehensible form.’’
His is yet another voice saying that we humans must weave infor-
mation and experience into story structure in order to obtain mean-
ing. In 1987, Bruner stated, ‘‘Other temporal forms (than story) can
be imposed on the experience of time, but none of them succeed in
capturing the sense of, or giving meaning to, lived time: not clock
or calendar time forms, not serial or cyclical orders, not any of
these.’’ In the same paper, Bruner concluded from his decades of
research and clinical observation, ‘‘I believe that the ways of story-
telling and the ways of conceptualizing that go with them become
so habitual that they finally become recipes for structuring experi-
ence itself, for laying down routes into memory, for not only guid-
ing the life narrative up to the present but directing it into the
future.’’
108 STORY PROOF

What It Means for Us

The point of teaching—of communications in general—is to instill
a desired meaning within the mind of the receiver. As was true for
comprehension, as will be true for other communications activities,
the use of story structure facilitates and enhances the creation of
meaning. More importantly, since meaning is the process of creation
within the mind of the receiver, your use of story structure better
insures that the meaning created by the receiver will more closely
match the meaning you intended to create.
Perhaps the dominant role of story structure as a vehicle to create
and to communicate meaning emanates from, in Bruner’s words,
‘‘narrative imitates life because life imitates narrative’’ (Bruner 1987).
Or perhaps, it is simply, as Herndon (1995) concluded, ‘‘Stories bring
evidence to life.’’ And that, after all, is the essence of meaning.

STORIES CREATE MOTIVATION AND

ENTHUSIASM FOR LEARNING
Advocates claim that stories motivate readers and listeners to
learn, that stories create enthusiasm and a sense of belonging and
community. Certainly, that was the experience of high-school teach-
ers Dan Fossler and David Crenshaw and lecturer Seth Kahan. Has
more thorough research found the same?
‘‘Interestingly, but Holt (1983) showed that ‘‘interestingly, but not surprisingly, the
not surprisingly, the things we learn because, for our own reasons, we really need to know
things we learn
because, for our own
them, we don’t forget’’ (emphasis added). Readers must create con-
reasons, we really text and relevance in order to believe that they have reason to learn.
need to know them, They need to see that the information fits within the context of some
we don’t forget.’’ bank of existing information and that the information is relevant to
some topic of significance to them.
Holt and others (Chafe 1985, Pinker 2000, Bruner 1990, Stone 1996,
among others) have shown both that story structure helps readers
invoke existing banks of knowledge to increase context and that story
structure increases relevance for new information in unfamiliar
topics. Finally, these same researchers have shown that stories create
empathy that makes readers feel a greater personal involvement with
the story and increases the degree to which readers want to learn.
Maria (1998) substantiated previous research showing that when
students read because they wanted to read, they learned reading-
related skills faster than when reading assigned texts.
Maria examined what children voluntarily read and concluded
that children would only recreationally engage in reading if they had
some recognized purpose for that reading. ‘‘Recreational reading
improves the reading achievement and attitude toward reading of re-
medial low readers and middle-class average readers’’ (Maria 1998).
Maria confirmed that ‘‘research shows that the vast majority of rec-
reational reading involves reading of fiction and nonfiction stories’’
(emphasis added). Voluntary reading happens only after context and
relevance for the process and for the narrative have been established.
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 109

Stories naturally create context and relevance more readily than other
narrative forms.
Pressley (2001) and Pressley and Afflerbach (1995) came to a simi- ‘‘Good readers are
aware of why they are
lar conclusion. ‘‘Good readers are aware of why they are reading a
reading a text.’’
text’’ (Pressley 2001).
So did Short and Ryan (1984): ‘‘If readers lack awareness of the
purposes and goals of reading, then they should not be expected to
employ successful strategic attempts to meet the demands of the
task.’’ Brown (1980), Paris et al. (2000), and Smiley et al. (1977)
reached similar conclusions from their research.
Shuman (2006) reported on her research that has linked story with
the creation of empathy in readers. (She defines empathy as people’s
understanding, through narrative, of experiences they do not share
and characters they do not know.)
Using the well-known ‘‘Welcome to Holland’’ story with parents
of disabled children, Shuman (2006) was able to show that parable
and allegory uniquely create empathy. ‘‘Parable says things that can-
not be said or are not said’’ and ‘‘Parable and allegory can create sen-
timental identification with goal, struggles, and emotions of the story
character’’ (Shuman 2006). Her clinical work confirmed that empathy
changed patient attitudes and motivated them to learn and adapt.
Approaching learning motivation from the reverse perspective,
Howard (1991) tried to assess why people resist reading, and are less
able to remember, scientific journal articles. ‘‘The scientific style (of
writing structure) is the inferior in many ways because of the enor-
mous number of limitations by which it is encumbered.’’ Chief
among the limitations he identified were a lack of character develop-
ment, the use of passive voice, distant third-person perspective, and
the omission of key character-related information (goal, motive,
struggle). He concluded that these limitations prevented personal
involvement by most readers and made it far more difficult for them
to create personal context and relevance. As a result, all but those
who truly needed the information were unmotivated to read.

What It Means for Us

It is certainly not news that students who want to learn do learn.
Placing key concepts and information within the structure of stories
provides motivation to absorb and learn material by creating context
and relevance more efficiently than other narrative forms.
If you use stories to create context and relevance for new lesson
blocks and begin to introduce unfamiliar topics through story, research
confirms that you will increase both learning and interest in the topic.

STORIES CREATE INVOLVEMENT AND

A SENSE OF COMMUNITY
Studies in the fields of organizational management and knowledge
management have addressed the potential of using stories as tools to
create a sense of belonging—of community—within an organization.
110 STORY PROOF

Their findings are as valid and valuable in the classroom as in the

boardroom.

Case Studies
Most of the available research amounts to compilations of trial-
and-error anecdotal studies. Formal research techniques using control
groups and ‘‘double blind’’ protocols are not possible within the
high-pressure, demanding, results-oriented, bottom-line world of
business management. However, the consistency of the case study
findings (often including comparative analysis within a single organi-
zation before and after using story-based approaches) provides a
clear statement of the effective role of story within organizational
leadership and management.
One of the first to eloquently espouse the value of storytelling to
corporate management was Armstrong (1999) with his book Manag-
ing by Storying Around: A New Method of Leadership. Through his per-
sonal story and storytelling experiments with his own employees he
found that structuring his themes and messages in story form signifi-
cantly increased worker involvement, sense of commitment, owner-
ship of corporate values and mission, and sense of belonging—of
‘‘family.’’ He also found that storytelling was far more effective at
successfully motivating employees to buy into corporate values, poli-
cies, and attitude.
Denning (2001) found similar results in his story experiments at
the World Bank.

I found that a certain sort of story . . . communicates complicated

change ideas while generating momentum toward rapid implementa-
tion. Storytelling gets inside the minds of the individuals who collec-
tively make up the organization and affects how they think, worry,
wonder, agonize, and dream about themselves—and in the process
create—and re-create—their organization.

Further, he concluded from his own experiments with presenta-

tions, ‘‘Time after time, when faced with the task of persuading a group
of managers or front-line staff in a large organization to get enthusiastic
about a major change, storytelling was the only thing that worked.’’
The more central and Denning (2001) further reported, ‘‘When I use the Zambia story
important a concept [one of his stories] in this way, people are able to understand the idea
is to the
organization, the
of knowledge sharing. . . . When I don’t use the Zambia story, I find
more it tends to form that the conversation often ends up in a tangle of debates about vari-
and grow organically ous aspects of the feasibility of the change idea.’’ The story framed
into story. and directed the conversation. It defined what would be relevant and
created a common perspective through which all viewed the concepts
and discussions. It created a common attitude and context that
(because of the relevance of the story) all accepted. That is the effect
of stories.
The recent publication by the National Storytelling Network (Wake
Me Up When the Data Is Over—Silverman 2006) includes over 250
examples of the use of story for organizational management scattered
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 111

through chapters written by fourteen authors. Most of these examples

concentrate on using story to build a sense of community and pride
in organization members and on efforts to motivate them to adopt a
common set of beliefs, values, and perspectives. The following are
several typical examples presented in that book.
As mentioned in Chapter 8, Lands’ End has collected and published
booklets of stories of the experiences of employees for new employees
to model (Lands’ End 2000). Originally designed to foster improved
customer service, Lands’ End management found that the stories have
actually created a feeling of community and pride within the company
that far exceeds the originally intended value of the stories.
Similarly, Tracey Briggs reported that her Orlando Regional
Healthcare facility began a story-sharing program to motivate team
members toward excellence in patient care. They found that stories
shared during staff meetings and staff trainings actually created
strong bonds between nursing staff teams and a feeling of pride in
being part of this regional medical community. What followed was
the adoption of common team values and attitudes that, in turn, pre-
cipitated improved patient care.
Motorola’s vice president for human resources and organizational
development trains managers in storytelling because they have found
that storytelling is ‘‘fun and more effective at establishing corporate
direction and identity.’’ The California Department of Social Services
sends managers to storytelling workshops because they have found
that stories more effectively ‘‘establish rapport and trust, coach
employees, deal with adversity, empower people, solve problems,
and catalyze change.’’ The Goizueta Business School president said
that storytelling was the first effective way he had found to create
class identities, unity, and involvement—and it worked extremely
well with each new class.
The common thread in each of these case studies is that an organi-
zation found that stories were more effective than what they had
been using to accomplish essential internal community building, to
create a sense of involvement, and to instill organizational attitudes,
beliefs, and perspectives in organization members.

Analytical Studies
Other, more rigorous studies have compared the workings of a
variety of organizations to assess the effective role of stories within
structured organizations. Snowden studied internal corporate com-
munication and found that the more central and important a concept
was to the organization, the more it tended to form and grow organi- The primary
cally into story. ‘‘In organizations: stories are uniquely effective as functions of stories
research tools, managerial tools, internal and external communica- are to provide
tions tools, organizational analysis tools, motivation and identity motivation, a sense
tools’’ (Snowden 2000). of belonging, a
personal
Wilkins and Martin (1979), Gabriel (2000), Weick and Browning commitment to the
(1986), Stone (1996), Bowles (1989), and others have studied the use organization, and a
of stories for organizational management and all have concluded that feeling of community.
112 STORY PROOF

the primary functions of stories were to provide motivation, a sense

of belonging, a personal commitment to the organization, and a feel-
ing of community. Further, they each conclude that stories were
uniquely effective at fulfilling these organizational functions.
Boyce (1996) conducted an extensive review of more than 125 other
research studies on organizational use of story and storytelling and
found,

Stories create a sense of community, effectively share values and atti-

tudes, build camaraderie, build culture, promote interaction, communi-
cate management priorities and philosophy, share knowledge and
information, etc. Research explicitly shows that, within organizations:
stories are useful for new member socialization and generating commit-
ment; stories are an effective vehicle for social control; stories provide and
define meaning within the organization culture and structure; and famili-
arity with dominant organizational stories is an indicator of adaptation.

Weick and Browning (1986) and Stone (1996) concluded that story-
telling brings people together in a common perspective and stretches
everyone’s ability to empathize with others. These researchers con-
firmed the power of story to motivate readers and listeners to pay
attention and to internalize and adopt the content being communi-
cated. Gabriel (2000) arrived at an identical conclusion.
Stories increased Bowles (1989), in agreeing with earlier work by Sievers (1986),
team success and
team identification.
showed that stories increased team success and team identification.
Wilkins and Martin (1979) identified three functions stories served
most effectively in organizations: generating commitment (behavioral
and attitudinal), making sense of the organization, and managerial
control. ‘‘Stories serve these vital functions in an organization more
effectively than other communications devices.’’
Similar importance for, and value in, story has been identified in
clinical therapy research. Examples of this research were included in
previous sections. As an additional example, Harter et al. (2005) cites
forty studies of the use of story (narrative) in the field of clinical ther-
apy. Many of these studies, themselves, included reviews of other
studies and most provided quantitative evaluation of the effective-
ness of story. Harter reported that all of the studies they examined
assert that narratives were successful and effective in structuring and
framing therapy (‘‘ . . . stories were particularly valuable as mundane
and extraordinary ritual symbolic forms, as sites for action and
agency, and as occasions for the act of knowledge sharing’’).
Harter et al. (2005) further stated that ‘‘narrative as representation
has long been respected as an optimal vehicle for teaching pre-
established truths. . . . Understanding the epistemological and onto-
logical power of narrative is a vital direction for health communication
researchers to pursue.’’

What It Means for Us

It is clear that stories and storytelling effectively communicate
facts, concepts, beliefs, values, and other tacit knowledge. Part of this
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 113

success stems from story’s unique ability to motivate readers and lis-
teners to pay greater attention while they read and listen and to
involve story receivers with the characters and struggles of a story.
Stories create a common perspective and context that makes content
information personal and relevant.
In this way, stories connect each receiver to others, form bonds,
create common identity and purpose, and encourage people to adopt
the values, ideas, perspectives, and attitudes of story characters.
These elements, in turn, build a feeling of involvement and a sense of
community.
If you want your messages adopted by, and internalized into,
those in your organizations, find or create an effective story (or a
series of stories) to share with them that incorporates your core infor-
mation into the characters and struggles of the story. Encourage
employees to share their own stories and experiences. Build a set of
common stories that reflect the values, attitudes, struggles, beliefs,
and accomplishments of the community you want to create. Let these
stories create the personal involvement that will cause each individ-
ual to personally adopt the community.

STORY STRUCTURE IMPROVES LITERACY AND

LANGUAGE MASTERY
I will now turn back to matters more tightly focused on the rela-
tionship between story structure and language arts teaching. How do
stories and story structure affect measures (other than comprehen-
sion) of language proficiency?
Story is the root form of all narratives. Story predates logical think-
ing and argument, writing and exposition, and informative and per-
suasive structures by tens-of-thousands of years. They are each
branches of narrative developed from the root of story. Every culture,
tribe, and nation has developed stories. They have used and pre-
served stories. Not so for writing or for logical and expository forms.
Story always comes first.
It would therefore make sense that general literacy is enhanced by All studies
concluded that
using and teaching story and story structure. Does research support
storytelling
this view? Maria (1998) reviewed a number of studies and theories enhanced literacy.
for how to measure and assess readability as a measure of literacy.
Most readability formulas rely on word and sentence length. How-
ever, such formulas ignore the existence of story schema (structural
maps) in readers’ minds. When material is presented in accordance
with those common story structures, readability and comprehension
both increase (Maria 1998). Story structure allows readers to better
visualize context and to correctly anticipate upcoming verbiage, thus
increasing readability.
Many consider literacy to be the sum of a set of individual
language-related skills: vocabulary, spelling, the ability to write, sen-
tence structure and fluency, and others. Cooper (1997) takes a broader
and more practical slant for his definition. ‘‘Given what we have
learned, we must view literacy as the ability to communicate in
114 STORY PROOF

real-world situations, which involves the abilities of individuals to

read, write, speak, listen, view, and think.’’
Does story structure influence language fluency in that broader
sense?
Mello (2001A) reported on ten studies of elementary–school stu-
dents. Each study included pre- and post-interviews and writing
sample analysis. All studies concluded that storytelling enhanced lit-
eracy. She concluded, ‘‘Stories are an effective learning tool that
linked literature to content and experience.’’ Mello found that story
form acted as a bridge to merge student experience into their under-
standing of content information and literature. She stated that story-
telling creates empathy in listeners for both the storyteller and for the
story’s main character and that this empathy increased both interest
in, and understanding of, the story content. Her conclusion was:
‘‘Humans are linguistically rich natural storytellers.’’
‘‘Recently the Snow and Burns (1998) concluded their study by saying, ‘‘Recently
efficacy of early the efficacy of early reading and story exposure has been scientifically
reading and story
exposure has been
validated. It has been shown to work [to develop language skills].’’
scientifically In a detailed and quantitative 1999 study, Trostle established that,
validated. It has been while both showed strong positive effect, storytelling was superior
shown to work [to to story reading for student vocabulary development and for
develop language comprehension. Most important for our purposes, Trostle’s work
skills].’’
supports the contention that exposure to story structure improves
literacy.
Peck (1989) concluded that ‘‘children who hear stories develop a
sense of story structure and flow.’’ Moss and Stott (1986) added,
‘‘Grade school students we studied were better able to comprehend,
predict, and construct narratives after exposure to stories.’’ In a study
mentioned earlier, storyteller Donald Davis made the same observa-
tion. Listening to stories increased students’ ability to structure and
understand written and spoken narratives. It improved literacy.
Armbruster et al. (1987) studied ninety students in London and
showed that storytelling was statistically at least as effective as read-
ing aloud for language arts development and that both reading to
students and telling stories to students effectively increased the major
measures of literacy he studied. His assessment included expository
as well as story texts.
‘‘The relationship of As early as 1988, Cliatt and Shaw reviewed available studies and
storytelling and concluded, ‘‘The relationship of storytelling and children’s literacy
children’s literacy
development is well
development is well established.’’ Further, they stated, ‘‘Children
established.’’ learn and internalize story structure from a diet of told and read sto-
ries.’’ This internalization forms the core of their language and liter-
acy development. Stories are standard fare of early childhood
development. They internalize effective story structure from hearing
effective stories even if the adult teller/reader doesn’t consciously
know what structure they are delivering.
Fisher (1987), Frentz and Farrell (1976), and Ricoeur (1976) all
showed that vocabulary takes on its perceived meaning within the
context of sentence and story structures. ‘‘Language action is mean-
ingful only in terms of narrative form’’ (Ricoeur 1976).
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 115

Tannen (1999) compared informal dinner-table conversation, writ-

ten narrative summaries, and established literature. She concluded
that ‘‘they (the linguistic strategies used in successful conversation)
were the very same strategies that, in my earlier studies of literature,
I had learned to think of as quintessentially literary.’’ These strategies
were ‘‘on the one hand, sound and rhythm and on the other, meaning
through mutual participation in sensemaking.’’ Those are story and
storytelling attributes. She is saying that we understand and are
drawn to narrative when it adheres to story structure. Literacy, itself,
then, is linked to story structure based on either the more narrow or
the broader interpretation of literacy.

What It Means for Us

I conclude this discussion with the words of developmental psy-
chologist Bruner (1990), who said, ‘‘The form of narratives is, as it
were, sedimentary residue of traditional ways of telling, as with
Albert Lord’s thesis that all narrative is rooted in our ancient heritage
of oral storytelling.’’
Want to study narrative? Want to develop literacy? Study the
structure of story and its original delivery vehicle, oral storytelling, as
the origin, root, and foundation of all narrative.

STORY STRUCTURE IMPROVES WRITING SUCCESS

The focus of virtually all research on writing instruction has been
on evaluating and developing specific strategies to help students
write. Little attention has been paid to studying what they write—that
is, the effect of story and story structure (versus other narrative and
expository forms) on writing process and proficiency.
My extensive classroom experience and testing, however, has
direct impact on this question. There is a quantitative test I have
been able to run four times on a total of 152 students: two fifth-
grade classes in central California, two fourth-grade classes in Mary-
land, a fifth-grade class in New Mexico, and a fifth-grade class in
Nevada.
Each class was taking a standardized writing assessment at the
end of a week in which I was to visit the school. Each of these tests
required students to write a persuasive essay. I visited one of the
schools on the Thursday (day before the test—Nevada) and on
Wednesday (two days before the test) in all other cases. I arranged
for each class to take a practice writing assessment at the beginning
of the week (Monday) and was able to fund sending those tests out
for grading not as practice tests (usually scored in-house within the
school district), but to the same sets of graders who would grade the
actual tests. The graders did not know that these were practice tests.
During my sixty- to ninety-minute in-class visit, I conducted a
workshop on story structure (character, character traits, goal, prob-
lems, resolution, etc.) and showed how those same story elements
could be applied to persuasive essay writing.
116 STORY PROOF

The increase can be Results are awkward to numerically compare because one state
primarily attributed used a four-point scoring rubric, two used five-point schemes, and
to the effect of a
story structure
one used a six-point system for scoring proficiency tests. Still, aver-
workshop on writing aged across all students, the Friday test scored almost a full point
proficiency. (0.86) above the Monday score. All that happened in between those
two tests was a workshop on story structure. In one case (New
Mexico) two other fifth-grade classes at the school took the Monday
practice test but did not receive the mid-week workshop. Their scores
on Friday were only 0.11 (averaged) better than their Monday scores
meaning that the 0.86 increase can be primarily attributed to the
effect of story structure workshop on writing proficiency.
Additionally, I have conducted writing workshops with over
220,000 students in forty-two states over the past twelve years. Each
of those workshops focuses on the specific informational elements
that define effective story structure. I have rarely been able to person-
ally conduct post-workshop student interviews following these
sessions. But I have interviewed many teachers (165), school adminis-
trators (11), and parents (46) of students who have attended these
workshops to assess two things: did the workshop successfully
increase student knowledge of story structure, and did it affect the
general quality of student writing.
Through the consistency of the qualitative responses I received dur-
ing these interviews, I have determined that even one-hour story struc-
ture workshops have a lasting, noticeable impact on the quality and
effectiveness of student narrative writing for most students as well as
a large impact on their enthusiasm for and willingness to spend school
and home time writing. The noticed change was consistently greatest
for students rated below the midpoint of their class in writing profi-
ciency. Students included in this sample stretch from second grade up
to high school. ‘‘Since your workshop, we have seen profound writing
improvements’’ (from a letter written to me by the school librarian and
writing coach of a South Carolina private, college-prep high school).
Note that the improvements qualitatively described by teachers,
administrators, and parents include marked improvements in exposi-
tory writing even though the workshops I conducted focused exclu-
sively on story structure. Learning the specific elements that define
story architecture improved students’ ability to write both story and
expository narratives.
Even one-hour story Egan (1997) quoted Spencer, the famed originator of the educa-
structure workshops tional recapitulation theory: ‘‘If there be an order in which the human
have a lasting,
noticeable impact on
race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in
the quality and every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the
effectiveness of same order. Education should be a repetition of civilization in minia-
student narrative ture’’ (Spencer 1898). Egan made this reference when he found that
writing. his own data supported the notion that students most effectively
learned language and math skills in the same order described by
Spencer.
Five-year-olds learn to organize thought into language and to write
as ancient civilizations did. They learn math processes in the same
order that civilization did—count, then add and subtract, then
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 117

multiply and divide, etc. Egan’s work, then, matches my own conclu-
sion that learning to effectively write stories is a valuable precursor
to learning to write other expository forms since stories developed
tens-of-thousands of years before expository forms.
My work on student writing also suggests that writing may be
considered an effective part of reading and reading comprehension
programs. Time and effort spent learning to write stories develop
many of the same language skills essential to effective reading.
Cooper (1997), Pearson and Dole (1987), Tierney and Shanahan
(1991), Shanahan (1990) all come to the same conclusion. From their
in-class research, collectively, they list five major reasons to teach
reading and writing together.

1. Both are constructive processes.

2. They share similar processes and kinds of knowledge.
3. When taught together, they improve achievement.
4. Reading and writing together foster communication.
5. Combining the two leads to outcomes not attributable to either
process alone.

My work strongly suggests that the writing portion of that effort is

most effective and efficient when focused on story writing supported
by articulate mastery of the informational elements that define story
structure.

What It Means for Us

Effective writing of any narrative genre (for example, writing to
persuade, to inform, expository writing, personal narrative) depends
on, and builds from, a learned ability to effectively create and
write stories. Story structure is the root for all narrative writing forms
and styles. Teach story first at every grade level, adding new com-
plexity and refinement first into the students’ ability to create and
write stories. Then extend these new story skills into other narrative
forms.
The recent trend in writing instruction has been to divide writing
into separate genre (persuasive writing, comparative writing, inform-
ative writing, creative writing, personal narratives, etc.) and to
develop specific strategies and writing techniques for each. Zaltman
(2003) quotes Vincent Barabba who calls the building of such artificial
and unnecessary distinctions ‘‘the triumph of the tyranny of ‘or’ over
the greater good of ‘and.’’’ The same concept is succinctly presented
in an ancient Moroccan proverb, ‘‘The devil divides; an angel
unites.’’
All writing is creative. All writing is persuasive. All writing is in-
formative. Focus on the ‘‘and,’’ not on the ‘‘or.’’ Base all writing on
the common root structure that all writing forms hold in common:
story. That is the narrative structure that matches how the human
brain needs to receive and process narrative information. The frosting
that makes each writing genre appear to be unique only succeeds
when overlaid onto a solid, well-made cake. Story structure is the
118 STORY PROOF

cake. Help your students master cake baking and then they’ll be
ready to play with the options of different styles of frosting.
Writing is a creative process. But the activity of writing and the ac-
tivity of creating what will be written are separate activities. Create
first and write second. Creation guides writing. Successful narrative
creation depends on a knowledge of story structure. Teach that struc-
ture and develop writing plans that spring from that structure to de-
velop consistently successful writing communicators.

STORY STRUCTURE ENHANCES MEMORY

Certainly a major goal of all communication is to place information
into the memory of receivers so that they can recall and act on that
information. We have already devoted a chapter (Chapter 6) looking
in detail at what the modern cognitive sciences say about the internal
mental process of memory and recall. Still, it is an important question
to address—at least partially—at this point. Does the form and struc-
ture of a communication affect a receiver’s likelihood to, and ability
to, remember key information? Does available research focused on
the use of stories support the contention that the form of story
uniquely enhances memory?

Stories Get Remembered

The importance of memory can hardly be overstated. Murdock
(1995) says, ‘‘Memory, having a time span of seconds to decades,
plays a central role in cognitive processes of attention, perception,
problem solving, thinking, and reasoning.’’ If information is not
remembered in such a way that it can be readily recalled, there is lit-
tle point in comprehending it and creating meaning from it.
Rodger Schank reports on decades of studies in the field of Artifi-
cial Intelligence and on real and artificial memory. He draws informa-
tion from studies, lab work, and advanced modeling. He is convinced
that story structure enhances memory. ‘‘Stories are the way we per-
ceive and preserve the connectivity of events that would otherwise be
disassociated over time. A prime reason we want to hear and tell sto-
ries is to help ourselves remember them and their content’’ (Schank
1990). Further, he said, ‘‘Stories trigger memories and index labels in
the mind of the listener.’’ Schank devotes most of his book to estab-
lishing that stories form the framework and structure through which
humans sort, understand, relate, and file experience into memory.
Story structure is how we view the world; it is how we create mean-
ing of the events around us; it is how we place information into
memory; it is how we recall information into consciousness.
In her 1999 work, Deborah Tannen assessed how people respond
to and remember three classes of communication: informal conversa-
tion, stories (literature), and expository (academic) writing. She con-
cluded that story (the middle category) shares valuable and
important characteristics with each of the other two that make it a
more effective and powerful communications vehicle. ‘‘I now see
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 119

music (repetitious sounds and rhythm) and scenic details as trigger-

ing emotions and memory.’’

Stories Evoke Prior Knowledge

A number of studies (some already mentioned) have shown that Story structure
story structure facilitates the activation of banks of prior knowledge facilitates the
activation of banks of
to enhance comprehension and the process of creating meaning. Sev- prior knowledge to
eral studies have extended that assessment to include memory. enhance
Caine and Caine (1994) describe two kinds of memory functions in comprehension and
the brain. One is used by beginning learners (taxon), while the other the process of
is used by individuals who have more experience with the topic creating meaning.
(locale). Taxon activity evoked short-term, (at best) spotty memory.
Locale activated long-term memory of unlimited information and the
ability to interconnect information to form meaning and update neu-
ral maps. In differentiating between taxon and locale, Caine and Caine
(and later Payne 2002) used, primarily, the existence (or lack thereof)
of context for the narrative content. Context, they asserted, was pro-
vided by prior knowledge or by familiar story structure.
Making a similar point, Armbruster et al. (1987) stated that ‘‘other
research on learning from expository texts has clearly demonstrated
that an understanding of the organization and sequencing of ideas
and structure in the text strongly affects both comprehension and
memory.’’ Where content or structural prior knowledge exists, mem-
ory is improved. ‘‘One can only conclude for the great number of
available studies that reading ability is highly correlated with recall of
narrative material and that skilled readers have a greater awareness
of, and make greater use of, text structure’’ (Armbruster et al. 1987).
Combining her research with previous work by Englert and Hie-
bert (1984) and Myer (1975), Armbruster (1985) assessed the effective-
ness of different text structures to create accessible memories and
concluded that story-based problem/solution texts (or, more accu-
rately, character/goal/problem/resolution) were the most successful.
Character-based, story structures rated significantly higher than
did the expository structures they each studied. Barnett (1984) and
Armbruster et al. (1987) found that teaching story structural schema
significantly improved the delayed recall of scientific texts for both
college students and for ninth-grade students.

Storytelling versus Storytelling

All studies agree that stories provide a structure that facilitates
(improves) memory and long-term recall of key content. Many anec-
dotal studies (those listed in Chapter 2, for example) strongly suggest
that stories lodge information more deeply into long-term memory.
Let’s turn for a moment away from the story, itself, and glance at Character-based,
story structures
how the story is delivered. The major options include: let the receiver rated significantly
read the story, read it to the receiver, tell the story (storytelling), higher than did the
make it a video presentation, or act it out (a play). I have found only expository
two quantitative studies that compared the effect of different ways of structures.
120 STORY PROOF

delivering a story. One is part of an unpublished doctoral thesis. One

is a small study I conducted. Both conclude that storytelling (orally
telling the story) is the most effective means of placing story informa-
tion into student memory. I mention this finding because many
potential applications of story (for example, education, outreach,
motivation, community building) may have flexibility in how the
story delivery is designed. When program plans permit, storytelling
maximizes the positive effects of story structure.
Curious about the differing effect of reading a story versus telling
a story, in 1998 I arranged to conduct a small experiment with teach-
ers in five Las Vegas schools. Over the course of four days, I per-
formed six assemblies for primary-grade students at these five
schools (four were kindergarten through second-grade assemblies
and one was kindergarten through third grade). My test, however,
involved only first and second graders attending the assemblies.
I presented the same two stories at each of these six assemblies. Both
were stories I had written and that were unfamiliar to the participating
students. I sought balanced stories of similar length, tone, energy level,
and general style. At each assembly, I read one story and told the
other. I alternated which story I read and which I told; I alternated the
order of stories; and I alternated whether I told or read a story first. I
wanted to assess the effect of telling versus reading, but also felt I had
to look for an influence from the story (was one consistently more pop-
ular than the other?), and from the order of presentation (was, for
example, the first always more popular than second?). Since I per-
formed all assemblies, I could minimize any variation due to setting
(always using school multipurpose rooms) and performance quality.
I asked first- and second-grade teachers to return their students to
class following the assembly and to avoid any discussion of the per-
formance or of either story for twenty-four hours. At that time, and
again without any discussion or collaboration, each student was to
quickly draw one picture from one of the stories as part of a class
‘‘thank you’’ packet. The teachers were to collect all pictures and
send them to me. Upon receiving the packet I called each teacher to
confirm that my instructions had been followed.
I did not try to analyze each picture’s content. I only wanted to re-
cord which story the picture came from as an indicator of which story
lodged more powerfully in the student’s memory. The chosen schools
included twenty-two first- and twenty-one second-grade classes. Of
these forty-three classes, twenty-six followed my directions and sent
packets of pictures. These packets included 634 student pictures.
The large differential The pictures showed a slight overall preference for one of the two
clearly indicates that stories (54 percent of all pictures were of that story versus 46 percent
the process of
for the other). There was virtually no preference for position (52 per-
storytelling lodged
the story more cent for the first story versus 48 percent for the second).
deeply, and in greater However, I found a huge preference for the story I told (73 percent
detail, in most for the told story versus 27 percent for the read story). This strong
students’ memories. preference for the story I told existed no matter which story I told.
(Each was told three times and read three times.) Certainly a number
of side factors could influence that preference. However, that large a
 WE’VE REACHED THE RESEARCH RESULTS 121

differential clearly indicates that the process of storytelling lodged

the story more deeply, and in greater detail, in most students’ memo-
ries. The resulting conclusion: Storytelling enhances memory.
As a small section of his unpublished doctoral work, Janner (1994)
conducted an interesting study with four fourth-grade classrooms.
He delivered the same story to each class. To one, he read the story;
to the second, he gave copies of the story and had students read it; to
the third, he showed a video of the story; and to the fourth, he told
the story. One month later he interviewed selected students from
each class to see how the medium of delivery affected their long-term
memory of the story.
The students who most accurately recalled the story and its images
came from the class that had seen the video. However, they typically
required extensive prompting to activate those remembered images.
The students who were the most enthusiastic and excited about their
recollection of the story, who most readily recalled the story without
prompting, who held the most vivid and expansive images of the
story, and who were best able to verbalize their memory (and ver-
sion) of the story were those from the class to whom he told the story.
Clearly, this was a small study that contained many uncontrolled var-
iables. Still, its conclusion is inescapable and dramatic. Storytelling
creates excitement, enthusiasm, and more detailed and expansive
images in the mind of the listener than does the same story delivered
in other ways. Stories and story structure (no matter how the story is
delivered) can increase memory and improve content recall. This
quality is one more link in the growing chain of evidence to establish
the preeminence of story as a teaching and learning vehicle.

What It Means for Us

Available research is clear on the following concepts. Stories
provide:
¥ A greater density of details (and especially sensory details).
¥ More expansive and detailed mental imagery.
¥ A better match to the specific information needs of the mind
(than other narrative forms) to create comprehension and
meaning.
¥ Activation of a greater number of banks of prior knowledge.

These four factors, in turn, create a higher probability that something

will be placed into memory and a greater probability that it will be
readily retrieved from memory.
Finally, in two small but significant studies, oral storytelling
proved to be more effective than other methods of delivering story
material in placing the story and its images into memory in such a
way that they were easily, quickly, and readily recalled to the con-
scious mind.
Use the power of story to drive your key points, concepts, and
other information into the memory of your audience and, for those
central points, tell the story for greatest communications success.
122 STORY PROOF

A FINAL SUMMATION
Research overwhelming, convincingly, and without opposition
provides the evidence I sought. Are stories a more efficient and effec-
tive vehicle for communicating factual, conceptual, emotional, and
tacit information and a more effective teaching vehicle? Not only yes,
but absolutely, yes!
In this chapter I have referenced over 120 credible studies (repre-
senting an analysis of more than 800 other research studies and
reports). There are many additional studies I reviewed in preparing
this book that I could have included had it not felt like brutal overkill.
This great mass of evidentiary support establishes the value of story
to education, to science outreach, to organizations, to therapy, to
ministry—to any communication effort.
Let’s sum up the value of story and story structure with the words
of Morris Chang, Director of Education for the Tainan region of Tai-
wan. In a 2006 speech, he said, ‘‘Research shows that people are
genetically coded to have a close relationship with stories.’’ He con-
cluded, ‘‘Living in a highly competitive environment places great
pressure on the efficiency and effectiveness of every moment spent at
school. I am convinced that stories hold a solution. They teach valu-
able language skills, teach facts and concepts, and are finally some-
thing fun for our students to do’’ (Chang 2006).
What more could we ask of a single, natural, and flexible teaching
and learning tool?
 CHAPTER 10

THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING:

PUTTING STORIES TO WORK
FOR YOU

Story structure is a uniquely powerful and effective communications tool that

can be put to use by virtually anyone.

What do you remember best from the first nine chapters of this book? I bet you
remember most vividly story examples and story demonstrations and remember
just the gist of key information I presented in narrative form. See? We remember
stories best. And that’s the ultimate story proof. When I used story (even story
fragments) to make a point, you remembered it. Stories work.
The most important message from, and greatest value of, this book is a true
understanding of the nature and structure of stories. Once you are armed with
that knowledge, the research on successful applications of story (Chapters 8 and
9) will have both accurate meaning and value.
Through nine chapters we’ve seen why our human brains and minds are
stuck with this specific mode of thinking and processing. We’ve seen how suc-
cessful stories are even when used sloppily. We’ve seen neurologically why sto-
ries are so effective.
There is little left to say. You’ve seen the breadth and depth of the evidence.
If any question remains, it is: what do you do with it? Here are a few final
thoughts on story application by way of summarizing the information in this
book. There are many books available that focus on the application of story for
different venues. The real point of this book has been to establish the value of,
and the need for, using those reference works.
Story is an incredibly versatile and malleable form. Within the confines and
mandates of story architecture lie infinite variety and flexibility. You can shape
a story for any audience to fit into any niche, culture, language, or genre. You
can present the essential story information in any order and from any perspec-
tive. You can overtly state this information or craftily imply it through the
124 STORY PROOF

actions of central characters. Stories can be fiction or nonfiction. They can be se-
rious, farcical, or designed for any other mood and purpose. And they can still
all be stories!
However, a caveat. Not every narrative needs to be or should be a story.
Because of their relationship to the thought processes of the human mind, sto-
ries hold a unique effectiveness and power. But that power does not come for
free. Stories require that you develop and present character, that you identify
and present intent, and that the presentation focuses on a character’s struggles
to overcome obstacles and reach the stated (or implied) goal. There is story infor-
mation that you must gather and develop in addition to content information.
Presenting information in story form also requires more words than present-
ing the same content information in summary narrative form. Character infor-
mation and sensory details must be added. Where fixed word limits exist, this
can be a significant problem. There are times and situations when it is neither
possible nor appropriate to adhere to story mandates. In those cases, don’t try to
force your material to look like a story. Some situations call for simple factual
statements; some for direct summaries of achievements and results. There are
often situations when word or time limits preclude adequate character
development.
It is always worth considering the use of story structure. When you can,
mighty rewards await. When you can’t—for whatever reason—don’t. Story is
not the only narrative structure, and there are times when it is not the most
appropriate choice.

GENERAL ADVICE
Humans are truly homo narratus, story animals. We learn from and through
stories. All stories teach in that receivers’ remember and learn from stories.
Whether used for formal or informal teaching and to convey attitudes, humor,
facts, concepts, values, or any other kind of information, stories teach. They are
uniquely effective and efficient at it because they mimic the internal processing
of human minds.
From Cooper (1997): ‘‘Schema theory contends that individuals understand
what they read only as it relates to what they already know.’’ Every human
knows about characters and story structure. You can bridge to new content
knowledge by relying on existing ‘‘text-specific knowledge’’ as opposed to
‘‘topic-specific knowledge’’ (terms from Paris et al. 1991). Cobb (1994) agreed:
‘‘In the most general sense, the contemporary view of learning is that people
construct new knowledge and understanding based on what they already know
and believe.’’
Bransford and Brown (2000) showed that ‘‘it is essential to develop a sense
of when what has been learned can be used.’’ They also stated that ‘‘new infor-
mation has shifted the focus of effective learning from diligent drill to a focus
on students’ understanding and application of knowledge’’ (Bransford and
Brown 2000). Application requires context and relevance that are provided by
story.
McCombs (1996) and Pintrich and Schunk (1996) both showed that learners
of all ages are more motivated when they can see the usefulness (relevance) of
what they learn and its impact on their own lives and on others. In story terms
this simply means to create context and relevance in order to make new
 THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING: PUTTING STORIES TO WORK FOR YOU 125

information useful. Glaser (1992) went further when he said that ‘‘knowledge
that is not provided within a contextual framework is often ‘inert’ because it is
not activated, even though it is relevant.’’
Stories create four things needed for effective learning of any kind: meaning,
context, relevance, and empathy. Story is the structure that allows information
(data, concepts, values) to bridge from the abstract external world into the
human internal world.
Bruner (2003) offered the following advice on story to storywriters: ‘‘Plots
need obstacles and goals; obstacles make people reconsider.’’ Writers and story-
tellers may not understand the theory or reasons behind such advice. But they
naturally gravitate toward what works—what achieves the desired reaction and
response from audiences. As Fisher (1987) concluded, ‘‘Readers judge first and
foremost by story elements and not on logical arguments and information con-
tained therein.’’

ADVICE FOR EDUCATORS

Introduce new units and subjects with stories that frame the subject and cre-
ate context. The stories you use may either be fiction or nonfiction—as long as:
¥ They are age appropriate.
¥ They introduce the unit theme.
¥ They are memorable enough to carry students through the unit.
¥ They create context for students to use while absorbing information in a
topic unfamiliar to them.
Ensure that the central characters in these stories are sufficiently developed to
create relevance for your students. Bransford and Brown (2000) found that
‘‘effective learning requires that the learner bring appropriate experiences and
context to the academic content.’’ When students lack the technical and topical
prior knowledge, rely on their story structural knowledge to activate their
learning.
Use stories of real historical figures to cement key concepts in students’
minds by creating personal relevance and context. Don’t just present date, event,
and outcome (or discovery and theorem). Include character goal, motive, and
struggles to make the story accomplish your teaching goals.
Fiction stories can teach curriculum content as well as nonfiction ones can.
Brown (1991) concluded, ‘‘Young children universally understand and delight in
fantasy stories. They are clearly able to integrate nature and culture in story
space—and readily accept clothed and talking rabbits without expecting story ele-
ments to translate back into their real world.’’ Character is the universal space that
allows children to translate story learning into real life and vice versa. Through
the fantasy ‘‘reality’’ of story, children learn and understand complex concepts
they cannot grasp through logical, factual, or argumentative presentations.
Teach story structure. Ensure that students master not only the better defini-
tion of story, but also each of the informational elements listed in that definition.
Haven (2004) is a good example of a book designed specifically for this purpose.
Help students see that all other narrative structures are derivatives of this core
story architecture.
Teach story writing as a way to master not only the elements of this structure,
but also of all narrative writing and of reading comprehension. Drill on each
126 STORY PROOF

element—the creation of, nature of, look of, purpose of, and effect of each. Give
story-writing prompts and have students spend most of their writing time writ-
ing stories. Along the way, they will naturally understand and master the com-
mon derivative forms (persuasive, informative, etc.).
Refocus writing assignments and prompts away from plot questions toward
character-based prompts. This will reinforce their growing awareness of the
character base and character dependency of effective narrative writing.
Help students develop the habit of creating core narrative elements orally
before writing. Help students and school families break prevalent myths and
misconceptions about stories.

ADVICE FOR LEADERS

Embed key corporate and organizational values, attitudes, beliefs, and histor-
ies into stories. Use relevant characters (preferably nonfiction) and include their
goals, motives, and struggles. Focus where possible on the dilemmas these char-
acters faced that pit competing values and goals against each other. Make them
struggle before they reach successful resolution. Focus on stories in which the
final climax and resolution depend on the application of the values, attitudes,
and concepts you want to instill in those under you.
Provide key story elements as part of any communication with unfamiliar
information or when your goal is to motivate, to inspire, or to create a sense
of belonging and community. Story structure creates context, relevance, and
empathy. Shuman (2006) defines empathy as, ‘‘People gain understanding,
through narrative, of experiences they do not share and characters they do not
know.’’
As an example of empathy in action, Shuman tells the allegorical parable,
‘‘Welcome to Holland’’ for those caught in situations that are not their first
choice. In this story, you plan a trip to Paris. Upon landing, the flight attendant
says, ‘‘Welcome to Holland.’’ Of course you are disappointed. You wanted to go
to Paris. Holland is not what you planned or wanted. But here you are, stuck in
Holland. Still, Holland is a nice place—if you don’t waste your time grousing
about not being in Paris.
Everyone who hears this story gets its point and is empathetic both to the
traveler and to his or her own situation. Shuman (2006) concludes, ‘‘Parable suc-
cessfully says things that cannot be said or are not said. . . . Parable and allegory
can create sentimental identification with goal, struggles, and emotions of the
story character.’’
Allow organization members to share their own stories. Feature member sto-
ries in internal publications and promotions. This will build a sense of belong-
ing, community, pride, and mutual support.
Use these same story principles in external communications. Don’t be reticent
to include company struggles and dilemmas. Overcoming these obstacles
strengthens the company in the eyes of the reader as easy successes never can.
For purposes of internal communications, you may either tell or write these
stories. But telling is more personal and creates a stronger connection. Frame
major presentation points in story form. Again, emphasize the conflict and
struggle aspects of the story to create empathy and support for the resolution.
Use story and storytelling trainings as team-building activities. Use story aware-
ness as a management strategy.
 THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING: PUTTING STORIES TO WORK FOR YOU 127

However, as Bransford and Brown (2000) remind us, ‘‘It is essential to de-
velop a sense of when what has been learned can be used.’’ Make sure that the
content and themes of shared stories are directly applicable to the daily life of
organization members and that opportunities are established to share stories
that team members develop.
Why spend company time creating story structures within the organization?
As Bruner’s experiments established, ‘‘Give subjects (readers) a reason for
embedding their judgment in a story, and they will ignore Bayesian (most logi-
cally and likely) probabilities’’ (Bruner 1986).
The question is not, ‘‘Will stories emerge in my organization to control mem-
ber outlook and attitude?’’ They will. The pertinent questions are: Who will cre-
ate and control these stories? And how will these core stories be created?

ADVICE FOR OUTREACH COMMUNICATORS

Your goal as an outreach writer is always the same: Have the reader under-
stand, comprehend, and apply your information to affect their beliefs, attitudes,
decision making, and actions. To meet that goal, you must write differently for
different audiences.
People who work in the technical field you are describing already possess the
banks of prior knowledge to create context, relevance, and empathy. They need
only the new information. That is not true, however, for the wider audience you
hope to reach with your outreach writing.
It may be technical information that you want to convey. But it is story that
creates context and makes it relevant. It may be new science developments you
want to communicate, but it is character that makes it meaningful. It may be im-
portant new concepts you want to communicate, but it is the details of the
human experience that make it memorable. It may be new accomplishments
you want to describe, but it is the struggles en route to those accomplishments
that will make readers relate to, and care about, the accomplishments.
Bruner (1986) put it this way. ‘‘Science strives to define universalities of the
world that are context independent. Stories strive to create universalities
through context dependent situations.’’ The two are neither mutually exclusive
nor incompatible. Instead, they act as complements to each other, creating a
powerful and effective whole. Use story structure to create context and rele-
vance for unfamiliar topics.
Put a face on it. Science doesn’t happen by itself. The people who do the
work, their challenges and struggles are the story. Tell readers about the people
in order to make the science comprehensible and meaningful.
Avoid the family story syndrome. When telling family stories to family mem-
bers, there is no need to include character description (everyone already knows
them), goal, or motive. (These also are general common knowledge.) Family sto-
ries are then reduced to plot descriptions laden with family jargon and phraseol-
ogy that have developed over the years. It’s fine for those in the family, but
meaningless and boring for those outside the family.
Science fields and scientists have traditionally written for other scientists al-
ready in the particular field of science. For brevity’s sake, they have left out the
same information omitted from family stories and have achieved the same
result. Science writing is perfect for those already in that particular field, but a
morass for others. The job of the outreach writer is to translate from ‘‘family’’
128 STORY PROOF

jargon and its implied information into the story-based form needed for non-
family members.

FICTION VERSUS NONFICTION: A FINAL COMFORT

AND WARNING
Many writers rightfully worry about the truth and accuracy of the stories
they write. They naturally assume that if they don’t make up anything for their
story the story will be nonfiction. This is yet another misconception.
Nonfiction is not equal to truth and reality. The act of picking specific lan-
guage, of including or excluding specific events and details, and of organizing
the material into a flowing narrative sequence automatically fictionalizes the
story by adding perspective, viewpoint, attitude, and belief. Facts and reality are
all subject to both internal and external review, interpretation, inference, and the
process of creating meaning. There is no such thing as ‘‘the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth’’ (Freeman 2003).
Bruner (1986) agreed when he stated, ‘‘The medium of exchange in which
education is conducted—language—can never be neutral. It imposes a point of
view not only about the world to which it refers but also toward the use of mind
in respect to that world.’’ The act of selecting certain words and images to
include and/or to exclude from a story automatically places both a personal bias
and set of values into the writing that will color the reader’s images and thus,
technically, fictionalize the writing. The myth of the dispassionate, neutral ob-
server is just that, a myth, a fiction that never actually existed.
Don’t argue to be the neutral, detached scientific observer. Effective outreach
writing (or teaching—or communicating in general) comes from inserting those
very attributes of story that scientists think they are supposed to write out.
We equate FICTION with false, made up, lies, and ‘‘stories.’’ We equate
REALITY with nonfiction, true, facts. But all events (facts) are subject to some
interpretation that fictionalizes them from raw historical ‘‘reality.’’ ‘‘Reality’’ is
as much a lie as fiction (Freeman 2003).
Fiction is a process of mental construction that produces ‘‘human truth.’’
Meaning and understanding (both critically important) come for the fictive pro-
cess. The only meaningful difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction
describes events that haven’t happened yet (Freeman 2003).
Write with conviction. Write with passion and energy. Write with your vision
fixed on the human truths about your characters. Then the royal road to success-
ful communication is yours.
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 INDEX

Abstract thought, link to reading, 31 workings, 23; plasticity in childhood, 26;

Accepted norms, activating assumption, 47 story-related development, 24–25;
Actions, as a narrative element, 76 unconscious portions, 24; untapped
Activities (processes), 9 abstract capabilities, 32; what
Age appropriateness, 125 predisposition means for us, 27
Anecdotal evidence, effectiveness of Brain cells, 26–27
stories, 83–86 Brain scans, 23
Anticipation of conversation, in Broca, Paul, 23
unconscious thought, 31 Broca’s area, 23
Appropriate setting, activating Bruner, Jerome, 4, 10
assumption, 47
Architectural elements, 6 Cause and effect: activating assumption,
Assessing memories, unconscious 48; in narrative, 34–35, 39
thought, 30 Character: as a narrative element, 75–76;
Assigning a stream, unconscious understanding narrative and, 39
thought, 30 Character analysis, in narrative, 34–35
Assigning meaning to words, unconscious Cheat sheets, 48–50
thought, 30 Childhood myth, 16–17
Assumptions, 35–36, 38, 46–48 Children’s stories, 16
Attitudes, 4 Clinical psychology, 7
Axons, 22 Cognitive science, 7, 30
Cognitive skills, 34–35
Bellugi, Ursula, 23 Common theme, in narrative,
Binary association myth, 15–16 34–35
Binary opposition, 56 Community, stories create involvement,
Binary theory, 15 109–13
Blanket myth, 13–14 Completeness, 13
Blending, 56–60 Comprehending a stream, unconscious
Body language interpretation, in thought, 30
unconscious thought, 31 Comprehensibility, element of springboard
Brain, 21–27; development, 24–25; stories, 102
hardwiring for story scripts, 26; inner Conflict and struggle, 41–43
150 INDEX

Connectedness, element of springboard Fiction, 15; advice for educators, 125; final
stories, 102 comfort and warning, 128
Consciousness, 22 Filling in gaps, in unconscious thought, 31
Constant ambiguities, 38–39 Framing what is said, unconscious
Constructing mental images, in thought, 31
unconscious thought, 31 Franklin, Jon, 6
Context: definition, 64; memory and, 72; Frontal lobes, 23
in story structure, 7; for students, 125 Frye, Northrop, 19
Conversation flow: anticipation, 31;
evaluation in unconscious thought, 31 Gardner, John, 40
Corporate lecturer, anecdotal evidence Glutamate, 67
about stories, 84–85 Goal, 36–38
Corporate management, stories in, 4–5 Goal achievement, activating assumption,
Corporate staff development, anecdotal 46
evidence about stories, 85 Governmental agencies, stories in, 5
Cross-curriculum learning, story structure Grammar, 4
effects, 98–104
Cultural heritage, 4 Hardware (brain), 29
Hardwiring, story scripts in human
Dalkir, K., 11 brains, 26
Decision making, 30 High-school biology teacher, anecdotal
Dendrites, 22 evidence about stories, 84
Denning, Steven, World Bank, 4 High-school music teacher, anecdotal
Details, 63–64; memory of, 71; as a evidence about stories, 83–84
narrative element, 76; use of stories History, 4
to provide, 93–94 Hormones, 22
Developmental psychology, 7, 30
Dictionary definition, 17–19 Imagination, 13
Dinesen, Isak, 10 Implications, 35–36
Domain blending, 56–60 Incomplete, 38–40
Index labels, memory of events and, 72
Education, 7; stories in, 4–5 Inferences, 35–36, 52–53
Educators, advice on story structure, Informational elements, 6, 15
125–26 Information processing, activating
El-Youssef, 40 assumption, 47
Embryonic neural development, 24–25 Information theory, 7
Emotional connection, 13 Instant decisions, 38
Emotions, 62–63; memory of emotional Intent, 36–38; as a narrative element, 76
events, 71–72 Internal conversations, 31
Engleman, David, 22 Interpretation, 29; evaluation and, 30
Entertainment, 16 Involvement, 13
Ephron, Nora, 14
Evaluation, interpretation and, 30 King, Stephen, 40
Evolutionary biology, 4, 30 Knowledge management (KM), 11;
Evolutionary cues, brain development, anecdotal evidence from corporate
24–25 lecturer, 84–85
Expectations, 50–52
Experiences, 29, 33–34 Language: control in the brain, 23;
Expository argument, 3 mastering of, 7; story predating of, 4;
story structure improves mastery of,
Facial expressions, activating assumption, 113–15; syntax rules and, 60–62;
48 written, 4
Fact-based memory, 69 Leaders, advice on story structure,
Feedback loop, human mind, 33 126–27
 INDEX 151

Learning: enthusiasm created by stories, Neural maps, 6, 30, 48; experience, 33–34
108–9; story structure effects, 98–104 Neural net modeling, 7; interpret incoming
Lieberman, Syd, 40 sensory input, 27; mimic of human
Literacy: story structure and, 113–15; mental function, 32
storytelling and Neurons, 22
Logic, 3 Neurotransmitters, 22, 67
Logical thinking: story structure effects, New and important information, activating
98–104; storytelling and, 4, 6 assumption, 47
News, 4
Magnificent Seven concepts, 32–43 NMDA signal boxes, 67
Making sense, activating assumption, 46 Nonfiction, 15; advice for educators, 125;
Math ability, storytelling and, 4 final comfort and warning, 128
Meaning, 35–36, 38; creating in the Non-stories, 6; versus story, 12
classroom, 104–5; creating outside the
classroom, 105–7; enhancement by story Oral stories, 3–4
and story structure, 104–8 Order and common structure: activating
Medical science, 7 assumption, 46; in narrative, 34–35
Memorable stories, for students, 125 Outreach communicators, advice on story
Memory, 4, 30; attaching index labels to structure, 127–28
event, 72; context and relevance, 72;
details, 71; enhancement by story Parable, 57
structure, 118–22; events that have Partial information, 38–40
emotional impact, 71–72; information in Pattern matching, 53
story form, 70–71; mechanics, 67–68; Performing inferences, unconscious
process of remembering, 68–70; story thought, 31
and, 7; story structure effects, 69; Persuasion, 3
variability of recall, 70 PKC, 68
Mental model, 34–35 Planning what to say, in unconscious
Mental tools, 45–64 thought, 31
Metaphor, 58–60 Plot, 17
Middle-school librarian, anecdotal Precommitment, 10
evidence about stories, 85 Predicting the future, activating
Mills, Gordon, 9 assumption, 48
Mind: mechanics, 45–65; owners manual Predisposition: assumptions, 39; brain
for, 32–43 development, 24–25; natural hardwiring,
Motivation: creation by stories, 108–9; 26; thinking in story terms, 4; what it
story and, 6–7 means for us, 27
Motive, 36–38 Presuppositions, 35–36
Primary grade storytelling program,
Narrative: definition, 9, 79–80; magnificent anecdotal evidence about stories, 85
seven mental concepts, 46–64 Prior knowledge, 53–55; story structure
Narrative architecture, 9 facilitation of, 119–20; use of story,
Narrative elements, 75–76; researchers, 92–93
76–79 Processes (activities), 9
Narrative information, 6; character central Proverb, 58
to, 39; how the mind processes, 29; order
and common structure in, 34–35 Rational character behavior, assumption,
Narrative structure, 9 39
Narrative therapy, 7, 105 Raw sensory input, 24, 30
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Reading: link to abstract thought, 31; skill
Earth Science, 3 development in comprehension, 91
Neural biology, 7, 30; embryonic Reading comprehension: research, 90–98;
development, 24–25 story structure and, 6
Neural linguistics, 7 Redemptive stories, 80
152 INDEX

Relevance, 38; definition, 64; memory Story structure, 4, 6; enhancement of

and, 72; in story structure, 7 meaning, 104–8; enhancement of
Researchers, elements of a story, 76–79 memory, 118–22; facilitation of prior
Research results, 89–122 knowledge, 119–20; how humans
Routtenberg, Aryeh, 68 perceive, think, and learn, 103–4;
Rules of thumb, 36–38, 48 improves literacy and language mastery,
113–15; improves writing success,
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 10 115–18; improving logical thinking and
Schank, Roger, 10 general learning, 98–104; improving
Schema, 48 reader comprehension, 90–98; memory
Scientific information, 16 enhancement, 69; putting stories to work
Semantic and pragmatic sense, for you, 123–28; teaching of, 125–26
unconscious thought, 30 Storytelling, 7; children’s literacy and,
Sense of satisfaction, 13 113–15; language literacy, 4; logical and
Sequence of events, 18 analytical thinking, 4; math ability
7-Eleven approach, understanding the relations, 4; primary-grade program,
mind, 32, 45–64 anecdotal observations, 85; reading
Silverman, Lori, 4 versus telling, 120–21
Social relationships and values, teaching Strangeness, element of springboard
with story structure, 99–100 stories, 102
Software (mind), 29 Struggles, as a narrative element, 76
Speech, control in the brain, 23 Synapses, 22, 33–34
Springboard classrooms, outside the Syntax, 4; language and, 60–62
classroom, 102–3
Stereotypes, 36–38, 49 Temporal sequencing: activating
Story: advice for educators, 125–26; advice assumption, 47; in narrative, 34–35
for leaders, 126–27; advice for outreach Thought, 22, 29; abstract, 31; frontal lobes,
communicators, 127–28; anecdotal 23; unconscious, 30
evidence about, 83–86; converting events Turner, Mark, 10
into, 14; creation of motivation and
enthusiasm for learning, 108–9; Underlying concept, 19
definition, 11–20, 79–80; dominant use Unit theme, 125
throughout childhood, 27; enhancement
of meaning, 104–8; improving reader Values, 4
comprehension, 90–98; involvement and Vocabulary, 18–19
sense of community, 109–13; power and
benefits of, 3–10; putting them to work, Wernicke, Carl, 23
123–28 Wernicke’s area, 23
Story-based memory, 69 Wiseman, E., 11
Story—non-story paradigm, 16 Writing, 6, 7; story structure improves
Story research, 10 success, 115–18; teaching of, 125–26
Story step, 19–20 Written communication, 3
About the Author

The only West Point graduate and only senior oceanographer to become a pro-
fessional storyteller, KENDALL HAVEN has performed for over 4 million. He
has won numerous awards for his storywriting and his storytelling and has
conducted storywriting workshops for 45,000 teachers and librarians and
250,000 students.
Haven has authored five audio tapes and 28 books including three award-
winning books on story: Write Right and Get It Write on writing, and Super
Simple Storytelling, on doing, using, and teaching storytelling. Through this work
Haven has become a nationally recognized expert on the architecture of narra-
tives and on teaching creative and expository writing.
Haven served on the National Storytelling Association’s Board of Directors
and founded the International Whole Language Umbrella’s Storytelling Interest
Group. He has served as co-director for five western storytelling festivals,
including two student storytelling showcase festivals.
He lives with his wife in the rolling vineyards in rural Northern California.