Category: Random Thoughts

The Neuroscience of It All

I skimmed an interview with the Director of the Stanford Educational Neuroscience Initiative, Bruce McCandliss, on how we learn to read (and why some struggle).

I admit, I wasn’t reading it as someone trying to teach a child to read, but rather as someone fascinated by how the written word changes our brain. Apparently, reading hijacks the brain’s commitment to perceptual expertise. Letters are a puzzle that we solve, and then, new worlds open to us.

Or as the interview presents it: the developing reader crosses a threshold and suddenly, “You’re in this mental space with someone (the author) that depends on the transparency of the words.”

My goal when I write fiction is that the words fade away and readers simply exist in an imagined world. It seems this is precisely the goal. I feel validated (even as I apologise sincerely for using that piece of jargon. Validated. Ugh).

Words are magic. Playing with them and making them sing is vital. But the magic is when that singing creates a world. The brain lights up!

Marketers are especially focused on when our brains light up.

This second neuroscience link I wanted to share with you is from the American Marketing Association, Inside the Consumer Brain: How Neuroscience Can Predict Ad Enjoyment by Ceylin Petek Ertekin and Elvira Tolen.

A key finding was that while emotion is a great hook…

The sustained predictiveness of social cognition signals suggests that when viewers connect with characters or scenarios meaningfully, they remain receptive to information for longer periods. In essence, our neural findings support what many creative advertisers intuitively understand: stories that foster social connection and meaning will likely lead to the best results, creating a receptive context where product information feels relevant rather than being intrusive.

We come back to last month’s theme of storytelling. People want to feel, and foster, their sense of belonging.

I’m coming to believe that our brains are storytellers and that we derive great satisfaction (and survive) when at an unconscious level those stories are shared. If our group inhabits the same (imaginary) world, then we’re more likely to act cohesively. In fact, it might be that the nature of our perceptual expertise is defined by the stories of our group. We value reading, and so, children are taught perceptual expertise regarding letters.

Perhaps the tension between “us” and “them” is always a matter of clashing stories; a fact obscured by the power differentials that send some stories underground.

2026-05-21
Fiction as a Break from Uncertainty

A couple of weeks ago I recommended Rory Sutherland’s book, Alchemy. The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense. One of the big challenges it raised was uncertainty and how strongly people avoid it, being willing to embrace a less good certainty rather than risk a possibly brilliant uncertainty. Moreover, we will pay more (and remember that payment is more than money. It includes our time and effort) for certainty.

I have thought and thought about this, particularly in relation to novels and publishing, and my conclusion (or one of them) is that novels’ appeal is that they connect us with people in a meaningful way.

In real life people’s actions often don’t make sense. Sometimes they confound us. But in a well-crafted novel, people are explicable. This is incredibly relaxing. It soothes us emotionally because the cognitive dissonance of real life, of people saying one thing and doing something else and us not understanding WHY is removed. There can be a degree of uncertainty in a novel, we can even revel in a complicated plot that leaves us with questions, but fundamentally we engage with a novel because we trust in its ability to reduce the uncertainty of life to a meaningful story.

2026-05-14
Storytellers as Retellers

Myths are a vital part of a society’s glue. They help define who we are and who we are not, where we came from, and maybe where we’re going.

I’m Australian, but not First Nations. I grew up with a very limited understanding of the stories, the myths, that created our land for thousands of years. The Rainbow Serpent might have been my first introduction to the Dreaming.

Storytellers retell old stories. Sometimes they’re myths or support myths. Sometimes they’re family-bonding memories.

Little children often force us to re-read the same book every night because there is comfort in familiar stories. They are a shelter.

Sometimes I wonder if one of the most radical acts of defiance is to retell old stories, holding steady to their truth while the world is in tumult.

The stories we tell reveal our values and define who we become.

2026-04-23
Storytellers are Sponges

Storytellers are constantly absorbing impressions: the sights, sounds, smells, and vibe of the world. What is becomes what could be. Meaning is extracted and communicated.

But the problem with being a sponge is that you soak up a lot of negativity.

Australia has a classic anti-smoking ad where a sponge is squeezed to show the tar from smoking cigarettes dropping disgustingly into a beaker.

For some storytellers, that tar (all the heartbreak and suffering in the world) is squeezed out to become a bleak portrayal of survival and resistance. Sometimes that very bleakness becomes a rallying cry.

But for me, I don’t want to pass on the negativity. It stops with me. The stories I tell are about good people inhabiting interesting, hopeful worlds. Conflict is part of life, but it can be positive not simply destructive. My stories push back against the negativity I’ve absorbed.

The lungs as sponges metaphor is useful because one of the cures for the world’s negativity is to breathe the fresh air of joy. So, I search out stories of hope and resilience: the scientists assembling building blocks of knowledge to solve our problems; communities caring for each other; cute animal pictures, all the wonder that exists beyond the negativity and which will outlast it and prevail.

2026-04-16
Storyteller – A Builder of Bridges

A storyteller is a bridge between the past and the future. In a sense the present is unknowable. We experience it, but we understand it as the past or as the future.

I know you’re saying, “How can we understand the present as the future?”

Take a moment to think about it. When we were living in what is now the past, what is now the present was a possible future.

Pause with that thought while neuroscience comes rushing in to explain why this is important.

Our expectations shape our perceptions.

Therefore, what we believed in the past (creating our expectations) shapes what we believe we’ll experience in the future, and because expectations are so powerful that they literally shape our perception, the present moment is defined (to some degree) by what our past self expected of the future.

Have I muddled you? Do you think I need more coffee and a brisk walk in the fresh air? (Yes, yes, I do).

A storyteller takes the past and the future and provides a meaningful link between them. That bridge is the present moment that we consistently experience, but seldom occupy. We are journeying in a tension between the past (learning, regretting) and the future (anticipating, planning). A strong story reduces the friction of the journey, either because the truth of the story removes any conflict between our expectations and experience, or because the emotional arousal of the story overrides the conflict and our brains pour more energy into shaping our perception to match the story.

We are each our own storyteller, but our stories can be influenced by determined external storytellers. People who tell us we’re weak can train us to tell ourselves the same story. Or perhaps they’ll tell us that we’re trapped, and then, we’ll tell ourselves that we’ll never scale our metaphorical walls—and all the time, we never see the open door. Storytellers that give us strength and compassion, connection and hope are the external storytellers we should listen to and wrap into our personal story. Our journeys aren’t easy, but the bridge between the past and the future can be stronger and stranger than we currently imagine.

2026-04-09
Storytelling Goes Corporate

In the last few months corporations and government agencies have been advertising for storytellers. The new job title might sound as if they hope to recruit the Brothers Grimm, but my take on this is that they’re actually after someone who can clarify the organization’s value and purpose, and the journey the customer/citizen will go on with them. Eve Macdonald suggests that what they actually need is an editor.

The rise of the corporate storyteller is part of the convulsions of AI integration. The bulk of the deliverables of a marketing campaign can be produced by AI (or so its proponents promise). This means a hollowing out of marketing agencies and departments. Graphic design, statistical analysis, social media moderation, all of it is being buffeted by claims that AI can do it—not necessarily better—but cheaper, and perhaps, faster and more personalized. Once the system is in place, the AI agent can handle it. ::insert doubtful hum::

But for the system to work, and for corporate leadership to believe in it and fund it, there must be clarity about what it will deliver. In short, what consistent, coherent story must it tell? How will the organization know that the AI agent is staying on message? And when the environment changes, how must the story change?

Corporations and government agencies are really hoping to employ spiders. These are rare people who consume vast amounts of information and connection, and can filter it for meaning and a meaningful response. Sitting at the center of a web of incoming and outgoing information they influence perception of the organization internally as well as externally. The CEO is the public face, the schmoozer, and the one who makes decisions (depending on how active the board/government minister is). The spider, or storyteller, is the one who ensures the clarity of vision and consistency of message that the CEO sells.

Guess what? As an indie author, spider is now another hat for me to wear. It’s actually useful because it validates efforts I already undertake: studying the market, anticipating social trends, keeping up with new technology and publishing platforms, and communicating my own perspective on these things.

To be honest, I’m not a very good spider. If I was then I’d have a one sentence answer to the question: why does anyone need my books?

But I’m working on that puzzle. Why, in your seventy years of life (if we accept the biblical three score years and ten for the sake of rhetorical flair), would you invest hours of it to journeying with my characters and exploring my imaginary worlds?

Perhaps the corporate world is right and the answer is that a storyteller creates a solid path forward, out of the confusion that is reality. A good storyteller provides hope.

2026-04-02
Emptiness. An Opportunity

“Empty courtesy” is an old-fashioned term for an act of routine politeness, which is devoid of emotional investment. As the opposite of rudeness, it could be defined as caring. It’s not, though. It is, instead, a means of moving smoothly through the world. It could be as simple as a person saying, “I’m sorry”, when they’re not and they have no intention of altering their (mis)behavior.

In many circumstances, empty courtesy is sufficient to sustain superficial relationships and business and social dealings.

However, for people who want genuine relationships and genuine change, empty courtesy is a frustrating brick wall. They bounce off it, and, if they’re smart, they’ll go and look elsewhere to have their needs met.

AI-generated communications are the equivalent of empty courtesy. They meet the social requirements, but without engaging at a deeper level. For many people that is exactly what they want. I find this shocking, but I’m growing to accept that the emotional dullness of AI meets, even satisfies, many people’s fear of others and of change.

For those who want a deeper connection, I think we need to coin a term that signals that there is a person at the other end of a communication or creative endeavor who is also seeking connection. People are trying out human, genuine, non-AI, and other terms. I think the buzzword of a few years ago, authenticity, has fallen by the wayside.

Artisan became the descriptor for specialty or craft, rather than mass-produced, items.

I’m not keen on calling myself an artisanal (as in non-AI) author, but maybe “guilded” as in belonging to the collective or community that is authors and readers. I don’t think that’s quite the term either, but I am keen to see how we express this opposite of empty courtesy in the creative arts and communication more broadly.

2026-03-19
Measuring Success

Metrics are simplified expressions of complex concepts. For instance, it’s difficult to measure happiness. Is your neighbor happier than you? Well, which one of you went on vacation in the last six months? Obviously, that person is happier. No? Well, how would you measure happiness? Birth of a child? The start of a new relationship or the enduring of a relationship? Possessing the time, money, and energy to pursue a hobby?

Where you can’t directly measure and compare something, metrics become a substitute. An inadequate one, I’d argue, and one with the potential to distort your understanding of the world, and hence, your behaviour.

The problem is that metrics are easier to live with than the uncertainty of the complex concepts they mask, so people rely on them. The advertizing industry encourages you to do so. Think back a few decades to the cigarette brand Marlborough and their Marlborough Man. How did you measure, and hence, demonstrate your manliness? Why, you smoked Marlboroughs, and the more, the manlier (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating “the more the manlier”, but am I?).

Simplified metrics are applied and shared (how else to compare yourself to others) far readier than engaging in reflective discourse. This means that the person (politician, salesperson, religious leader, etc) who can produce and communicate a metric that simplifies and reassures (via its banishment of complexity and moral dilemmas) will dominate public understanding of a concept, and hence, direct the behaviour surrounding it.

As Mark Twain said, there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” What we measure shapes our society and our individual lives.

As an author, the metric that matters is the number of books I sell. This is not a metric that measures the quality of my books or my success. Other people would argue that sales do, indeed, define success. No. I choose to define success as whether my books resonate with readers, and I measure that (informally) by readers’ messages, their reviews, and by pre-orders for the next book (which, yes, is a percentage of sales), also by word of mouth recommendations (and my books, or my marketing of my books, falls down on this last point).

The reason I separate success from sales, but still call sales the metric that matters, is because sales determine whether I can continue as an author. It is a metric that decides my future (and unfortunately, it is influenced by Amazon’s algorithms and other mysteries as much as by my efforts). However, it does not define my success as an author or my happiness.

Use metrics, but don’t let them define you.

2026-03-12
Nemeses

Enemies to lovers is a popular trope in romance and all its spin-offs, most notably romantasy. Who doesn’t enjoy a rival romance? But I think an underdeveloped aspect of it will be drawn out over the next few years, that of the vengeance or punishment element of a nemesis. People want retribution stories as well as a redemption arc.

So, we’ll have nemeses to lovers as a growing trope with the initial conflict, the bitter frustration, the resentment of their own feelings, and then, the decision to choose mercy and hope and move forward.

Justice is a complicated subject. Fiction has a powerful role to play in providing ways of seeing the world and emotional frameworks for processing it.

Nemeses to lovers is a trope that doesn’t require us to defeat our enemies with violence. I’m eagerly anticipating how authors will find a path from fury and grief to healing, hope, and love.

2026-03-05
The AI Mask

One of my problems with AI is how organisations are using it to avoid blame. This is an extension of how they’ve been using their systems for a while. It is HARD to find a person who’ll take responsibility for a problem. From blame to solving the problem, the organisational system is designed to shrug it off. AI is now the perfect excuse.

But in my focus on systems I’ve overlooked the individual experience of AI.

As a novelist I’m constantly analysing characters’ motivations. I forget that for a lot of people understanding and working on themselves is terrifying. And what’s the best thing to do when you’re scared? Run away! (I’m kidding).

But AI really is a tool for escaping the self.

Instead of writing a heartfelt best man’s speech, or a sympathy card, or finding the right words (from a place of love and respect) to end a relationship, people are avoiding confronting themselves, their situation, and their emotions. and simply prompting AI for a response.

We are obscuring ourselves from our own gaze by using AI.

Because I tend to frame my world verbally, I’ve used examples from verbal communication. But visual artists are furious at AI partly because they learn themselves and their world through visual art. Same with musicians. Our stories emerge from confronting our selves.

If we mask with AI we will be individually, as well as socially, poorer.

2026-02-05