If you would like your writing to
be less cliché and more unexpected, there are two areas of the brain that you can cultivate.
1) The nucleus accumbens
which responds pleasurably to surprise and 2) the binary operator
which helps us divide complex concepts into opposites.
Most of us say that we like
surprises. We mean pleasant ones like a marriage proposal (and an
engagement ring) or a snow day. No one wants a burst water main or a tax audit.
Historically surprises were NOT
pleasant, and usually came in the form of an invading army or a plague. We’re
actually wired to observe patterns, form models and order our lives precisely
to avoid surprises in an effort to control our environment and to
survive.
In our STORIES, though--fiction,
nonfiction, films, song lyrics, even advertising--we delight in the unexpected.
The nucleus accumbens, located
behind the left eyebrow (just kidding, I have no idea where it is), responds
pleasurably to surprising stimuli. It’s evident from birth and if you’ve ever
played peek-a-boo with a nine month old, you know what I’m talking about.
Humor is largely powered by
surprise, so figuring out how to tickle this area can help make us funnier
writers. Even (especially) the most serious of subjects can stand some lightening
up. But how to do this? you may ask.
Well, the binary operator is
responsible for our ability to divide and simplify relative and complex
concepts into opposites. Such as: big/small,
isolation/integration, mature/immature, good/evil. That's how we get black and
white thinking in a world that's an infinite number of shades of gray.
If we use this binary operator to
think in terms of OPPOSITES in our fiction, and push everything as far out on
the poles of extremes as possible, we will get more surprises. Lukewarm
or gray characters, settings, and situations will not produce the
unexpected. When you put opposites and extremes, incongruous and exaggerated
elements together--voilá the unexpected!
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