The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Storytelling

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Have you ever wondered why storytelling is such an omnipresent theme of human life? Welcome to another guest segment of “The Writer s Brain” where I pick the brain of a neuroscientist about elements of great writing.

 Research scientist Michael Grybko — of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington — returned to the podcast to help me define storytelling from a scientific standpoint.

If you missed the first two installments of The Writer s Brain — on How Neuroscience Defines both Creativity and Empathy — you can find them in the show notes as well as on writerfiles.fm and iTunes.

In this file Michael Grybko and I discuss:

  • Why Storytelling is the Default Mode of Human Communication
  • How Empathy Makes Storytelling Such an Effective Tool
  • Why Hollywood Continually Taps into ‘The Hero’s Journey’
  • How Blueprints Help Writers Connect with Their Audience
  • Why Reading Fiction Makes Us More Empathetic
  • Writers’ Addiction to Stories (Especially the Dark Ones)
  • Where Humanity Would Be Without Storytelling

    • The Show Notes

    • How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Creativity
    • How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Empathy
    • The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
    • Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
    • “Reading literary fiction improves empathy, study finds” from The Guardian
    • The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall
    • Kelton Reid on Twitter

      • Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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      The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and NeuroscienceBy Kelton Reid
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