A monthly blog written by a clinical psychologist, which considers the ways in which psychology can influence and improve the stories that we tell.
Why we love morally grey characters: A psychological breakdown
Most of us will have found ourselves rooting for characters who have done terrible things. Walter White. Villanelle. Loki. Kaz Brekker. Jude Duarte. These characters lie, manipulate, even kill — yet we follow them, fascinated, hoping that, somehow, things might work out for them in the end. Morally grey characters have become increasingly popular in…
Keep readingThe Hero’s Journey — and Why It Still Matters Today
Ever since humans began to tell stories, they spoke about heroes. They told tales of epic quests of discovery, where warriors slayed monsters and outsmarted the gods, forever changing their lives. The two earliest examples of a story about the hero’s journey date back to ancient Mesopotamia, more than four thousand years ago, but similar…
Keep readingWhy do we become attached to fictional characters?
The role of empathy in connecting with characters I’ve previously written about the role of theory of mind in storytelling. This is our ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, to understand their perspective even when it’s different from our own, and use that understanding to explain and predict their behaviour. Using theory of…
Keep readingLet Me Tell You My Story: The First Person Narrative
For the last few posts I’ve been discussing the importance of the point of view that a story uses and how narrarive perspectives can impact the story. We’re now onto the last perspective that can be used in story telling, which is first person. What is a First Person Narrative? First person perspective is when…
Keep readingThe Rise and Fall of the Omniscient Narrator
Third person point of view (POV) is the most commonly used in fiction, so we should all be familiar with what it looks like. But if you aren’t a writer, you may not realise that there are two different types of third person narrative: Third Person Limited: Third person limited follows a single person, with…
Keep readingThe Use of Second Person Point of View in Fiction
After introducing the psychology behind perspective taking and literary points of view in How theory of mind leads to effective storytelling, I wanted to go into more detail about the impact of different points of view on our experience of a story. I’m going to start with the point of view that’s used the least…
Keep readingHow theory of mind leads to effective storytelling
Storytelling is all about sharing a point of view. When we read or listen to a story, we’re learning something about the perspective of the storyteller or their characters. Stories can make us feel connected to the protagonist; they can build anticipation for the ending; they can make us question our views of the world.…
Keep readingTelling a story with logos, pathos and ethos
One of the main aims of any story teller is to convince their audience of something, whether that be to immerse them in a magical world, or make a theoretical argument, or to build an emotional connection with the characters. So how do you write a convincing story? What elements need to be there for…
Keep readingTrickster stories and why we need them
In my previous blog post The feral child archetype: stories and themes in real life and fiction, I introduced the concept of character archetypes that keep arising across different societies. Carl Jung believed that these archetypes represented elements of our psyche, coming to life within the stories that we tell each other. Because archetypes are…
Keep readingUsing simile and metaphor to write effective stories
We humans are masters at storytelling. We search for patterns, meaning and similarities in everything around us. We structure our experiences in ways that help us to make sense of our world and how it works. And then we tell our ‘stories’ to our family and friends, or our online followers, in an attempt to…
Keep readingThe feral child archetype: stories and themes in real life and fiction
What is an archetype? In a previous post, ‘What is a story?’, I talked about Christopher Booker’s seven proposed story archetypes. These archetypes describe the narrative structures that are most commonly seen in the stories that we tell. Brooker’s ideas were informed by the psychiatrist Carl Jung, who introduced the concept of a collective unconscious,…
Keep readingCATS ARE NICE (The Use of Anthropomorphism in Fiction)
“‘I meant,’ said Ipslore bitterly, ‘what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?’Death thought about it.CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.” – Sir Terry Pratchett What is anthropomorphism? The above quote is an example of a character interacting with an anthropomorphic personification of a natural phenomenon. In simpler terms, this is…
Keep readingThe Rule of Three (and how to use it in writing)
What is the rule of three? Have you ever noticed how many things come in threes? You can find several examples in children’s stories, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Three Little Pigs. Or you could look to adult fiction to find the three ghosts that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge, the three witches in…
Keep readingWhat is a story?
When I started thinking about this blog, I considered the ways in which a psychologist could contribute to our understanding of storytelling. My initial thought was that most topics would relate to characters and characterisation, after all, psychology is all about people, isn’t it? But then it occurred to me that the psychology of a…
Keep readingWhy Do We Tell Stories?
Ever since I was able to write, I wanted to tell stories. As a child, I would sit with notepads and pencils and scribble away, writing about people and places that only existed within my own imagination. The stories that I write even now are informed by the stories that I put down on paper…
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Caroline Ashley 