How 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. But what is it that that makes stories so effective in triggering these thoughts and feelings?

What is Theory of Mind?

Communicating a point of view in a story starts with theory of mind. Every human has the capacity to put themselves into the mind of another, to consider that someone else might have a different perspective to them. We develop this skill as children, with some of us being better at it than others for various social, environmental and cognitive reasons. The concept of theory of mind relates largely to cognitive perspective taking. This means it relates to interpreting the thoughts, desires and intentions of others, which we use to infer reasons for their behaviour or to predict their behaviour. Psychologists describe it as a theory because it’s impossible to ever truly prove our assumptions about another person’s mind – we’ll never see or experience it the way they do.

Another related concept is empathy, which researchers describe as emotional perspective taking. This is our ability to recognise and understand the emotions of others, basically to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and consider how a situation might make them feel.

Theory of Mind and the Role of Language

In my previous blog post Why Do We Tell Stories, I wrote about the power of language. We are the only animal that we’re aware of that’s capable of communicating complex symbolic meanings. We are capable of describing events that have never happened, or that we have never experienced, in order to express an underlying message to our audience.

In the same way, this linguistic ability gives us the framework for conceptualising the experience of another person. Other animals have been shown to have some theory of mind, for example, crows are able to infer that another crow may not have the same knowledge as them; chimpanzees and bonobos have shown some ability to infer the intentions and emotions of others. But researchers all agree that the theory of mind these animals evidence is far less than that of humans. We don’t really know for sure why that is, but there does seem to be a strong link between language fluency and the development of theory of mind and empathy.

As we’re teaching our children to speak, often we’re also teaching them something about theory of mind at the same time. For example, when my son starts crying and I ask “Are you sad?, I’m giving him the label that I use to describe that emotion in myself. If I’m combing his hair and pull too hard, I’ll say “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” and he’ll know that what happened wasn’t my intention. When I plan to have toast and realise there isn’t any bread, if I say “I didn’t know you and Daddy finished the bread”, I’m teaching him that my knowledge was different to his until I went into the kitchen. Language allows us to access the inner worlds of other people in a way that just wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

Theory of Mind and Storytelling

Another thing that researchers have found is that our brains are particularly interested in narratives. Partly, this is because they’re easier to remember: they have a structure that we can follow and a context that we can put them in. But it’s also because narratives have a social value. We tell stories to share information about ourselves or our experiences, and we find stories engaging because there’s an evolutionary advantage to being given the information that others want to share. In the past, that might have been information about food sources, or whether other people were trustworthy, or signs of a predator. Now, our stories might be more complicated but we still listen to them to build our social understanding.

Brain imaging studies have shown that when we listen to narratives rather than just unrelated verbal information, different areas of the brain are activated. This extends even to fictional stories. When we are told about the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of a character, our brains work to take their perspective in the same way we would with a real person. In this way, simple stories can be used to help children to practice theory of mind and develop their social and emotional understanding of others, while adults can emotionally connect with characters, allowing stories to take on more meaning and become more memorable.

Point of View

Within storytelling, there are three main points of view that a narrative can take:

First Person:

This is the point of view that you’re most likely to hear in stories told during your everyday life. It is a story where the narrator is also the protagonist and they are telling you about something that happened to them e.g.:

I did the only thing any reasonable wizard could have done. I turned around and ran like hell.
Jim Butcher

Second Person:

In this point of view, the narrator turns the reader into the protagonist, speaking as if the reader themselves were the one who experienced the narrative.

You’re still trying to decide who to be. The self you’ve been lately doesn’t make sense anymore; that woman died with Uche.
N.K. Jemisin

Third Person:

The most commonly used point of view in fiction, third person provides the reader with a camera through which they can see the action happening to the characters in the narrative. This perspective is similar to our usual life experiences: we watch others as they speak and act, separated from them unless they tell us their own first person account.

Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return.
J.R.R. Tolkien

How do theory of mind and point of view interact with each other?

Each different type of point of view invites the reader to engage with a narrative in a particular way and each will require different aspects of theory of mind.

In first person POV, we’re being told someone’s story. They’re making a direct attempt to share something of themselves with us. This taps into our social desire to engage with, empathise and understand those around us, and to build human connections.

In second person POV, the narrator asks us to imagine that we are the protagonist, to put ourselves in the narrative. This is a tricky one to get right, if the actions of the character are too far removed from what we think our own might be, but it can have the powerful effect of leaving us feeling like we personally understand the experience of the story.

Third person POV draws on the skills we use every day in observing those around us but often with the added element of access to the internal experiences of the characters, which generally makes us feel more emotionally invested in them.

The point of view that is most effective for the narrative being told is dependent on the aims of the storyteller, but all of them take advantage of our ability to take the perspectives of the protagonists and empathise with their experiences.

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Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She loves fantasy in all forms and is fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.

Using 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 share a little of what we’ve learned from life.

Telling memorable stories

There are certain rhetorical devices that writers can use, techniques that help them to keep a reader or listener’s attention and build their investment in the story.

One example of this is the use of personification and anthropomorphism, which I talk about further in The Use of Anthropomorphism in Fiction. In these cases, the writer imbues human characteristics either literally or figuratively in animals or inanimate objects in order to emphasise their themes or say something about their characters. When we think of something as being like a human, we inevitably feel more connected with it, because we can use our own experiences to empathise and make sense of their behaviour.

Another way that writers can achieve a similar goal is through the use of simile and metaphor, which can be used to strengthen descriptive images.

What are simile and metaphor?

Simile and metaphor both involve using figurative language to compare one thing to another, but function in slightly different ways.

When a writer uses simile, they describe an object by comparing it to something else using ‘like’ or ‘as’. Some examples would be:

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose.
Robert Burns

His smile was as stiff as a frozen fish.
Raymond Chandler

When a writer uses a metaphor, they describe something as if it were something else. For example:

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
William Shakespeare

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.
John Green

Metaphors can also be extended to compare two things on more than one level. An example for this would be ‘Hope is a Thing with Feathers’ by Emily Dickinson, where the whole poem is an extended metaphor describing hope with bird-like features.

Metaphors are generally considered to be more impactful than similes, because they assert that the objects in question are essentially the same as each other. Similes on the other hand function more as a suggestion to us, they plant an idea in our heads but leave us to imagine the details. Take for example “My anger is a raging fire” versus “My anger is like a raging fire”. In the first, we picture a literal fire and connect it with the character’s anger, whereas in the second, we picture the features of a fire – hot, hard to control, destructive – and consider what parts link with the character’s emotion.

Both devices have their place in a story. If a writer were to spend the entire narrative just using metaphors, we’re likely to disengage, feeling that we’re being told what to think. But equally, if they only use simile, the writer risks losing their voice, relying on the reader to infer the majority of the description. Good fiction uses the right one at the right time in order to strengthen the narrative and immerse the reader in each moment.

What makes a bad metaphor or simile

Similes and metaphors don’t always work well when they are used. We might read one and just feel that it doesn’t work, doesn’t help us to better picture the image, or just that it takes us out of the story for some reason – here are a few reasons why that might happen:

It’s a cliché

We all know some clichéd similes and metaphors: dead as a doornail; fine kettle of fish; wipe the slate clean. And there are two reasons why we find them jarring in fiction. Firstly, because we know them so well, and have heard them in other contexts, we no longer imagine them figuratively, which means that they lose their impact. Secondly, often these clichéd comparisons have lost some of their meaning over time because our way of life has changed – doornails were hammered so deeply you couldn’t easily remove them; fish kettles were long saucepans that used to be common kitchen utensils; and a clean slate comes from wiping a writing slate clean in classrooms.

The objects being compared are too alike

When this happens, the comparison becomes redundant and just doesn’t add to the story. An example might be saying that bubblegum popped like a balloon – both pop in fairly similar ways, so what does the comparison add to the image?

It doesn’t fit with the tone/atmosphere

Figurative language can throw us out of a story if it evokes an image that doesn’t fit well with the scene that we’re reading. An example of this is in City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, when the main characters are in a nightclub and one is being watched by a vampire:

Around her neck was a thick silver chain, on which hung a dark red pendant the size of a baby’s fist

While the comparison might be accurate for what Clare is describing, how does the image of a baby add to the dark tone that she’s already established?

Another way that a simile or metaphor might break the atmosphere is to refer to something that wouldn’t exist in the time of the narrative. For example, referring to the speed of a bullet or the ticking of a clock in a story where those haven’t been invented yet. While mentioning them in the narrative might not technically be anachronistic, depending on the narrator, they serve to make us think about the modern world when the writer wants us immersed in the past.

What makes an effective simile or metaphor?

Being true to the narrative voice

The strongest similes and metaphors will fit well with the voice of the narrator. This would include consideration of the story’s setting, its tone, its themes and things that the narrator is likely to know. Take for example this quote by Terry Pratchett in Mort:

Ankh- Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound

All of the comparisons made are of things that might be found in a pre-industrial revolution city like Ankh-Morpork, so they fit with the narrator’s level of knowledge. They also fit with the humourous tone of the book by using examples that speak to the unrefined, crime ridden nature of the people within the city.

Another example comes from Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass:

Because Lyra now realized, if she hadn’t done so before, that all the fear in her nature was drawn to Mrs. Coulter as a compass needle drawn to the Pole

Since this book focuses on Lyra’s use of a device called an alethiometer that looks like a compass and responds to human intent, this simile fits well with Lyra’s viewpoint, using a comparison that is related to her recent experiences.

Any good metaphor or simile considers what their narrator or viewpoint character might think of when making a comparison. A good story remembers that the story is not just written for the reader but written by a narrator and if that narrator is from a certain time period or country or world then the figurative language they use should also exist within that context.

The importance of specificity

A lot of the most cliché similes and metaphors are quite general, for example, “quiet as a mouse”, “life is a journey”, “cold as ice”. While these comparisons do give some extra information, they don’t evoke a strong image or clear idea of what the writer is trying to convey. If they weren’t already well-known, they would be unlikely to stick in our minds after being read.

Effective similes and metaphors add a level of specificity. If the comparison evokes an image of a certain moment or emotion, then it’s easier for the reader to picture. Compare “quiet as a mouse in a house full of cats” or “cold as the ice on Triton” to the more well-known examples.

But we can also look to literature for examples of specificity adding more than just additional imagery:

Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.
Margaret Atwood, A Handmaid’s Tale

He looks like right after the maul hits the steer and it no longer alive and don’t yet know that it is dead.
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

Both of these examples describe an actual moment that the reader can imagine, thus strengthening the image that they are trying to evoke. They also weave in additional elements that speak to the emotions that the writer is trying to convey – the detail of being left by a “careless” child speaks to an idea that there may have been a way to be more careful, to defend against the waves of time. And with Faulkner, the example is of an animal caught off guard, still processing the impact of a sudden, negative change.

Remembering not to overdo it

A good writer thinks about what parts of their story are most important and would benefit from the emphasis of figurative language. Every piece of figurative language involves needing to access information about the object being compared and what we know about it, in order to understand the meaning beneath the comparison. If there are too many in a short space of time, we essentially become fatigued and lose interest. Or, if figurative language emphasises a part of the story that isn’t that important, we can also be left feeling unclear about what point the writer was trying to get across.

Deciding what works for the story

Any ‘rule’ of writing is made to be broken. However, there is a difference between just not knowing the rules and making a conscious decision not to follow them. In the same way that a skilled chef might deviate from a recipe because their taste buds suggest something different, a skilled writer can learn to subvert reader expectations and break the rules in ways that strengthen rather than weaken their story.

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The 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 Macbeth or Beetlejuice being summoned by three repetitions of his name.

The rule of three even pervades our understanding of science and religion, such as Newton’s three rules of motion and Christianity’s holy trinity.

When we think of well known phrases, many can be reduced to three words: “Ready, aim, fire.” “Lights, Camera, Action.” “Live, laugh, love.”

The idea behind the rule of three is that groupings of this number are more memorable, more emotionally resonant and more persuasive than just one or two, or even four or five.

But why?

Why do memorable things come in threes?

There is a potential reason why our stories are littered with threes, though the theory hasn’t been definitively proven. The best explanation seems to be that our brains look for patterns in everything.

Even the simplest of visual scenes cause us to imbue meaning where there is none. In the 1940s, Heider and Simmel presented research participants with a simple video of basic shapes moving across the screen and found that participants were quick to attribute emotions, motivations and purpose to these two dimensional triangles and lines.

But even with a brain desperate to find meaning in the world, we need something first to apply it to. Three is the smallest number of iterations that can form a cohesive pattern. Take this visual example:

Example of two images: a square followed by a circle — Two Item Pattern

With just two images, you can’t be sure yet what the pattern is and may question if there even is one. There could be a different shape coming next, the circle could be repeated, they might not be related to each other at all. You could guess but you wouldn’t feel sure. Now look at this one:

Example of a three image pattern going square, circle, square — Three Item Pattern

Do you feel more confident that the next image will be a circle? Do you feel like you’re looking at a pattern rather than just two unconnected shapes? Seeing the three together tends to lead to a feeling of cohesiveness, where our brains start to assume that they are part of a whole.

The same logic works with the formation of a pattern using words or narrative – by the time of the third example, you’re able to draw conclusions about the writer’s intention. But it also becomes a complete arc, something with a beginning, middle and end, something we are very familiar with in storytelling.

Everyone can remember three things

Another advantage to the rule of three is that the repetition helps us to remember the message or story. The cue given by the pattern acts as a memory aid, causing the story to stick in your mind.

In folklore, making stories memorable was particularly important because they were often passed on from person to person, rather than being written down. Even now, filmmakers and authors want us to remember what we have seen so that we can recommend it to our friends and family.

This is likely another reason that our brains like to work in threes. Research shows that an adult has the working memory capacity to hold seven items in mind, plus or minus two. But a child averages around three or four.

Additionally, looking back at the Heidel and Simmer research, a subsequent study by Wick et al. (2020) has shown that even adults, when presented with multiple shapes, struggle to agree on and follow narratives for images with more than four shapes, and performance was best when there were three.

They question why this was such a small number, when you consider that many stories have more than three characters, or three story events, but this is likely to be because of our brain’s ability to ‘chunk’ information into larger parts in real life. We have to work hard to find meaning in random triangles, but life experiences often have connections that we can draw on to help our memory. So we may still only be able to recall three things, but those three things can be much larger if we can group smaller parts into a bigger whole.

For example, if my working memory is capacity is only for four numbers, and I want to learn 12 digits, I could remember them as “1231 – 4367 – 3476″ but I would probably struggle as the number of digits increased, because the different numbers would risk getting confused in my mind.

Or if I was trying to remember a story I was told, I could remember it by breaking it down into sections, for example, a house of straw blown down by the wolf, a house of sticks blown down the by wolf, then a house of bricks that stayed standing.

When you think that common folklore is often a warning, a message about how to behave or what to protect yourself from, you want everyone to remember the story, so you need it to be as simple as possible, while still containing the information that’s important. So stories were written with a level of repetition to help keep them memorable, but they were also kept short enough to ensure that as little information as possible was lost when they were re-told later by whoever had heard it.

Using the rule of three in writing

There are a few ways that writers can take advantage of the rule of three to make their work more memorable and emotionally resonant.

The three act structure:

The standard form of this is the beginning, middle and end. The set up, the identification of the problem, then the resolution. This doesn’t mean that you need to follow chronological order – plenty of stories build anticipation by showing the end first, then revealing how the characters got there. Your story doesn’t even need to include these elements in the events around the character – in a character driven story, these three elements might all be about how the character resolves an internal conflict.

Repetition in the narrative:

You will have read stories that use this technique – the Goldilocks narrative where something is too hot, too cold, then just right; or the granting of three wishes from a Genie. These narratives allow for elements to be repeated three times within the narrative itself, meaning that the detail within the story is better remembered.

The tricolon:

You can introduce this at the sentence level to make your conveyed message more memorable. These are a set of three parallel words or phrases, similar in length or structure. The use of this technique allows you to build rhythm within the sentence, as well as building emphasis in the content.

When using a tricolon, try to consider that certain patterns often work better than others. Repetition of the same, or very similar, words can work well to place emphasis on your point, such as “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” or “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. But there are other well known examples that establish a different pattern whereby the first two words or clauses are similar – this can be in terms of rhythm, length, syntax, sound – and you then end on something different and usually longer, which emphasises the last section by causing it to stand out from the others. Take for example, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” or Edgar Allan Poe’s line “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping.”

The rule of three is everywhere

The rule of three is such a pervasive form of rhetoric within writing that you will likely see me reference concepts that use it in future articles. But even before then, I’m sure you’ll find many more examples of it in books, television or public speaking.

If you are a writer, look through your work and see if you can spot any examples of it. Or if you enjoy reading, flick through your nearest book and see what you can find.

If you enjoyed reading this, feel free to like, comment and share 😉

If you’re interested in reading my previous Storytelling posts, you can find them here

Or why not check out my serialised young adult fantasy novel George Square or my published short fiction.

Meet the author

Caroline Ashley is a clinical psychologist who works for the NHS in Scotland. She is a lover of fantasy in all forms and fascinated by the ways in which the fantasical can speak to our everyday lives.