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A Scientific Turn in the Genre of How-to Fiction Writing Manuals?
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Stefan Veleski
Published/Copyright:
February 13, 2021
Abstract
The last two years have seen the publication of two books in the genre of how-to fiction writing manuals that use science both as a selling point and as a genuine analytical paradigm. The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr and The Science of Screenwriting by Paul Joseph Gulino and Connie Shears use insights from the cognitive sciences and evolutionary psychology, while retaining their practical, how-to character. This review article goes through some of the main clusters of advice shared by the two books, dealing with information processing, attention allocation, the implications of human sociality for fiction, and story structure, while fitting their takes on these issues within the fields of biocultural criticism and cultural evolution. Despite containing occasional flaws and confusions about theory common in pioneering works, these books could be harbingers of change for the genre and an important step in the bottom-up infusion of biocultural theory into literary studies.
Keywords: how-to screenwriting manuals; screenwriting; biocultural theory; cultural evolution; information processing; attention allocation; theory of mind; story structure
Published Online: 2021-02-13
Published in Print: 2020-12-01
© 2020 by Academic Studies Press
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Articles in the same Issue
- Title
- Table of Contents
- TARGET ARTICLE
- Meaning and Evolution: Why Nature Selected Human Minds to Use Meaning
- RESPONSES TO TARGET ARTICLE
- The Evolutionary Function of What People Find Meaningful
- The Darker Side
- Commentary on “Meaning and Evolution”
- Meaning at the Crossroads of Evolution, Culture, and Person
- Apes in Tuxedos: Robust Sense of Meaning Built upon Our Evolutionarily Developed Basic Psychological Needs
- I Understand the Meaning of Life—But what is the Meaning of “Meaning”?
- Is Existential Meaning a Need or a Want?
- The Detection of Connections, the Experience of Meaning, and Adaptation
- What Does “Meaning” Mean? A Commentary on Baumeister and von Hippel
- Is Meaning Nonphysical?
- Situated and Historized Making Sense of Meaning: Implications for Radicalization
- Meaning and Evil and a Two-Factor Model of Search for Meaning
- REJOINDER
- A Meaningful Discussion of Evolution and Meaning: Reply to Commentaries
- REVIEW ESSAYS
- Thinking avant la lettre: A Review of 4E Cognition
- A Scientific Turn in the Genre of How-to Fiction Writing Manuals?
- Human Behavior Writ Large
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Pascal Boyer. Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create
- William G. Domhoff. The Emergence of Dreaming: Mind-Wandering, Embodied Simulation, and the Default Network
- Bradley Irish. Emotion in the Tudor Court: Literature, History, and Early Modern Feeling
- Winfried Menninghaus. Aesthetics After Darwin: The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts
- James C. Kaufman and Robert J. Sternberg, eds. The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (2nd edition)
- Michael Tomasello. Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny
- Dirk Vanderbeke and Brett Cooke, eds. Evolution and Popular Narrative
- Robert N. Watson. Cultural Evolution and Its Discontents: Cognitive Overload, Parasitic Cultures, and the Humanistic Cure
- Glenn Weisfeld. Evolved Emotions: An Interdisciplinary and Functional Analysis
- David Sloan Wilson and Steven C. Hayes, eds. Evolution and Contextual Behavioural Science: An Integrated Framework for Understanding
- Tania Zittoun and Vlad Petre Glăveanu, eds. Handbook of Imagination and Culture
- Contributors
Keywords for this article
how-to screenwriting manuals;
screenwriting;
biocultural theory;
cultural evolution;
information processing;
attention allocation;
theory of mind;
story structure
Articles in the same Issue
- Title
- Table of Contents
- TARGET ARTICLE
- Meaning and Evolution: Why Nature Selected Human Minds to Use Meaning
- RESPONSES TO TARGET ARTICLE
- The Evolutionary Function of What People Find Meaningful
- The Darker Side
- Commentary on “Meaning and Evolution”
- Meaning at the Crossroads of Evolution, Culture, and Person
- Apes in Tuxedos: Robust Sense of Meaning Built upon Our Evolutionarily Developed Basic Psychological Needs
- I Understand the Meaning of Life—But what is the Meaning of “Meaning”?
- Is Existential Meaning a Need or a Want?
- The Detection of Connections, the Experience of Meaning, and Adaptation
- What Does “Meaning” Mean? A Commentary on Baumeister and von Hippel
- Is Meaning Nonphysical?
- Situated and Historized Making Sense of Meaning: Implications for Radicalization
- Meaning and Evil and a Two-Factor Model of Search for Meaning
- REJOINDER
- A Meaningful Discussion of Evolution and Meaning: Reply to Commentaries
- REVIEW ESSAYS
- Thinking avant la lettre: A Review of 4E Cognition
- A Scientific Turn in the Genre of How-to Fiction Writing Manuals?
- Human Behavior Writ Large
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Pascal Boyer. Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create
- William G. Domhoff. The Emergence of Dreaming: Mind-Wandering, Embodied Simulation, and the Default Network
- Bradley Irish. Emotion in the Tudor Court: Literature, History, and Early Modern Feeling
- Winfried Menninghaus. Aesthetics After Darwin: The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts
- James C. Kaufman and Robert J. Sternberg, eds. The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (2nd edition)
- Michael Tomasello. Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny
- Dirk Vanderbeke and Brett Cooke, eds. Evolution and Popular Narrative
- Robert N. Watson. Cultural Evolution and Its Discontents: Cognitive Overload, Parasitic Cultures, and the Humanistic Cure
- Glenn Weisfeld. Evolved Emotions: An Interdisciplinary and Functional Analysis
- David Sloan Wilson and Steven C. Hayes, eds. Evolution and Contextual Behavioural Science: An Integrated Framework for Understanding
- Tania Zittoun and Vlad Petre Glăveanu, eds. Handbook of Imagination and Culture
- Contributors
