Quotes

The neurological impact of sensory detail.

Stories should be aimed not at our heads but at our hearts. “And this is where things get interesting, because description actually allows access to our hearts in a neurophysical way.” I have wondered why reading something with sensory detail leaves more of an impression than writing that doesn’t have sensory detail. According to studies, “when we read about an odor, it engages the exact same part of the brain as actually smelling it, and those parts of the brain reside in the lower region, alongside our emotional centers. . . When you write using smells, or images, or sensations, you’re actually gaining access to the emotional area of the brain, and this is why stories can take such precise aim at the heart. Words like lavender, cinnamon, and soap, for example, elicit a response not only from the language processing areas of our brain, but also those devoted to…

Quotes

Concrete Details

J.T. Bushnell wrote, “I once burst into tears during a Tobias Wolff reading . . . as Wolff intoned the final passages from ‘Bullet in the Brain,’ I broke the silence of the packed auditorium with a gasp, a sob.” Bushnell goes on to explain his strong emotional reaction. “It was the final scene that set me off.” This is what he remembered. Heat. A baseball field. Yellow grass, the whirr of insects, himself leaning against a tree as the boys of the neighborhood gather for a pickup game. “Half a page later, the story ends with the passage that brought me to a fever pitch.” For now Anders can still make time. Time for the shadows to lengthen on the field, time for the tethered dog to bark at the flying ball, time for the boy in right field to smack his sweat-blackened mitt. “These passages by themselves seem…