the timboucher experience

Also in that article, Why People Read Fiction, the author goes into a really interesting comparison between the way stories are structured, and the way our bodies reply to stresses. He talks about “Feralt’s Triangle” which is basically the model of stories that goes like this:

..In every successful story, the story begins with a character who has a problem. As we read, the suspense rises, the problems become more complex and have more far-reaching consequences, until we reach the climax of the story, where the hero’s fortune changes. Afterward, the problem is resolved, the tension diminishes, and the reader is allowed to return to a relaxed state.

So you have a rising action, a climax and a denouement. He talks about when our bodies encounter stress, our nervous, hormonal and other responses basically follow that type of arc: levels rise, climax and then drop off. So basically, one of the aspects which determines the success of a story is it’s ability to mimic or simulate our bodies being put through states of real stress.

Your subconscious mind does not completely recognize the difference between your real experiences and those that occur only in the imagination.

So, when you become Frodo Baggins walking the road to the Crack of Doom, chased by dark riders, the subconscious mind responds to some degree as if it were really happening. When you are Robin Hood, grieving for your dead father, your mind responds as if it were really happening to you.

Indeed, the more completely you become immersed in the fiction, the more totally your body will respond.

How often have you found yourself reading a book with your heart hammering so badly that you had to stop? Have you ever found sweat on your brow and your breathing shallow? I have.

It’s cool, because he uses it to contrast with what you normally hear about stories and entertainment as being strictly “escapist”. According to this interpretation though, by entering into a story, you aren’t so much escaping from reality as you are immersing yourself into an intentionally stressful environment and exercising your ability to respond to it.

He also adds that risk or stress becomes entertainment when there is some kind of control placed on the risk, so it doesn’t get completely out of hand. One of the examples he gives is skydiving. Jumping out of a plane with a parachute is considered entertainmen, whereas not using a parachute is basically just suicide (arguably, that might be entertaining for a few seconds, I guess - but that’s not the point). So the connection is made that people do the same thing with stories. Stories allow us to put ourselves emotionally into extreme or unusual experiences and enjoy them, while if they were really happening to us, we probably wouldn’t be able to handle the intense level of stress the same events would cause.

• Why read?
• Haptic Response In Performance
• Leary Wilson Mind Brain Circuits
• Escapism
• It’s Only Fiction, After All