16/12/2012

How writers achieve literary immortality

... "neurobiological forces designed for our survival naturally make interest in art fade. But the forces don't stop artists from trying for timelessness.

what writers can do to block or slow that natural erosion over time? ...

We are evolutionarily designed so that we focus on new objects and ignore familiar ones ... When the mind confronts a new object, our perception is intense and vivid, but it soon dies with familiarity. Every minute, this feeling fades as the mind grasps the object.

Many writers in the Romantic tradition are animated by an impossible ambition to indefinitely extend that intensity. ... the strategies some literary greats have used to slow the brain's familiarity and create a never-fading image.

Where science can learn from literature is that it's not recreating the feeling of the first experience of the drug encounter, but that initial imagery associated with the intensity..."

How to achieve literary immortality? Combine an inkling of familiarity with the unknown. "Literary immortality is achieved by immersing the reader in an extraordinary experience outside the realm of their reality. Vagueness also works to keep the mind active. It isn't about a good or complicated plot in the story."

READ MORE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121213151442.htm
SpyWriter Jack King: www.SpyWriter.com | FaceBook | Twitter

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