The Writer’s Brain
November 10th, 2009 by Edie Ramer
I recently read two great blogs about a study on reading and the brain. According to Wray Herbert:
…scientists used a brain scanner to see what regions lit up during the reading of a story. They watched the brains of volunteers as they read four short narrative passages. Each clause in each story was coded for the script it should theoretically trigger: movement in space, sense of time passing, characters’ goals, interaction with physical objects, and so forth. The idea was to see if different parts of the brain lit up as the reader’s imagined situation unfolded.
And they did. The details of the brain anatomy aren’t important here, but clearly there are several different neuron clusters involved in story comprehension. For example, a particular area of the brain ramped up when readers were thinking about intent and goal-directed action, but not meaningless motion. Motor neurons flashed when characters were grasping objects, and neurons involved in eye movement activated when characters were navigating their world.
In Livia Blackburne’s “A Brain Scientist’s Take on Creative Writing” blog, she says:
“In summary then, different parts of the brain process different facets of our conscious experience, and those same regions are active when we read stories with these facets.”
She says a lot more, and I hope you’ll read both of the blogs. But if reading these scenes affects the reader’s brains, I wonder how it must affect our writer’s brain.
When I’m living my own life, I usually have hundreds of disparate thoughts whirling through my mind. Sometimes when I’m talking to my husband, if I’m interrupted and then it’s my turn to talk again, I’ll have forgotten what I was about to say.
But when I’m writing a scene, I’m deep in my character’s POV. I live the action, I see what my character sees, I smell what she smells, I hear what she hears, I feel she feels.
I’m sitting in front of my computer, but I’m focused on the scene. It feels like my mind and, weirdly (since I’m sitting), my body are concentrated on the scene. Yet I’m still aware of what’s going on around me. My dog when she wants to go out (most of the time — there have been a few missed calls, with consequences), the phone ringing, my cat jumping on me to be petted.
All my synapses are firing. If someone scanned my brain, I think the different regions would be flashing like lights on a Christmas tree.
I’ve read before that a musician’s brain works different from non-musician’s. According to this article:
Vanderbilt University psychologists have found that professionally trained musicians more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking, and also use both the left and the right sides of their frontal cortex more heavily than the average person.
I wonder what researchers would find if they did a study on writers. I know I think differently from non-writers, which is why it’s important to me to have friends in the writing community.
Do you feel that you think differently from non-writers? That writing has changed the way you think? What would your brain if someone scanned it while you were writing?
24 Responses to “The Writer’s Brain”
ohhh! Interesting! Oh yes, I def. think we’re different from nonwriters.
What would be interesting is if they studied the brain when people read different genres. how would brains light up differently with mystery or romance, that sort of thing.
Lori, I think romance appeals to the emotions more than most mysteries. So that would be interesting.
Yes, definitely feel that writers think differently. I’ve been in social situations where the conversations are black and white, and then I’ll say something that turns it all gray. In other words, another way of viewing things appears, albeit disjointed to some, but it shows me that writers think off the beaten path. Perhaps we’re natural born critical thinkers. That said, I’m good with getting strange looks after I open my mouth.
And I one hundred percent agree that it’s important to have writer-friends, or other creative types. The conversations are much more interesting.
I know that I think differently now that I’m a writer which I think proves that non-writers think differently than writers. I study people and their actions. I watch the emotions that come and go. I watch how they react to certain situations. Sometimes I feel guilty but really, what’s the harm if I don’t tell anyone what I’m doing?
Elle
I process the world through writing. So if I feel emotional about something, or I witness something, or I hear people speaking or arguing, or I experience a crisis or a happy moment, it’s all getting filed away and processed through either a book or a blog entry, or just tucked away for future use someday.
Hey Edie, interesting blog!
Yep, I’d love to see a snapshot of my noggin’! I was thinking of your topic a few days ago. I mentioned a memory with our grandson, who was probably 3 at the time, to hubby the other day. I could see the image, hear everything in the memory, and hubby couldn’t remember that it took place. Okay, we do have 5 of the little darlin’s, but it shocked me still. I wondered how guys process memories. Now, that would be a great study!
I LOVE how the mind works, and absolutely believe that writers and creative people think differently. I know my daughter sees a pose in her mind, sometimes days before she takes a pic. Same with writers, who mull over a scene and replay it. Interesting stuff!
Kath, even before I wrote, I often thought differently than non-writers. I think I was always a writer, I just didn’t know it.
Elle, I do the same thing, using other people’s reactions, too. And I never feel guilty about it.
Erica, me too! I’m in the moment, but a tiny part of my brain is observing. And I sometimes scribble down phrases that fit what I’m writing.
I wondered how guys process memories. Now, that would be a great study!
LaD, thanks for the laugh! That would be very interesting. Even there, I wonder if male writers process them differently.
Another thing that would be interesting would be to scan the brain of the same person as they read, then as they write, and finally as they watch television.
I wonder if anything lights up while watching television?
Theresa, that would be very interesting. We do get involved watching TV, but I wonder if it’s the same depth. When we read that a person is smelling a certain scent, that “scent” area of the brain lights up. I’m not sure we’d get that kind of thing while watching TV.
Both reading and writing have been engrossing things for me. They can take me away from my own troubles in a way nothing else can.
Joe, that’s for sure. If I’m troubled, I go for my comfort reads.
This post rocks, Edie. I totally get that. In both piano playing and sports, I’ve learned (and used) the fact that the brain can’t tell the difference between a strong visualization of doing something, or actually doing something. It’s why practicing mentally is just as fruitful as practicing actually.
As far as writing, I know that when I put my characters through hell, there are days where I will literally emerge traumatized. I mean really traumatized. I have to comfort myself and actually remind myself that that didn’t happen to me, LOL.
Yesterday, I saw an interview with John Irving, and the interviewer asked him if a writer could retreat into his imagination and find happiness. John Irving was taken aback and looked positively horrified, and then he said, “Maybe that’s risky.” He went on to say that he wrote from his deepest fears and basically put his characters through hell, LOL. What writer couldn’t relate?
Edie, thank god for like minded people in our world! Can you imagine trying to explain every time you meet someone how it is that there are people in your head? I mean in what other community can you say you hear voices, and they control you and make you do things you don’t want to do? We’d be 5150′d in a heartbeat.
Excellent post, Edie.
I’ve always respected the brain and the fact that we use very little of its capability. When I learned that fact it astounded me.
I also know when I’m in my writing world I’m so immersed in it, my brain is functioning with my characters so totally, that it takes a phone or a tap on the shoulder or someone yelling fire to pull me out.
Natasha, I gave myself a horrible neck ache with my last book over the black moment. I was so tense writing it that it took days for my neck to loosen.
I thought of you when I wrote this post. You have a musician and a writer’s brain. You must use many regions of your brain.
Karin, you bet! And not only the writing, the business. If I told my husband one-quarter of what I know about the business, he’d never understand why I keep at it. I wonder if it’s because we live so fully while we’re writing. More than most people do while their living their lives.
Mary Jo, lately I’ve been hearing that they think we’re using more of our brain than they originally thought. Maybe they are testing writers.
Well, I know for a fact that the female mind processes information different from the male … obviously. I can tell my husband exactly what he had to eat the evening we were at Chestfields in St. Martin for our honeymoon 18 years ago. Yet he doesn’t remember it at all.
The writer’s mind has got to be vastly different from a non-writer’s mind. It would be interesting to know where the differences lie within the brain.
I agree that as a writer, I seem to observe and process information differently than when I didn’t write. I mentally place myself in situations and try to imagine events as if I were living them. Talking to non-writers about this earns you a blank look.
I mentally place myself in situations and try to imagine events as if I were living them.
Liz, absolutely! I do the same thing. And sometimes I’ll do it through both characters, which gets really weird. lol
I’m so focused when I write, Edie, I’d love to see a picture of my brain at work! I’m off to look at those blogs, thanks!
Michelle, I almost gave you the links beforehand for you to blog about. I know you love this stuff.