Have you ever wondered why storytelling is such an omnipresent theme of human life? Welcome to another guest segment of “The Writer s Brain” where I pick the brain of a neuroscientist about elements of great writing.   Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By   Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! Research scientist Michael Grybko — of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington — returned to the podcast to help me define storytelling from a scientific standpoint. If you missed the first two installments of The Writer s Brain — on How Neuroscience Defines both Creativity and Empathy — you can find them in the show notes as well as on writerfiles.fm and iTunes. In this file Michael Grybko and I discuss: Why Storytelling is the Default Mode of Human Communication How Empathy Makes Storytelling Such an Effective Tool Why Hollywood Continually Taps into ‘The Hero’s Journey’ How Blueprints Help Writers Connect with Their Audience Why Reading Fiction Makes Us More Empathetic Writers’ Addiction to Stories (Especially the Dark Ones) Where Humanity Would Be Without Storytelling Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Creativity How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Empathy The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee “Reading literary fiction improves empathy, study finds” from The Guardian The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Storytelling Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we’ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer s block. Have you ever wondered why storytelling is such an omnipresent theme of human life? Welcome to another guest segment of The Writer’s Brain, where I pick the brain of a neuroscientist about elements of great writing. Research scientist Michael Grybko of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington returned to the podcast to help me define storytelling from a scientific standpoint. If you missed the first two installments of The Writer’s Brain on how neuroscience defines both creativity and empathy, you can find them in the show notes as well as at WriterFiles.FM and iTunes. In this episode, we’ll discuss why storytelling is the default mode of human communication, how empathy makes storytelling such an effective tool, why Hollywood continually taps into the hero’s journey, how blueprints help writers connect with their audience, why reading fiction makes us more empathetic, the writer’s addiction to stories — especially the dark ones, and where humanity would be without storytelling. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please subscribe to the show, and leave us a rating or a review in iTunes to help other writers find us. Thanks for listening. Michael Grybko, welcome back to The Writer Files. Michael Grybko: Hello, Kelton. Thanks for having me back. Kelton Reid: We’re back with a segment that we call The Writer’s Brain, and I think we’ve been building up to this episode. It s the third part of, I guess we could say, a multi-part series. We’ve talked about how neuroscience look