These recent findings by neuroscientists demand a spooky question. If our senses are so limited, how do we know what’s actually happening outside the dark vault of our skulls?
Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling (2020, p. 24)
Many stories are about the journey to heal a wound and to restore a missing piece to a broken psyche.
Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (2020, p. 112)
But man is more than psyche.
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (2006 [1959], p. 132)
On-the-nose dialogue addresses the brain. Symbols address the unconscious and the soul of people, which is much more recognized and engaging than an appeal to the brain.
Kim Hudson, The Virgin’s Promise: Writing Stories of Feminine Creative, Spiritual and Sexual Awakening (2010, p. 8)
Whether a fantasy is set in the real world or an invented one, its substance is psychic stuff, human constants, imageries we recognize.
Ursula K. Le Guin, “‘Things Not Actually Present’: On Fantasy, with a Tribute to Jorge Luis Borges” (2005) in Words Are My Matter (2019, p. 19)
Such [mythic] stories are accurate models of the workings of the human mind, true maps of the psyche. They are psychologically valid and emotionally realistic even when they portray fantastic, impossible, or unreal events.
Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (2020, p. 5)
The most ghastly moment of the twenty-four hours of [concentration] camp life was the awakening, when, at a still nocturnal hour, the three shrill blows of a whistle tore us pitilessly from our exhausted sleep and from the longings of dreams.
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (2006 [1959], p. 32)
You can regard all novels as psychological compensation for lives unlived.
Hilary Mantel, “The Day is for the Living” (Reith Lecture 1, June 13, 2017)