Contents
1.1 Moments of change; the control-seeking brain
1.4 World-making in fantasy and science fiction
1.6 Salience; creating tension with detail
1.7 Neural models; poetry; metaphor
1.8 Cause and effect; literary versus mass-market storytelling
2.0 The flawed self; the theory of control
2.3 Personality and point of view
2.4 Culture and character; Western versus Eastern story
2.5 Anatomy of a flawed self; the ignition point
2.8 How flawed characters create meaning
CHAPTER THREE: THE DRAMATIC QUESTION
3.0 Confabulation and the deluded character; the dramatic question
3.1 Multiple selves; the three-dimensional character
3.2 The two levels of story; how subconscious character struggle creates plot
3.6 The roots of the dramatic question; social emotions; heroes and villains; moral outrage
3.9 Stories as tribal propaganda
CHAPTER FOUR: PLOTS, ENDINGS AND MEANING
4.0 Goal directedness; video games; personal projects; eudaemonia; plots
4.1 Plot as recipe versus plot as symphony of change
4.3 Endings; control; the God moment
4.4 Story as a simulacrum of consciousness; transportation