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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

It’s ONLY fiction? Not according to your brain!

30/5/2016

16 Comments

 
As someone who spends more time with fictional characters than with flesh-and-blood people, I’m sometimes at risk of embarrassing myself in real-life interactions. Especially when it gets to the level of gossip; it’s not that I’m not interested, or don’t have anything to contribute, but that the anecdote I’m bursting to share is about some fictional character, and some people find that a little odd.
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I’ve posted before about forgetting that my own characters are mere inventions, but something similar happens with the characters created by others. Although I was a bit critical of Samantha Ellis in turning to fictional heroines for life advice, I’m not immune from that myself. When I’m absorbed in a novel, I care about the characters almost as much as I care about my friends, and get annoyed and frustrated when they sabotage themselves. If I’m moved by their predicament, my emotions don’t feel manufactured; they feel one hundred percent real.

So I was encouraged when, well over a year ago now, I did a short online course in cognitive poetics taught by Professor Peter Stockwell from the University of Nottingham, to discover that this level of absorption in the fictional world is perfectly normal. When we read, we form relationships with the characters in more or less the same way that we form relationships in real life. The brain, it turns out, doesn’t make much distinction, the same neurological regions being stimulated while reading about a particular scenario as if we experienced that situation for real.

Maybe that’s part of what makes fiction about reading, such as in Reader for Hire or An Unnecessary Woman, work for us; we’ve got a double identification with a character who shares our love of books. It might even help explain the popularity of/obsession with gaming as featured in the novel Wolf in White Van.

That intense connection could also go some way towards elucidating why some people write extra negative reviews, a topic explored some time back on Bridget Whelan’s blog in relation to Man Booker prize-winning novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and one of my favourite reads of 2014. If a novel with which you expect to find a deeper connection doesn’t satisfy, it’s almost like a dear friend’s betrayal.

Do you think you connect with a fictional world in the way you relate in real life?
If you want to check out whether I’ve felt engaged or estranged from the fictional characters I’ve met recently, you can click on the image above to see the full list of this month’s twelve reviews.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
16 Comments
Wendy Janes
30/5/2016 07:37:13 pm

I really enjoyed this post. Yes, I definitely connect with characters in the novels I read. By coincidence I've been putting the finishing touches to a post with my own musings along similar - but less erudite - lines.

Reply
Annecdotist
3/6/2016 04:38:20 pm

Thanks, Wendy, hope you let me know when your post comes up.

Reply
Linda Bowes
31/5/2016 12:14:54 pm

I became besotted with one of my characters and was so jealous of his girlfriend

Reply
Annecdotist
3/6/2016 04:39:01 pm

Ha, Linda, then the challenge is to get your readers to feel the same.

Reply
geoff le pard link
31/5/2016 03:51:12 pm

definitely; but then part of my real world is spent spinning scenarios in my head as to how events will pan out, running dialogues all the time, seeing ways to iron our difficulty situations. I ahve startled passerby by talking out loud too. This isn't so far away from thinking about characters

Reply
Annecdotist
3/6/2016 04:41:11 pm

Ah, Geoff, you made me smile, how often have I spoken to someone in my head but aloud. Sometimes the boundary between real life and fiction is paper thin.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
1/6/2016 08:37:26 am

I agree. I think even from a young age we can feel close to some fictional characters. Merchandising of some characters makes that easier nowadays. Sometimes we can identify them with in ways that are impossible with people in our circle. I think our online friendship bridge the gap in that respect, between our close personal friends, and fictional friends.
I know what you mean about wanting to share about books you are reading. That's me all the time, but nobody wants to know. Isn't that what's great about writing a blog? You can tell the whole world what you think. Whether anyone listens or not is another thing.
I have to say that the cognitive poetics sounds interesting - what a wonderful combination of interests.
I impressed myself reading this post. I followed all links to your previous posts and found that I had read every one! While I try to keep up to date, there's usually one or two that manage to slip by me. Not this time! :)
Perhaps you're onto something with the reason for lack of connection leading to negative reviews. If we don't like someone why should we promote them?

Reply
Annecdotist
3/6/2016 05:51:19 pm

I hadn’t thought of the impact of merchandising – maybe because that doesn’t happen much for adult literary fiction, but I wonder what difference it makes when it comes outside our heads. But yeah, online friendship might be kind of in between – after all, we can’t know for certain those folks are real! And blogging is a good way of sounding off about our reading – I certainly have more impact here than in “real” life.
My thoughts about the negative reviews was a step further than not wanting to promote, but actually feeling almost as if a friend has let us down and responding with hurt and anger. Not sure if that makes sense.

Reply
Annecdotist
4/6/2016 01:38:08 pm

I also intended to add my appreciation of your following the links in so many of my posts. Your very generous with your reading time.

Reply
Annecdotist
11/6/2016 04:40:50 pm

OMG, your very generous! I suppose given its my blog I ought to be able to go into the editor to correct it, but I should leave it as a reminder to check the output of my voice activated software.

Norah Colvin link
11/6/2016 08:06:25 am

Hi Anne, Your comment about being let down is understandable. Perhaps any author who can elicit such a response from a reader should be pleased. Whether likeable or not the characters are realistic.
Thank you for considering me a generous reader. I always feel so far behind. But it's lucky I followed the link back from your latest post to find these comments! 😄

Reply
Annecdotist
11/6/2016 04:43:53 pm

Ah, I was thinking about people writing negative reviews because the characters don't feel realistic rather than being unlikeable, but that doesn't really fit with what I'm saying here about the research. Confusing myself now.

Reply
Sarah link
12/6/2016 09:58:10 pm

Ha! This is great. I connect so deeply with characters (this might be one of the reasons I re-read books so often). I love a good story but can't enjoy it if I don't believe it/feel for the characters. I don't think you're odd at all. ;-)

Reply
Sarah
12/6/2016 09:59:07 pm

"believe IN" the characters, rather. *sigh.

Reply
Annecdotist
13/6/2016 05:35:16 pm

Glad it's not only me that happens to. I tend to notice just as I press submit.

Annecdotist
13/6/2016 05:34:16 pm

That's an interesting angle, Sarah, about rereading. the pleasure is partly in knowing what's coming, just like visiting a good friend.

Reply



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