The Psychology of Reading and Writing Crime Fiction

 From Crime Reads:

That’s a bit like asking a therapist why people should talk about difficult life experiences. (Full disclosure: In addition to being a fiction writer, I’m also a family counselor.)

In both cases, it’s because the stories we tell and the ones we read help us process conflicting emotions and contend with complex relationships. Numerous studies confirm what every fiction writer knows—that story is an incomparable vehicle for the exploration of human social and emotional life. Literary critics and philosophers have long advanced the notion that one of fiction’s main jobs is to raise consciousness.

Jonathan Gottschall wrote in his book, The Storytelling Animal that, “Human minds yield helplessly to the suction of story. No matter how hard we concentrate, no matter how deep we dig in our heels we can’t resist the gravity of alternate worlds.”

The act of reading fully engages the brain impacting memory, learning, and problem-solving. Steven Pinker author of How the Mind Works suggests, “that stories equip us with a mental file of dilemmas we might one day face, along with workable solutions.” (Read more.)

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