Given my entire editorial vibe is “let’s make your story unforgettable,” this probably seems like a blog post that will work against me. After all, isn’t the whole purpose to remember good stories?
Short answer: Yes.
However, human brains don’t always adhere to best practices. (I feel like that sentence needs to be on a T-shirt.)
My family watches TV shows on weeknights. Then, on weekends, we each have a night to pick—mine’s Friday. Due to us all being busy the last few weeks, we’ve gotten pretty late starts on movie nights, so I’ve been trying to stick to animated movies because they’re shorter. And because I haven’t been much for planning ahead (re: busy), I’ve been scrolling through movies and basically going on vibes to pick something.
This past Friday, I happened across Strange World (released 2022) and thought “that looks fun.” I watched the trailer, was amused, and thus was my pick selected. We started the movie, and a sensation tickled my brain. This movie seemed awfully familiar.
Sure enough, 5-10 minutes in, a line of dialogue snagged on the tickly feeling. I’d seen this before. I remembered most of the plot and even the ending.
And yet, until that line of dialogue (that I don’t actually remember now—go figure), it had been hidden off in my memory, unretrieved.
To pull out my psychology degree for a second, long-term memory is a deeply crowded and uncertain place. There’s lots going on in there, and with all the things of my life I can recall at a moment’s notice (as well as the things I know I can’t recall), it truly is a wonder how humans function at all. The sheer amount of information our brains hold is amazing.
Thus, it actually makes a certain amount of sense that we forget things we enjoyed.
I won’t say Strange World is the most epic piece of content I’ve ever absorbed. It was cute, fun, had a nice message, was inclusive, and even reminded me fondly of Journey to the Center of the Earth. If I were going to rate it on a five-point system (where 5 is high), I’d give it a solid 3.75 minimum. That may seem low, but I’ve read several books I’d rate 3.75 that I remember as a general good time well spent. And I’m sure there are bunches more with similar ratings that I wouldn’t recall without a nudge. (And then there was the memorable time I got 80% through a book and was like “crap, I read this already.”)
And, yes, there are even five-star books I know I’ve forgotten. Why? Because, as I said, the brain is vast. Maybe I was in a very different place when I gave those books 5 stars, and if I read them now, they’d only be a 3.5.
I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. Brains are busy. They don’t necessarily always recall everything, even things they loved, without a nudge. It’s unfortunate but true.
So, how do we combat the busy brains of readers? By being memorable enough that, if the story is temporarily forgotten, the writer isn’t.
I am far more likely to recall a story if I keep up with the author somewhere, whether that’s on social media or by subscribing to their newsletter. That contact acts as a nudge. It tells my brain “you like what this person has produced, which is XYZ.” In a perfect world, my brain wouldn’t need that nudge, but hey, I just spent almost three weeks completely revamping this site and my newsletter (first one goes out Thursday!). My brain was extremely overloaded and is still sorting out the details.
So do I feel bad I completely forgot Strange World? A little. But when I was nudged, I remembered it and was thus excited to revisit it.
Bottom line: go nudge your readers.
👋 Fair travels,
Mary
P.S. A big thanks to RitaE from Pixabay for the image.
P.P.S. If you’d like to subscribe to my newsletter (which is separate from the blog), you can do so by going to this page. It goes out twice a month, and each issue focuses on leveraging a single writing aspect for immersive storytelling.