Remind yourself that the unexceptional is the norm
It’s a typical Thursday morning, and you’ve just done your last carpool drop-off. You drive along savoring the quiet alone time, and reach home a few minutes later with nothing remarkable to dwell on. Your engine doesn’t stall, you don’t get stuck in traffic, you don’t witness any accidents, sudden storms don’t blind your vision, and no one calls with an emergency.
If you’re a fiction writer, or even just a natural story teller, the above narrative won’t make the cut. A memorable story is built on events that stand out as uncommon and/or intense. A day filled with unremarkable incidents is utterly forgettable, blending into the background of our daily experiences.
An unusual or exceptional event, on the other hand, disrupts the regular, expected flow of experiences. It creates a pattern interrupt, and will probably be remembered with little or no effort.
This can be a positive development, because it helps create lasting learning easily. However, what happens when the pattern interrupt is caused by an upsetting, frightening, or traumatic event? That event is going to be strongly imprinted on our brains. A single moment of fear can occupy a disproportionate amount of headspace. This is negativity bias: the tendency to remember negative events more strongly than positive ones.
Create a free account to keep reading.
