Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence

by Angus Fletcher

Every time we think ahead, we are crafting a story. Every daily plan―and every political vision, social movement, scientific hypothesis, business proposal, and technological breakthrough―starts with “what if?” Linking causes to effects, considering hypotheticals and counterfactuals, asking how other people will these are the essence of narrative. So why do we keep overlooking story’s importance to intelligence in favor of logic?

This book explains how and why our brains think in stories. Angus Fletcher, an expert in neuroscientific approaches to narrative, identifies this capacity as “storythinking.” He demonstrates that storythinking is fundamental to what makes us human. Artificial intelligence can perform symbolic logic, rational deduction, and mathematical calculation, but it is incapable of deliberating in narrative. Drawing on new research in neuroscience and narrative theory, Fletcher explores the nature of imagination, innovation, and creativity. He provides concise answers to big How does storythinking work? Why did it evolve? How can it misfire? What problems can it solve?

Revealing the significance of storythinking from science to business to philosophy, this book also provides ways for readers to harness its power to script better tomorrows.

Genres: Psychology, Writing, Nonfiction, Science

200 pages, Paperback

Published June 6, 2023

About the author

Angus Fletcher was Distinguished Professor Emeritus, City University of New York, and the author of Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode, Colors of the Mind, and A New Theory for American Poetry, among other books.

Reviews

[Roxana Chirilă · Rating 1 out of 5]

Angus Fletcher has managed to invent something entirely new in the world of publishing: the unreliable academic narrator.

I'm joking. Mostly. This short book (<200 pages) contains ten chapters; most of them start with purple prose and introduce at least one character who made an impact in science in general or philosophy in particular.

[...] at a new-built library tucked beside a wolf-prowled hill, a wizened polymath unfurled a long papyrus scroll. The polymath was Aristotle, a Macedonian immigrant who'd spent the past decade rambling the Mediterranean, studying Egyptian medicine and Byzantine flowers.

I can't tell if these descriptions are meant to be factually correct or not. I'd have been inclined to say yes, if I hadn't suddenly become curious about Aristotle's life. I couldn't find anything concrete about Aristotle and Egyptian medicine. And then I wondered what "Byzantine flowers" are - the Byzantine Empire was still far in the future. The city of Byzantium existed, however, so maybe these were flowers brought in from Byzantium? Or was he hanging around in the place which would one day become Constantinople? (The more I think about it, the worse it gets.)

And then there are more oddities:

Thanks to the development of assembly language operating systems such as LINUX, computers can be adapted efficiently to a vast range of logical computation.

Why assembly language in particular? Are more modern operating systems written in other programming languages deficient? Does anyone still write whole operating systems in *assembly*, of all things? Is the author throwing random words around, trusting the audience doesn't understand them very well? Who knows.

Epicurus had then been expelled from the isle of Lesbos, which found even its Sapphic tolerance overtaxed by his iconoclastic life teachings.

Why is this tolerance "Sapphic"? Sappho had been dead for a couple of centuries; had she promoted tolerance? Are we supposed to think of gay women? If yes, why?

I think this book is trying to enchant its readers with its lush, rich style. Unfortunately, words have meanings, and those meanings make it very hard to take "Storythinking" seriously, especially when it claims to innovate.

But what is "Storythinking" about?

To put it succintly, the thesis is this: cold logic isn't enough; one needs to think creatively. Philosophy has divided logic and narrative apart and set logic on a superior level, and now this wrong needs to be set right.

Angus Fletcher makes an interesting point when he observes that life has evolved through trial and error - not through a uniform reaction to stimuli, but through attempting new things and repeating successful behaviors. And story, which he sees as a non-stable theory about cause and effect, has stayed with us because it's essential to the process of trial and error.

The rest of the book, however, feels like either self-help for philosophers, or philosophy for self-helpers.

Or maybe it's a book that's meant to put philosophers on trial, I don't know. Plato is blamed for ostracizing poets (aka storytellers) out of his ideal city in "The Republic". (How novel /s) And it's implied other philosophers aren't much better.

Angus Fletcher points out that storytellers are inventors and innovators, that they help drive society forward, that they teach people how to think - all excellent points! But these arguments have often been reiterated by non-philosophers, both older and newer. Off the top of my head, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote them better in "A Defence of Poetry". And don't quote me on this, because it's been years since I read it, but I think George Putenham's "The Arte of English Poesie" also mentioned that poets were the first priests, prophets, legislators and politicians. And so on. And so forth.

It's all been done a thousand times before, and aside from literary people understandably defending their own domain, a philosopher friend told me that some philosophy schools do indeed care a lot about logic, but others believe that thinking is much more than logic, too - although, she argues you could kind of agree with Fletcher, in that philosophy has seen itself as above mere "stories".

Anyway, it doesn't matter that much; and Fletcher himself sometimes brings up philosophers who are capable of "storythinking", undermining his own point.

But what is storythinking and why is he writing a book about it?

Friend, I don't know. I'm not grocking it. It seems to be the process of creativity applied to daily life. It seems to be the process of coming up with theories. It also seems to be about looking into the motivation of literary characters. Every time I think I understand, he says something else, and I'm confused again.

He's not very clear:

Storythinking [is] a more fruitful version of nature's blind mechanism of problem solving and innovation.

I guess storythinking is creativity...? But a smaller subset of it...?

He also has suggestions about how to enhance creativity, some of which I don't understand.

I mean, I understand in the general sense that I can repeat his suggestions to someone who asks - for example, at one point he suggests to imagine a result, then imagine a tool that achieves only that effect. If it fulfills multiple roles, he says, it's not storythinking, it's magical thinking.

What I don't get is the exact logic.

...Wait. Let me find the quote.

Start by imagining what you want to do. Then imagine a behavior or tool that can accomplish that end, reverse-engineering from a new effect to an original cause. This reverse-engineering functions better when you stay specific, pinpointing exactly what you want to achieve and inventing a cause that achieves only that effect. (If you instead imagine a cause that can accomplish multiple effects, you'll drift toward magical thinking and its omnipotent causes: God, symbolism, and the philosopher's stone.)

There. I guess... it's a warning against imagining something too outlandish? Against a grand narrative that's a bit *too* convenient?

But if you're used to thinking outside the box or take his advice a bit too literally, this instruction becomes impossible to follow. Everything can have multiple uses; any idea can have multiple effects. There is never a single potential effect that excludes all other potential effects.

He also advises readers to create in two stages: first imagine new possibilities creatively, then shoot down the bad ones logically. But don't do the two stages together, because they'll get in each other's way. (This reminds me of the "Six Thinkings Hats", but in a simplified form.)

And then there's God. Or rather, there isn't.

The last chapter in the book tried to explain the problem with abandoning logic in favor of thinking - and focused in on criticizing the notion of hell in particular and religion in general.

Well. That's definitely A Choice.

I'm normally wary of using religion as an example in unrelated discussions, because it can derail any point with record speed, and I normally want my point, not my religious stance, to get across.

In this case, I think the point he wanted to make (that unchecked narratives can go very wild) could have been exemplified with conspiracies. Make one up! It's easy! But I guess Angus Fletcher is willing to step on Christian toes and defend his faith as often as he defends his theory.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Harish Namboothiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The human brain is often equated with a supercomputer. The common understanding is that it is a logical analytical device that interprets data and provides conclusions based on that. But according to Angus Fletcher, our brains are far more than that. In this short volume, he elaborates on the capacity of our brain to storythink—the capacity for narrative building—which is the basis for human innovation and growth.

[David Wineberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since the ancient Greek philosophers, western thought has been focused on logic. Everything, it is claimed, can be understood as operations of and, or, or not. It has gotten mankind quite far, but it has limited both progress and creativity. Biologist Angus Fletcher is here to straighten that out and restore the high office of the narrative, in his latest book, Storythinking. It is a most unusual book, plumbing the depths of history to find where philosophy went off the rails, examining neurobiology for insight into creativity, and festooned with stories about great characters all the way through. I can honestly report I’ve never read anything like it. And that’s a good thing.

Biologically, Man is keyed to sight and action. Forcing the brain to assign logical explanations for everything he sees and does has taken tens of thousands of years, and has not proven a thorough answer to much of anything, Fletcher says. If Man could return to his natural self, the result could be a whole new universe of thought and creativity. Instead, we today believe that intelligence itself derives from logic, an empty concept by comparison to what could be. No wonder we think every story has already been told.

He discovered that story wasn’t just for telling, as we have been led to believe. Story was for thinking. It was a way of life, learning, and projecting.

This is not a new discovery. Fletcher found that “MBAs at Harvard University, the globe’s most successfully self-promotional business school, are scrupulously instructed: ‘Telling a story has proven to be a superior way of communicating information, because people process stories differently than they do non-narrative information, such as a simple recitation of facts.’” He says the problem with logic is that it seeks an ideal product, while storythinking seeks an ideal process. Product is a thing; process is becoming. Early literature: Greek, Roman, English – was all about becoming – a hero, a champion, a survivor, a god . A product is dead by comparison.

This sort of logic-seeking, tortured interpretation is not a happy place. Fletcher points out we have a habit of “abstracting practice into the theory of practice.” In an endless attempt to simplify, we overthink to force ourselves into the new box. Where we can never be happy with the results. Because it represents no truth at all. Storythinking, on the other hand leverages “our personal, physical, emotional and intellectual growth. (It is) accelerated by empowering the storythinking of the people around us.” Far from obsolete or redundant, this is Network Effect in action. The more people have at it, the more valuable it becomes to all.

This hammering a square peg into a round hole has lots of unintended side effects, too. For one thing, it demolishes the joys of literature: “By converting literature into language and then interpreting language with semiotics, America’s futuristic curriculum was flattening four-dimensional narratives into two-dimensional propositions that reduced characters to representations and plots to arguments. Behaviors became themes, happenings became meanings, and actions became allegories, expunging much of the psychological activity that Shakespeare and the rest of our global library had been crafted to generate.” Is it any wonder kids won’t read?

Fletcher has his own rules and framework to grow creativity, much more accommodating to the way people are built: Prioritize the exceptional, shift the perspective, and stoke narrative conflict. Out of those parameters, he thinks, far more creative outcomes are possible.

He says there are four elements to story: characters, storyworlds (environments with their own distinct laws as to what can and cannot happen), plots (sequences of action), and narrators (“their why shapes how it is told”). This is certainly not what they taught in my schools.

Logic and metaphysics are simply not equipped for “solving ethical or biological problems such as personal and social growth.” And yet that is what most of the world’s greatest literature is all about. “Logic un-narratives narrative, creating fables with morals, myths with archetypes, heavens with commandments, stories with symbols, media with representations, and other timeless interpretations that evaporate storytelling’s core function: the innovation of action.” Today, you couldn’t sell a book without those qualities evident, cutting off potentially groundbreaking stories at the knees. And finally, logic is artificial, while storythinking is “part of life, and the law of life is growth through variety.” For Fletcher, we have strayed – far.

Having made his points, Fletcher cinches it with: “What our brain’s dual mechanisms thus reveal is that narrative and logic are complementary tools. There’s no way to replace storythinking with deduction or interpretation, any more than there’s a way to replace a hammer with a saw.”

There is a lot on artificial intelligence (AI) in Storythinking, as it seems in most books I’m reading these days. For Fletcher, AI will never overtake human ingenuity, because it simply processes words looking for patterns, on request. He says “Limited data is the province of the narrative, and narrative is the province of our brain’s synaptic machinery.” Human intelligence has a “main source: the plan-generating, hypothesis-imagining, action-inventing neural processes of storythinking.” I’m not at all sure that is correct, as AI seems capable of imitating writers, writing stories in their styles, and in general, being all but indistinguishable from them. And I’m really not sure what would happen if someone tasked AI with outside-the-box thinking.

Notable by its absence in Storythinking is the word reduction. Reductionism has been the logical endpoint of numerous disasters, such as healthcare, for example. Doctors routinely fail to listen, claiming to have reduced the symptoms to a clear and simple diagnosis without further investigation. This goes on in politics, and even in the sciences like physics, where Einstein spent the last half of his life trying to reduce the entire universe in to neat and simple geometric shapes. Yet somehow, Fletcher doesn’t focus on it.

Similarly, he does not venture in mind-expansion through things like psychedelics, which countless creatives employ to break out of the stifling mold of logic and reductionism. Because for all the marvelous connections neurons make to bolster human thinking, there are infinitely more possible connections when not forbidden by logic, efficiency and deduction.

The book ends with an absolutely jampacked Q&A of Fletcher with himself. It is a rapidfire summary answering most of the questions readers might have, imparting at least as much information as the rest of the book. It is a most unusual conclusion to a book, and is worth the price of admission by itself. I guess one should expect no less from someone professing storythinking.

David Wineberg

(Storythinking, Angus Fletcher, June 2023)

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[Jay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I took more notes on the first three chapters of this book than I have anything ever. I was excited to refute the obvious misinformation in this book and offer my own take (that logic and storythinking cannot exist without one another, that most schools teach both, etc). But towards the middle, I realized that the author himself wasn’t worth me going through his book point-by-point. His book and ideas are hot garbage. It’s someone with a huge misunderstanding of multiple fields of study SPRINTING ahead of themselves without fact-checking. There are almost no quotes or hard references in the book. So instead of writing a good review I’ll just blab while I sit on the train.

He says that Western philosophy has “always” rejected narrative and storythinking. He then unironically talks about Plato’s writing in the next chapter….if you know, you know (Plato wrote his work in stories/conversations).

The book’s purpose and creation make a LOT more sense if you just imagine that Angus Fletcher lost his girl to someone in the philosophy department at his university. Then it’s like, “ahhh, you’re bitter and angry at philosophers, I get it”.

He also admits (pg 90) to writing in an intentionally confusing way because…that trains our brains to think in storythinking. Or, maybe - and I’m just spitballin’ here - he wrote that way because he’s a shitty writer. Food for thought.

He tries arguing about how our brains CAN’T be big because they store information. No, no. That’s silly. They’re big because of stories! What’s his proof? Well, here it is….a usb can store more information than our brains, therefore our brains absolutely DID NOT evolve large for storing information. Wow. I know he hates philosophy, but maybe he can take a middle school seminar on logic and see how stupid that is. Why compare our brain to another living thing’s brain when you can compare it to a usb and make your point that way? Who stores more information, me or a cockroach?

Page 45 - claims that neurons doing new things for the first time “is autonomy” in the practical sense because it is “liberated from what the brain has done before”. Ugh. So if a crackhead was doing random things without thinking, but they were new things that hadn’t been done before... we call the crackhead autonomous? No, we don’t.

The entire book can be summed up with “damn teacha neva tot me nuttin’” since literally every time the term teacher is mentioned it’s accompanied by a negative adjective: “smug” “hypocritical” “daft”. This book holds the idea that teachers literally only repeat what they’ve been taught, intentionally never innovate, and hold kids back from the true potential they were set to naturally reach had a teacher not asked them to sit still and observe a lesson.

This is the worst non-fiction book I’ve read in my life. It’s the second worst book I’ve read in my life, period. One-star reviews are very, very rare for me…and yet….i wish I could go lower

Anyway my train ride is done and this book doesn’t deserve more of my time. Peace!

[RedReviews4You Susan-Dara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an eye opening read for anyone interested in learning how to make their own stories more powerful and enduring. At first glance one might think that this book, based on the word “STORY” in the title, is more suited for a course in Narrative Theory or as required reading in a creative writing class; however, they could not be more wrong. Fletcher clearly shows the full value of understanding ‘storythinking’ is not just something to be considered when creating fictional worlds, but something that can be leveraged when one truly understands the way humankind thinks and shares information. Storythinking, as Fletcher shows, starts with one person’s ‘what if’ moment. Through Storythinking, one ponders and crafts a way of expressing that passing thought in concrete and tangible ways. But, it is precisely at this moment that the story part of thinking is most important. How can you best reach and influence your audience and how can you use your knowledge of how the brain works to ensure that people are seeing the story you are trying to share? Storythinking is how we have developed inventions, sold products, and explored discoveries from mere glimpses of possibilities to becoming household names. Storythinking is how we can share ideas with others and improve them. When you consider how all of this happens, Storythinking becomes obvious and recognized as something that is hardwired into our selves so that when we ponder solutions to problems that don’t yet exist -- we are actually finding viable options for today. For Fletcher, Storythinking is understanding how to see these options and opportunities. By not limiting ourselves to classic “storytelling” settings we can use this style of thinking to discover opportunities that will help increase the scope of a company’s marketing and branding campaign, discover how the sciences can uncover what drives our behaviors, and even begin to have a better understanding about how we can be manipulated by someone else's use of storythinking on us.

[Miska Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Book! Found it Engaging and Recommended it to My Husband. I received a NetGalley version of this title for review.

Well Written:

I am not a philosopher, but I have taken several classes in the discipline and my husband minored in it. To be able to connect the philosophy with what the author posed in a way that made sense to me, was really helpful as he explained narrative or story thinking.

Convincing:

By the end of the book I was on board and felt that Storythinking was exceptionally important, and needs to be included in scientific disciplines. It also needs to be legitimized in public thought.

For Advanced Readers:
I will say: I found this book to be a hard read, in that it challenged my thinking in ways that doesn't normally happen to me unless I am taking a graduate level course. So keep that in mind. I am going to have to re-read this book, and I feel that it is valuable enough for a re-read, to really fully grasp it. I am hoping to do that after my husband reads it, because his ability to understand philosophical concepts and ideas, is much more developed than mine.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence by Angus Fletcher is a wonderful short read that delivers a big message: story is as important to human knowledge and progress as logic.

Not surprisingly, the most engaging parts of the book are where Fletcher is offering a narrative rather than listing facts or making a "logical" argument. And together, as in all of human thought, the storytelling and the logic come together in a narrative. Go figure.

No doubt some people will find little points to critique rather than take in and assess the larger argument. These are likely people who lean heavily toward logic at the expense of story. They must be great fun at get-togethers. Does Fletcher take some liberty in his storytelling? Probably so, but not to the point of being unreliable, more as someone who uses mind-pictures that help make the points of the story more memorable. Surprise, the wolf didn't actually pretend to be grandma, just in case that small point kept you from getting the point of the fable.

If you sometimes find yourself bogged down in the "just the facts" deadends many of our public and academic debates take us, read this and try using story in your talks. It is surprisingly easy since we do it naturally, well, until it is driven out of us by our "education." Much like our imagination.

Highly recommended for those wanting to understand the value of storythinking, the idea that thinking in "what ifs" is both fun and productive. Not in isolation from logical thought, but alongside.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Jennifer Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rarely say this, but this book is a breakthrough.

After reading Primal Intelligence first, I had a sense of where Fletcher was heading. Storythinking completes the thought. It finally gives language, shape, and operational clarity to a complex adaptive form of thinking I’ve been circling for years in my learning and development career… something I called “oraltext” which I loosely defined as the art and practice of blowing your own mind through story. Fletcher proves it isn’t magical thinking, but more importantly, that it is useful and repeatable.

This book makes it clear to me why leaders, despite their MBAs, frameworks, playbooks, and now AI decision assistance are often getting worse at navigating complexity, not better. Data, logic, and algorithms have limits. Story doesn’t. Story is the cognitive engine of generative possibility, insight, and new direction.

As someone with a deeply AI-forward worldview, I found this book also deeply reassuring. It confirms the unfair advantage of the human brain, not as a relic of nostalgia, but as a competitive innovation system we have not fully understood or optimized yet.

I wish I had encountered a book like this 40 years ago. It absolutely would have changed the trajectory of my career. This is one of the most provocative and clarifying works I’ve read in years and I think it is ready to evolve the next era of leadership and human development.

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no way to judge if this was a good book or not, as it is a philosophy book, and that’s very far from any of my areas of expertise. However, I did manage to learn a few things from it, and to begin to grasp the author’s concept of storythinking.

The book is written in a fairly accessible and even rather fanciful style; however, the subject matter is necessarily dense. The sections where the author makes a case for storythinking needed all of my concentration, and I’m still not sure if the case was made, not being able to follow all of the philosophical reasoning. However, even there I learnt a lot about the history and basis of Western philosophy, including how the scientific method came about (more in my line of training). From there, the author teaches readers ways to apply storythinking in their lives, some of which seems like it could be useful.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Columbia University Press for the ARC.

[Alex Belzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

for several years now i've had a pervasive sense of incompleteness with regard to the logical theory of thought. while it is important, i think, to avoid overt materialism in describing the neurophysiologic underpinnings of cognition, this work provides an excellent historical and theoretical basis for narrative as an integral mechanism of the human ability to create and grow

[Jayasree B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short read, but impactful. The way the author has made a very insightful argument about how we think beyond matter of fact is amazing to read.
The change of perception from the thought process being very logical to something that is more imaginative is one of the takeaways. Enjoyable educational read.

[James R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

fletchers worst

Angus did well with his lectures on screen writing. This little book is a horrible mess. He doubles back on himself and celebrates his own inconsistencies. He should do better

[Kepo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Qui di scienza neanche l'ombra. Parole sterili

[Pola · Rating 5 out of 5]

An idea that is as revolutionary as theory of relativity , perhaps more mind shifting . I am excited to see what this idea will usher in AI . Someone has to generate a story entirely unprecedented in AI mechanism to make a machine that think in story . Will humans be able to make something that can mimic the neurons ? . Profesor Fletcher has flipped more than two thousands years of understanding of human cognition . What brave new world it will usher ? I hope I live long enough to see that .

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thesis behind this book seems to be that the human mind thinks both logically and narratively. We learn and create by telling ourselves stories. Logic isn't enough.

The book seems to draw mostly from philosophy and myth rather than science. I guess the author was trying to demonstrate the point of the book by using narrative thinking rather than logical thinking? Unfortunately, philosophy and myth aren't all that persuasive when it comes to proving scientific concepts.

I love the idea of narrative thinking. Unless you're a philosopher, this book may not be the best source of information about this field.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Manuela · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book brings interesting ideas, but I confess that I constantly got lost while reading it. May be a case of me not being the audience for the book - seems more tailored to a more academic reader than general public

[Roy Kenagy · Rating 4 out of 5]

DMPL EXAMINED 2023_11_09 NARRATIVE AS A THINKING MODE REVIEWS IN ONENOTE

RK AUDIBLE READ USE Fletcher, "New method for training creativity" as primary resource instead? FOLDER FT

AI CONCEPT SUMMARY https://is.gd/fnPa5f

AI BOOK REVIEW SUMMARY https://is.gd/Q92Rda