For a writer, there’s nothing more torturous than having something to say and not being able to say it.

Vauhini Vara, who you met in Part 1, had been living with that for years.

Her sister had died of cancer when she was very young. And despite being a writer, she had no words for it.

She then did something that felt, by her own admission, illicit. She asked an AI to help her find the words.

She and her husband were both writers. They both understood what technological capitalism was doing to their craft. And yet here she was, late at night while he slept, opening a web app called the Playground (powered by GPT-3) and attempting to write the one story she had never been able to tell.

Vara would type a sentence and GPT-3 would complete the story based on the most statistically probable version of what a human might say next. She wrote nine stories this way, each one a little more honest, a little closer to her reality than the one before.

In the first story, Vara told GPT-3 her sister had been diagnosed with cancer. GPT-3 assumed she had survived. “She’s doing great now,” it wrote. Vara corrected it. She had died.

The AI tried again.

In the second story, it assumed that Vara had responded to her loss by running across America for a children’s cancer charity. This is what AI thought dealing with grief looked like. Except it wasn’t Vara’s truth. Not even close.

But Vara kept going. With each new story, she gave GPT-3 more—more detail, more honesty, more of what it actually felt like to lose her sister. She kept pushing her truth onto it. By the ninth and final story, the most personal one she had ever written, only two lines belonged to GPT-3. Everything else was hers.

Did GPT-3 write that essay? Not really. But without it, Vara might never have written it either.

—

The Tyranny of the Blank Page

Writing is cognitively and emotionally brutal for everyone, not just grieving sisters. Most of us aren’t writing about loss that heavy, but we all know that feeling. Of having to say something and not being able to begin. Of the page sitting there and staring at us, blank and judgmental.

Writers have developed all kinds of strange rituals to deal with this.

Hemingway would stop every writing session mid-sentence, deliberately, so he’d always have somewhere to start the next day. Agatha Christie did her best plotting not at a desk, but soaking in the bath eating apples. Victor Hugo, when he couldn’t write, locked away all his own clothes so he had no choice but to stay home and write.

These rituals were about making the conditions for writing possible. Creating the circumstances in which starting felt less impossible.

This raises a question. Can AI do the same thing?

Sharing the Cognitive Load

Cal Newport, a writer and academic, decided to find out. He wrote with ChatGPT and documented the experience in an essay for the New Yorker. What he found was messier and more interesting than either side of the AI debate would have you believe.

At first, it felt frustrating “as though I were excavating an essay instead of crafting one.” But when he thought about the psychological experience of writing, he began to see its value. ChatGPT wasn’t generating polished prose, but it was providing starting points, raw material to work with, and research ideas worth pulling on.

As Newport puts it:

For all its inefficiencies, this indirect approach did feel easier than staring at a blank page; “talking” to the chatbot about the article was more fun than toiling in quiet isolation. In the long run, I wasn’t saving time: I still needed to look up facts and write sentences in my own voice. But my exchanges seemed to reduce the maximum mental effort demanded of me”.

Alan Knowles, a researcher who studies how writers use AI, has a name for what Newport experienced. He calls it Rhetorical Load Sharing. The idea is simple. AI doesn’t write for you, but it shares enough of the cognitive burden that writing stops feeling quite so brutal.

—

Before I started writing this piece, I gave Claude all my notes and asked where to start this piece. It suggested I open with the confession from part 1, that I’d had it open the whole time, what that meant and how I used it. It made sense, but after almost 7 days of research, I’d come to my own conclusion.

I wanted to start with Vara’s story. It was the most relevant and poignant example of human-AI collaboration I had found. An algorithm wasn’t going to convince me otherwise.

That said, Claude did help. It gave me starting points for sections I was stuck on. It suggested the writers’ rituals. It helped me see my own arguments from angles I hadn’t considered. When I asked it to push back on something I’d written, it did.

What Claude couldn’t do was think for me. Every idea in this piece came from me. Every decision about what to include, what to cut, and where to go next.

Nothing in this piece is solely AI. But it did have a role in how this piece came together, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

—

A few years after her essay “Ghosts” went viral, Vara published her book Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age. In it, she went back to the final two lines that GPT-3 had written and replaced them with her own words. She took the story back. Which is, I think, what writing with AI should always look like — you asserting yourself on it, not the other way around.

After engaging with this topic for over a month, this is where I land. Your writing with AI will only be as good as you. Vara’s was only as good as Vara. Mine is only as good as me. The tool doesn’t save you from yourself.

I’d like to revisit this a year from now. Things are moving fast and my opinions on this might look very different. Maybe there’s a Part 3 in this. We’ll see.

​​”Nowadays, the hand-made article hasn’t a hope. It can’t possibly compete with mass-production. Carpets…chairs…shoes…bricks…crockery…anything you like to mention— they’re all made by machinery now. The quality may be inferior, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the cost of production that counts. And stories—well—they’re just another product, like carpets and chairs, and no one cares how you produce them so long as you deliver the goods. We’ll sell them wholesale, Mr Bohlen! We’ll undercut every writer in the country! We’ll corner the market!”

You might think this quote is from some hoodie-wearing, disruption-obsessed tech founder convincing their investors that they can ‘scale’ storytelling.

It’s not. It’s actually from Roald Dahl’s 1953 short story The Great Automatic Grammatizator.

The story goes like this. Adolph Knipe is an engineer who secretly wants to be a writer. He has written hundreds of stories, but nobody will publish them. So instead of giving up, he builds a machine that writes stories. His machine could write a five-thousand-word story in thirty seconds. A novel in fifteen minutes.

You press a button for the genre, another for the theme, another for the literary style, and out it comes with perfect grammar and structure. The stories and novels are good enough. Good enough to sell.

It might sound eerily familiar, with AI tools being able to generate our essays and stories from a single prompt in seconds. But Dahl, in 1953, wrote it as satire.

—

A few years back, when AI had just started going mainstream, I remember having a conversation with a colleague. We were talking about how relying on AI for our everyday writing, like emails and social captions, might be crippling our thinking. How we were already finding it harder to form even simple sentences without AI’s help.

But as two naive AI enthusiasts, we quickly talked ourselves out of it. Maybe this was a good thing. If AI was taking care of the routine writing, surely that freed up our minds for deeper, more strategic work.

And maybe that’s true for functional writing. But what about the other kinds of writing? The kind where you’re building a world, crafting characters, writing a story or a novel. Or an essay like this one where writing IS thinking, where the writer is figuring out what he believes as he writes. What actually happens to our brains when we let AI do the heavy lifting in our writing?

‘Your Brain on ChatGPT’

Researchers at MIT decided to find it out. They split 54 participants into three groups. One group wrote essays using ChatGPT. Another used a search engine. The third used nothing at all, just their brain. Throughout the process, the researchers monitored brain activity using EEG.

The results were quite uncomfortable. The group that wrote with ChatGPT showed the weakest brain connectivity of all three. The brain-only group showed the strongest, most widespread neural activity, especially in areas associated with creativity, memory, and deep thinking. The ChatGPT group showed significantly less of all of that.

When asked to quote from the essay they had just written, 83% of the ChatGPT group couldn’t do it. Their brain was barely involved in writing it in the first place. The essay existed. They just had no relationship with it.

The researchers called this cognitive debt. The more you rely on AI to do your thinking, the less capable your brain becomes of doing it on its own. Like a muscle you’ve stopped using.

A caveat worth mentioning. This study is still a preprint, meaning it hasn’t been peer reviewed yet. And with only 54 participants, mostly young American adults, it’s preliminary. But the direction it points in is uncomfortable enough to take seriously.

We’re All Starting to Sound the Same

But it’s not just what AI does to your individual brain. It’s what it does to all of us, collectively. (No, the irony is not lost on me – “it’s not X, it’s Y” is a very AI sentence structure).

Researchers at Cornell gave two groups of people, one American and one Indian, simple writing prompts. What’s your favourite food? What’s your favourite holiday? And so on. One subset used a ChatGPT-powered autocomplete tool while writing. The other wrote unaided.

The writing of the Indian and American participants who used AI became more similar to each other, gravitating towards “Western norms”. The AI users were most likely to say their favourite food was pizza and their favourite holiday was Christmas.

What’s more, the specific details disappeared. The nutmeg and lemon pickle in biryani became just “rich flavors and spices.”

This is how AI works. It’s trained on everything humans have written, and it produces the most statistically probable version of whatever you ask for. Not the most interesting or original. The most average. And average, as Vauhini Vara, journalist and author, pointed out, is not as innocent as it sounds.

According to her, the mediocrity of AI text gives it an illusion of safety and harmlessness. But what is actually happening, she says, is a reinforcing of “cultural hegemony” – the values, tastes, and worldview of those who build these systems. AI companies have every incentive to keep things acceptable, because the more people find the output agreeable, the more subscribers they get.

Averageness is efficient. And when we write with AI, we drift towards that average too.

—

This is where I’ll stop for now. These aren’t my complete thoughts on the matter. It would be hypocritical of me to leave it here without telling you that I have Claude open in another tab as I write this. What that means for me as a writer is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

In Part 2, I’ll talk about how I use AI to help me write better, how I don’t outsource my thinking to it, and how this piece, despite having Claude open the whole time, took me more hours than any other edition I’ve written. I don’t have all the answers. I’m still figuring this out, and honestly, my opinions on it might look very different a year from now.

A show with this setup would make for the most boring television ever.

Yet ‘The Office’, as everyone knows, became one of the funniest, most rewatchable TV shows ever.

One of the standout things about The Office was its sharp, layered writing.

Michael Schur, one of the writers on the show, tells a story about writing an episode called “Christmas Party” where the office does Secret Santa. Schur had to come up with gift ideas for everyone.

For Angela—an uptight, religious character—he wrote that she’d get a Christian self-help book.

But Greg Daniels, the showrunner, pushed back. He wanted something else.

“I was annoyed at first. It wasn’t even a main part of the story, just a small detail. But he thought the book didn’t reveal anything new about her. Even if it’s only three seconds of screen time, it’s a chance to show something deeper”.

They spent an hour discussing it. Eventually, someone in the writers’ room suggested that Angela might be into those photos where babies are dressed up like adults. Maybe a poster of two babies dressed as jazz musicians.

“That was it. Everyone knew immediately. Yes, Angela would love that.”

It was perfect—the innocence of babies, the charm of the costumes, and the old-fashioned propriety of jazz musicians. Of course Angela would love that.

Having Interesting Thoughts

How do you go from the obvious “Christian book” to the interesting “babies dressed as jazz musicians”?

Even though it might seem like a stroke of genius coming out of nowhere, it wasn’t that.

It came from pushing past the obvious to observe a character’s deeper psychology rather than just their surface traits.

Going deeper, beyond the surface level—that’s where interesting thoughts about a person, situation, or moment come from.

And having interesting thoughts is where good writing is birthed. You can master the grammar, dialogue, and three-act structure, but if you have nothing interesting to say, none of it matters.

Becoming the Person Who Thinks Interesting Thoughts

The good news is that having interesting thoughts isn’t some fixed trait you either have or don’t. It’s a muscle you can develop.

When researching this topic, I kept coming back to the essayist , whose insights on this felt the most practical and honest.

In a podcast, Henrik talks about what he calls the “animating question”—a question that urgently needs answering, one that matters deeply to you as a person.

For him, it’s about trying to get better at the things that matter in his life: being a better father, husband, friend, writer.

“You just have to grab hold of what awakens a sense of loving curiosity in you,” he writes. “If you pursue those things, they never cease to open up to new questions and observations and ideas. The richer your understanding of ‘the landscape’ gets, so to speak, the more paths onward you spot.”

That animating question becomes the lens through which everything else becomes interesting.

But Henrik doesn’t just think about these questions, he creates the conditions for interesting thoughts to emerge.

​​He reads widely and oddly, pulling ideas from unexpected places like machine learning and math. He talks to interesting people—his wife, his friends, online readers who reach out after discovering his essays.

He also spends a lot of time alone. “I go on four-hour walks, letting things slowly collide and merge in my subconscious,” he said.

He’s deliberately constructing his life around experiences that enable “left-field thinking”.

—

Good writing doesn’t start with a pen and paper. It starts with cultivating a mind that experiences life richly, that chases the questions that matter, and that goes to the depths in answering them. It starts with becoming the person who thinks interesting thoughts.

It took me a year to write it, so I was really pumped. I did what any excited writer would do. I shared it with my friends.

They read it. Some really liked it. Others were… polite. A few even gave thoughtful notes.

I was too close to the script, so I wasn’t really sure about it. Let’s just say I wasn’t quitting my day job yet.

A few months after that, with a fresh mind, I opened it again to revise it.

Yeah, it wasn’t great. It needed a lot of work. My friends were too kind.

And here’s the thing that bothered me most: I knew good writing when I saw it. I’d watched great movies, read great scripts. I had good taste. But my own writing wasn’t matching it. Not even close.

The Taste Gap

Turns out, this experience has a name.

Ira Glass, host of the Pulitzer Prize-winning radio show ‘This American Life’, calls it the “taste gap.”

Talking about creative work, Glass explains that you get into it because you have good taste. Something resonated with you—a book, a film, a song—and it made you think, “I want to do that too.”

But when you start making things, what comes out isn’t good yet. “It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste—the thing that got you into the game—your taste is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. You can tell that it’s still sort of crappy.”

This gap isn’t just a beginner thing. It can last for years.

To demonstrate this, Glass played his own clip from his NPR days. He was 27, eight years into his radio career and already deep in the industry.

It wasn’t good. The writing was unclear, the delivery unnatural. Listening back, Glass said he couldn’t follow what he’d been trying to say.

Eight years in, and the work still wasn’t measuring up.

Why Some People Quit (And Others Don’t)

Glass says that most people quit in the taste gap. They see their work isn’t good enough and interpret it as proof they’re not cut out for this.

Yet some people keep going. They stay in the gap, keep making bad work, until eventually they get good.

It comes down to mindset. Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent decades studying how people think about their abilities, and she’s identified two distinct patterns: Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset.

People with a Fixed Mindset believe talent is innate. You either have it or you don’t. So when their work sucks in the beginning, they think, “This proves I’m not good at this.” The taste gap for them is definitive failure.

On the other hand, people with a Growth Mindset believe skills develop over time. When their early work falls short, they think, “I’m not there yet. Let me try again.”

Dweck demonstrated this in a study with students. She gave them ten fairly challenging problems from an IQ test. Most students did pretty well. Then she praised them, but in two different ways.

The first group heard: “You must be smart at this.”

The second group heard: “You must have worked really hard.”

One group was praised for ability. The other for effort.

Then Dweck gave them harder problems. The students who’d been praised for being smart struggled. And when they struggled, they thought it meant they weren’t actually intelligent after all. As Dweck puts it, “If success had meant they were intelligent, then less-than-success meant they were deficient.”

They lost motivation. They stopped enjoying the problems. Their performance got worse.

The effort-praised students faced the exact same difficulty. But they didn’t see it as evidence of lacking intelligence. They just saw it as a sign they needed to work harder. They stayed motivated, kept enjoying the challenge, and their performance actually improved.

Closing the Taste Gap

Closing the taste gap requires creating crappy work, not seeing failure as definitive, and adopting a growth mindset.

Glass says the only way through is volume. “The most important thing you could possibly do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. It’s only by going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap.”

That could mean one script per year. One short story per month. One sketch per week. Pick a pace you can maintain and commit to finishing things.

Let’s keep writing. Let’s keep creating shitty work. Until eventually, it gets better.

But as a writer, I know those conversations reveal authentic lived experiences I could never invent sitting at my desk.

So before our Indonesia trip last month, I made myself a promise: I’d push myself to talk to as many people as possible.

Throughout the trip, I was actively trying to position myself for conversations. I sat in the front seat with drivers, asked our friendly guide about his life outside of work, and made eye contact with people while waiting instead of hiding behind my phone.

My best chance came during a 3-hour car ride from Padangbai port to Seminyak, where I found myself with a driver who spoke excellent English and seemed to have stories worth hearing.

We started with the usual small talk—my trip itinerary, the Bali traffic, how long he’d been driving. Standard stuff.

Then as the traffic forced us into long, slow crawls, the conversation started to deepen.

He asked us how we got married, what life is like in Pakistan. We asked him about his family, his kids, his time working on cruise ships as a housekeeper.

Then, almost casually, he said, “I almost had a different life, you know. Before I met my wife, I was in love with a Japanese woman.”

The story came out in pieces over the next half hour. They met when she visited Bali some 20 years ago. Despite the language barrier, they fell in love.

She visited him. He visited her when his cruise work took him to Japan.

“She wanted me to move there,” he said. “But my mother said no.”

My wife and I exchanged a look. The power of a mother over her son’s life isn’t unique to our culture.

“Does she know about you now?” my wife asked from the back seat.

“I heard something through a friend.” He paused. “She named her son after me.”

We all laughed—a surprised, slightly awkward laugh at the absurdity of it. Outside, the traffic eased as the green of Bali blurred past the window.

He was quiet for a moment, hands steady on the wheel. Then: “It’s strange, you know. Her son has my name. And my son...” He smiled, shaking his head. “My son wants to study in Japan one day. He doesn’t know the story.”

“And your daughter? How old is she?” my wife asked.

“She’s sixteen,” he said, and I could feel his entire demeanor softening.

“Are you close?” I asked.

He laughed, almost embarrassed. “Very close. My wife says I spoil her, that she has too much control over me. But I can’t help it. When she was born, I took her through all of Bali on the first day. I just wanted her to see everything.”

He was quiet for a moment. “But she’s in college now. She doesn’t talk to me the same way anymore. Doesn’t share things like before. It’s normal, but...” He didn’t finish. I could see tears gathering in his eyes.

We didn’t push further. The conversation drifted to lighter things—the best beaches in Bali, where to eat in Seminyak. By the time we reached our hotel, he was smiling again, helping us with our bags.

Bali, Indonesia, 2025

—

I kept thinking about that conversation long after we’d checked in. Not just the story itself, but what it revealed about him as a person.

A man who loves his mother and resents her power over him in the same breath. Who grieves a lost relationship while being devoted to his current family. Who adores his daughter to the point of tears while knowing his wife thinks it’s unhealthy. Who can laugh and cry about the same situation within minutes.

One three-hour conversation doesn’t mean I truly know this man—his full story, his daily reality, the thousand other contradictions he carries. But it gave me something just as valuable: a glimpse into how a real person holds multiple truths at once.

This is what talking to strangers gives you—an expanded emotional vocabulary and access to psychological complexity you can’t get sitting at your desk imagining “what people are like.”

Real humans contain contradictions. They express universal feelings through their specific cultural frameworks, life choices, and personal histories. That texture is what makes the writing feel real.

Writing teachers say “show, don’t tell.” But first, you have to listen.

I’m 33, standing in the shallow end, and wondering if it’s too late to pretend I got sick.

As I’m contemplating my escape plan, an 8-year-old casually glides past me doing a perfect backstroke as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The next few minutes of that day are too painful to relive. Let’s just say there was a lot of panic, splashing, and immediate retreats towards the pool wall.

Fast forward three weeks.

I’m still not winning any swimming competitions, but I can now coordinate my hands and legs to move (very awkwardly) from point A to point B without drowning.

It’s not pretty, but it’s progress.

Does Our Brain Change When We Learn Something New?

The short answer is yes.

As we practice a new skill, our brains rewire to form new neural connections.

In the case of swimming, new neural pathways are formed to coordinate breathing, balance, and movement in ways that didn't exist before.

We know this thanks to some fascinating research by neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire on London’s taxi drivers.

To get licensed, these drivers spend years memorizing thousands of streets and landmarks in what's called "The Knowledge"—navigating London's famously chaotic and winding layout.

When Maguire compared brain scans of experienced taxi drivers to regular people of similar age and education, she found something striking: the drivers had notably larger hippocampi (the brain's memory center). In fact, the longer they'd been on the job, the larger this brain region had become.

However, she wondered if taxi driving simply attracted people who were already born with larger hippocampi. So she, along with other researchers, designed a brilliant follow-up study.

They recruited people before they started taxi training, alongside a matched control group who weren't becoming drivers. They scanned everyone's brains at the beginning, then waited four years.

The results were remarkable: the trainees' hippocampi actually grew during the learning process. Their brains physically changed as they mastered London's maze-like streets.

Similar brain changes appear across different skills.

Musicians who practice for years develop enlarged Broca's areas (linked to language processing).

Ballet dancers exhibit neural adaptations that improve their balance and reduce dizziness.

What Does This Mean for Writers?

Creative writing is also an incredibly complex skill that demands multiple brain networks working together.

When we write, our brain co-ordinates language processing, memory retrieval, creative thinking, and decision-making all at the same time.

The more time we spend writing, the more our brains learn to manage language, creativity, and expression simultaneously.

Jerry Seinfeld once told a comedy class something that applies perfectly to writing: “You know who's great? The people who just put a tremendous amount of hours into it. It's a game of tonnage—how many hours are you going to work?”

He was right. Those London taxi drivers didn't develop larger hippocampi by reading about navigation, they spent years driving the streets.

Musicians don't rewire their brains by studying theory, they practice for hours every day.

There's no shortcut to rewiring your brain.

No tricks. No hacks. Just write. Every single day. For hours.

The initial premise seems to be that Nathan Fielder, the creator and star of the show, would help ordinary people rehearse for difficult conversations or life decisions by creating elaborate, hyper-realistic replicas of the actual situations they’d face.

But then it got weird when Nathan himself started practicing being a father with Angela, a woman who wanted to experience what parenting would be like before committing to having kids.

What starts as him helping her quickly becomes Nathan living through an accelerated timeline of fatherhood—with child actors playing his "son" at different ages.

Things got even weirder when he sets up an acting school to teach what he called the “Fielder Method.” It is an absurdly elaborate approach where actors don't just study their subject or “primary” (as Nathan calls them), they essentially live their lives.

We're talking moving into replica apartments, working their actual jobs, following their daily routines for weeks until the behavior becomes automatic.

It's method acting cranked up to a ridiculous, almost unhinged degree.

Beyond Comedy

Now, watching this unfold, my first instinct was to dismiss it as peak absurdist comedy. And it is that—Fielder pushes everything to satirical extremes.

But there's something here that made me think about writing.

You know that moment when you're developing a character and you get stuck thinking “What would this person actually do?” and find yourself wishing, “What if I could just slip inside their head, walk through their world, and absorb everything there is to know about how they think and move through life?”

But we can't. We just sit back in our chairs, maybe close our eyes, and try to imagine our way into their reality.

A Middle Ground?

Obviously, I'm not suggesting you start stalking people or moving into replica apartments (please don't).

But there must be something between Nathan's extreme method and our usual approach of just sitting and imagining. What if there are ways to get closer to our characters' reality without going full Fielder?

Instead of just thinking about what your character would do, what if you occasionally put yourself in situations that mirror theirs?

If you're writing about a night-shift worker, try staying up all night and notice how the world feels different—the eerie quiet of empty streets, how your body fights against its natural rhythm, the strange camaraderie with other night people like security guards and taxi drivers.

You'll understand why your character might feel disconnected from the daytime world in ways you never imagined just sitting at your desk.

Writing about someone who takes the bus to work every day? Ride public transport for a week and pay attention to the rhythms, the interactions, the small frustrations.

Your character works in a call center? Spend time in a loud, open office environment making continuous phone calls—notice how your voice gets hoarse, how you develop scripts for difficult conversations, and how constant rejection starts wearing you down.

You don't need to live your character's entire life. But sometimes stepping into their world, even briefly, reveals truths that imagination alone never could.

My thoughts are racing so fast they might crash into each other.

I get up and start pacing the room as my wife sleeps peacefully on her side.

I have found walking to be oddly calming. Maybe the physical movement slows the chaos in my head, pulls it into a steady rhythm.

Tonight it’s what happened at tea with friends.

In the middle of the conversation, I dropped a reference from that book—why did I do that?

There was definitely a pause after that. Maybe an eye roll. Am I the guy who can't help but bring up what he's reading?

What are they thinking of me? Some show-off who just can't have a normal conversation?

That silence felt like forever. Two seconds too long? Why would everyone go quiet unless they're all thinking the same thing—that I'm showing off? Am I that guy? Oh god, I am, aren't I?

Stop. This is crazy.

Normal people don't dissect every moment of silence like it's evidence in a trial.

But that pause though…

“You're doing it again.”

I turn. My wife is awake, propped up on her elbows, watching me.

“Doing what?”

“Overthinking. What happened?”

“Nothing happened. Just can't sleep.”

She gives me that look—the one that says we both know I'm lying.

“Who’s disappointed in you tonight?”

She knows me too well.

“Just... don't read so much into everything. You'll drive yourself crazy.”

She meant it kindly. She always does.

But my brain doesn't come with an off switch. I just can’t help but overthink things.

While she drifts back to sleep, I'm still here, still walking, still replaying that moment at tea.

It’s always been like this.

At farewell dinners, when colleagues are sharing their honest thoughts, someone always says, “Don't take this the wrong way, but you sometimes take things to heart.”

Even in school, when I stumbled over my words during a speech contest, I'd replay that embarrassing moment on stage for years even though everyone had forgotten it the next day.

This sensitivity comes naturally to me.

It’s a personality trait where you’re wired to feel things more deeply, pick up on subtleties others miss, and process everything more intensely.

Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) comprise 15 to 20 percent of the population.

Despite all the overthinking and sleepless nights, high sensitivity comes with its gifts for us writers.

Two of the most beautiful gifts are deep processing and empathy—invaluable skills for any writer.

I'm working on not taking everything so personally, on building thicker skin.

But I’m also trying not to lose the part of me that feels everything so deeply. That part writes…

Maybe it's a friend who tells a different story about how he got that lucrative job (even though you never asked). Or your wife's uncle who has a perfect “she’r” (couplet) for every situation. Or your grandmother who survived a bloody war but never wants to talk about it.

As a writer, these character-worthy people spark my imagination.

When I meet people like these, I find myself wanting to understand them more deeply.

I’m curious about everything. Why do they do what they do? What’s shaped them? What are their fears? Their desires? Motivations?

Of course, I never ask these questions directly. That would be intrusive, and people rarely have accurate insights into their own psychology anyway.

Instead, I look for clues in their patterns of behavior, their unique mannerisms, the recurring themes in their conversations, and especially the stories they choose to share. Or omit.

Later on, I might “borrow” some of the traits from these people.

The friend who tells different versions of his success story might inspire a protagonist with impostor syndrome, constantly reinventing himself to meet others' expectations.

The poetic uncle could transform into a character who uses literary references to keep people at a distance and avoid sharing vulnerabilities.

The silent grandmother might evolve into a character whose present actions are secretly driven by unspoken past trauma.

(To my friends reading this, please know I'm genuinely interested in our conversations. But I can't promise your unique quirk won't someday appear in one of my stories.)

Using Psychology to Write Memorable Characters

This was just a glimpse into how some writers might observe people. We’ll take a deeper dive into the psychological principles that can help you create authentic characters.

But before we go any further, let me clarify what I won't be doing: I won't be reducing characters to neat personality categories or labeling them as simply introverted or extroverted, open or guarded.

Real people don't fit into tidy boxes—they behave in contradictory ways, act differently across situations, and often surprise themselves with their own choices. The same should be true for our characters.

Instead, we'll explore how understanding psychological patterns can help us create characters who feel as wonderfully complex and unpredictable as the people who inspire them.

The Childhood Blueprint: Why Psychologists (and Writers) Look to the Past

“Tell me about your childhood…”

If you’ve ever been to therapy, you've probably been asked this question within the first few sessions.

There's a reason for this persistent focus on parents and early experiences—they establish patterns that tend to echo throughout our adult lives.

As writers, understanding this childhood blueprint gives us powerful insights into character development. Why does your protagonist avoid conflict at all costs? Perhaps they grew up in a household where disagreements escalated into chaos.

Why does your antagonist need to control everything? Maybe their early world was unpredictable and frightening.

The beauty of this approach isn't just in explaining behaviors, but in creating realistic complexity. Two characters with similar difficult childhoods might develop completely different coping mechanisms.

One becomes a people-pleaser, desperate for approval; another builds impenetrable walls against potential rejection.

Same cause, different manifestations—just like in real life.

When you explore a character's formative years, you're not looking for simple cause-and-effect relationships. You're uncovering the internal beliefs they formed about themselves, others, and the world.

"I am unworthy of love."

"People will hurt me if I show weakness."

"The world rewards only the perfect."

These core beliefs drive behaviors in ways your character may not even recognize.

As a writer, you don't need to explicitly include childhood flashbacks or lengthy backstories. But knowing these foundational experiences helps you create consistent, authentic reactions when your character faces challenges or opportunities.

When a seemingly confident character inexplicably sabotages their own success, readers won't feel manipulated by plot convenience—they'll sense the deeper psychological truth at work.

The Character Psychology Triangle: Desires, Fears, and Contradictions

Understanding a character's childhood gives us valuable insights, but to create truly memorable characters, we need to focus on three psychological elements that drive human behavior: desires, fears, and contradictions.

Desires are what your character wants—consciously or unconsciously. Is it recognition? Safety? Power? Connection? These deep-seated wants drive their decisions. Don Draper in "Mad Men" craves belonging and legitimacy, constantly reinventing himself to escape his impoverished past.

Fears represent what your character is desperately trying to avoid. Behind many desires lurks a corresponding fear. Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" series fears vulnerability and emotional exposure, masking his enduring love for Lily with coldness and cynicism.

But it's the contradictions that truly bring characters to life. Humans are walking bundles of inconsistencies. In "Succession," Kendall Roy desperately seeks his father's approval while simultaneously trying to destroy him. These contradictions create tension that the audience recognizes as authentic.

The most memorable characters exist in this triangle of competing forces. Daenerys Targaryen in "Game of Thrones" desires to be a just ruler while fearing she'll become like her father, yet contradicts her liberator identity by eventually embracing destruction.

Creating Authentic Character Flaws

Perfect characters are perfectly forgettable.

It's the flaws that make characters stick in our minds long after we've finished the book or left the theater.

But not all character flaws are created equal.

The most psychologically authentic flaws aren't random quirks or habits—they're intrinsically connected to a character's strengths, desires, and psychological makeup.

Consider Sherlock Holmes. His brilliant analytical mind—his greatest strength—directly connects to his most compelling flaws: his arrogance, impatience with others, and difficulty with normal human connection.

These aren't separate traits tacked on to make him "more interesting." They're the natural shadow side of his gifts.

Psychologically realistic flaws typically fall into three categories:

1. The flip side of strength: Courage becomes recklessness. Ambition becomes ruthlessness. Persistence becomes stubbornness. In "Breaking Bad," Walter White's intelligence and resourcefulness—initially positive traits—become corrupted into manipulation and callousness.

2. Protection against fear: A character afraid of rejection might develop the flaw of people-pleasing or, conversely, preemptive rejection of others. In "The Social Network," Mark Zuckerberg's fear of social rejection manifests as a flaw of intellectual arrogance and dismissiveness.

3. Overcompensation for perceived inadequacy: Batman's obsessive crime-fighting stems from his inability to save his parents, driving him to extreme measures to prevent others from experiencing similar loss.

The most compelling flaws create both internal and external conflict.

Internally, they put the character at war with themselves. Externally, they create friction with others and obstacles to achieving goals.

Character Arcs and Psychological Growth

Real people don't change overnight, and neither should your characters.

Psychological growth is rarely a straight line—it's messy, inconsistent, and often involves backsliding into old patterns before true change occurs.

The most realistic character arcs acknowledge this psychological truth. They show characters taking two steps forward and one step back, struggling against their own deeply ingrained patterns even as they try to evolve beyond them.

Consider Michael Scott in "The Office." His journey from an insecure, inappropriate boss to a more self-aware and mature person isn't linear. He repeatedly falls back into seeking validation through humor and attention when faced with stress or insecurity.

This back-and-forth between growth and regression feels authentic because it mirrors how real psychological change happens.

The key to writing believable character growth is understanding that people resist change, even positive change.

Our psychological patterns, no matter how dysfunctional, feel safe because they're familiar. In "Groundhog Day," Phil Connors initially doubles down on his narcissistic behavior when trapped in the time loop, finding change more threatening than repetition, before gradually embracing personal growth.

When writing your character's psychological growth, don't rush it. Show the backsliding, the resistance, the moments of falling back on old defense mechanisms when stressed.

Let your character make progress and then sabotage themselves when things get uncomfortable.

The most satisfying character arcs aren't about complete transformation—they're about characters gaining insight into their own patterns and making incremental shifts that eventually lead to meaningful change.

Putting Theory into Practice: Character Development Exercises

The best way to internalize these psychological principles is to apply them.

Here are some writing prompts designed to help you explore your characters' psychological depths:

1. The Revealing Stress Test: Write a scene where your character faces their deepest fear. Focus not on external action but on their psychological reaction—what defense mechanisms emerge? What childhood patterns resurface?

2. The Mirror Character: Create a character who shares your protagonist's core wound but developed an opposite coping mechanism. Write a scene where these two characters conflict, each triggered by recognizing their own issues in the other.

3. The Contradiction Exploration: Write a scene revealing the gap between what your character says they value and how they actually behave. Show their self-justification for this inconsistency.

4. The Growth Moment: Write a scene where your character has an insight into one of their destructive patterns. Then write the next scene where, despite this awareness, they fall back into the pattern when under stress.

Wrapping Up

I hope you found this edition valuable. To help you apply these concepts to your writing, I've created a Character Psychology Worksheet. It will guide you in developing your characters' psychological profiles, from their childhood experiences to their present-day contradictions.

You can use it as a foundation to create more authentic, multi-dimensional characters.

[Character Psychology Worksheet - Please create a copy of this and then make any changes you want].

Have a great day! :)

The internet hasn’t become the center of our universe yet.

Summer vacations for us meant mangoes, cricket on rooftops, Indian dramas on cable TV, wandering around the neighbourhood with friends, and the constant search for ways to escape boredom (yes, teenagers did get bored back then).

On a hot June evening, I was wandering through the familiar streets of our neighborhood when I spotted something I’d somehow always missed.

It was a tiny, old bookshop.

Curious, I stepped inside.

An elderly man with thick glasses looked up from behind a cluttered counter. When I asked about buying books, he kindly smiled and said, "Do kitabein de jao, aik kitab le jao" (Give two books, take one).

With the prospect of a long, boring summer staring me in the face, I asked the old man to hold the offer.

I rushed home and gathered every old course book I could find.

My mother wasn’t very happy with this. For some reason, she never liked giving away old textbooks—maybe she was saving them for my sister (who was seven years younger than me).

After some negotiation, she reluctantly agreed. I quickly packed up the old books and headed to the bookshop before she changed her mind.

Back at the shop, I looked for the most value-for-money option. While browsing through the books, the Reader's Digest condensed novels caught my eye—each had four stories in one volume.

I knew nothing about these books or their authors. But they seemed like they’d keep me busy for a while. I exchanged my textbooks for four of them.

And that's how my love story with books began. Since then, I've been an avid reader, always with a book nearby.

This habit of reading is the foundation of my writing. The more I read, the better I write.

Psychology Corner

Reading fiction improves our understanding of people. It stretches our imagination in ways that we feel the characters' hopes, fears, and dilemmas as our own.

Regular readers develop stronger "theory of mind"—the ability to understand others' thoughts, feelings, and perspectives.

This enhanced empathy and perspective-taking is a superpower for writers.

In "The Sense of Style," Cognitive Scientist and Psycholinguist Steven Pinker explains that extensive reading exposes us to effective language patterns that we absorb and later incorporate into our own writing.

“Good writers are avid readers. They have absorbed a vast inventory of words, idioms, constructions, tropes, and rhetorical tricks, and with them a sensitivity to how they mesh and how they clash.”

Read on.

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The task is to just sit there like this for fifteen minutes. Just you and your thoughts.

Will you be able to do it?

Let’s make it more interesting.

What if there was a button there that would give you a mild electric shock? Would you press it?

If your answer is “obviously not,” well, think again!

Because in a fascinating experiment by researchers at the University of Virginia, an astonishing 67% of men and 25% of women chose to shock themselves—multiple times—rather than sit quietly with nothing but their own minds for company.

These weren't masochists. They were normal people who, just minutes earlier, had rated the shock as unpleasant and even said they would pay money to avoid experiencing it again.

People will literally shock themselves rather than get bored for just 15 minutes.

That's how much we hate boredom. Yet, this state we're so desperate to avoid might actually be valuable.

What Happens in Your Brain When You’re Bored

When you're bored, your brain activates what neuroscientists call the "default mode network"—a complex system that lights up when you're not focused on the outside world. While it might feel like nothing is happening, your brain is actually hard at work beneath the surface.

During boredom, your mind begins to wander and daydream.

As boredom researcher Dr. Sandi Mann puts it, "Once you start daydreaming and allow your mind to really wander, you start thinking a little bit beyond the conscious, a little bit into the subconscious, which allows different connections to take place."

This is why some of your best ideas come in the shower, while driving familiar routes, or during other "boring" activities.

Your brain isn't distracted by external stimuli or focused tasks. Instead, it's free to make connections between ideas that your conscious mind might never consider when actively engaged.

Does Boredom Fuel Creativity?

Is there evidence that boredom boosts creativity? Does science back this up?

Dr. Mann and her colleagues decided to put this to the test. In their study, they had one group complete a boring task (copying phone numbers from a directory), while another group skipped this tedious activity. Afterward, both groups were asked to come up with as many creative uses as possible for a pair of polystyrene cup.

Can you guess what happened?

The bored group generated significantly more creative solutions than the non-bored group. Their minds, having wandered through boredom, were primed to make unusual connections and think more flexibly.

So, what does this mean for writers?

Everything. This mental state is pure gold!

Whether you’re stuck on a character’s motivation or crafting a compelling brand story, your breakthrough might come during that seemingly "wasted" time when you're waiting in line at the coffee shop or sitting in a waiting room.

All you have to do is just resist the urge to pull out your phone.

Tips to Get Bored (To Write Better)

Here are some practical strategies to help you embrace boredom and unlock its creative benefits:

1. The "No Input" Morning

Start your day with 30 minutes of no information consumption. No social media, no news, no podcasts—just you and your thoughts before the world rushes in. This creates space for your mind to process rather than constantly consume. Many writers find their best ideas emerge during these quiet morning moments.

2. The "Boring Walk"

Take regular walks without your headphones. Let your mind wander as your feet do the same. Notice how your thoughts drift and connect in surprising ways when you're not filling your ears with content. These solitary walks can lead to unexpected creative insights.

3. Schedule "Boredom Blocks"

Actually put 15-20 minute "boredom sessions" in your calendar. During these times, do nothing but sit quietly. No reading, no writing—just being. These might feel uncomfortable at first, but they're like strength training for your creative mind.

4. Create a "Shallow Work" Routine

Designate certain mundane tasks (folding laundry, washing dishes, organizing your desk) as "no-phone zones." These routine activities are perfect for letting your mind wander productively.

5. The "Digital Sunset"

Set a time each evening when screens go off. The hour before bed becomes a technology-free zone, allowing your mind to drift and process the day's experiences. Keep a notebook nearby—you'll be surprised what emerges when your brain isn't being constantly stimulated.

6. Practice Intentional Waiting

When you find yourself waiting (for coffee, in a line, for a meeting to start), resist the automatic phone check. Instead, use these micro-moments of potential boredom as opportunities for your mind to wander.

A Final Thought

When asked for his advice to aspiring writers, Neil Gaiman's response was simple: "Get bored."

In our hyper-connected world where every second offers another chance for stimulation, boredom might just be the writer's secret weapon. So put down your phone, embrace the mundane, and let your mind wander. Your next great idea is waiting in that empty space.

Most of us would rush to the table with more options. Because more choices mean better chances of finding something we love, right?

That's what most people did in a famous experiment by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. 60% (out of 242) stopped at the table with 24 jams, while only 40% (out of 260) stopped the next day at the one with 6.

But here's where things get interesting.

With 24 jams, even though the traffic was higher, only 3% (4 people) actually bought anything. On the other hand, at the table with 6 jams, a whopping 30% (31 people) made a purchase.

Counterintuitively, fewer jam choices made the decision simpler. The more options people had, the harder it became to choose.

Hick’s Law: Why More Isn’t Necessarily Better

Turns out, this isn’t just about jams, this pattern has been fundamental to human behavior.

Back in 1952, psychologists William Hick and Ray Hyman found something interesting about how our brains respond to choices. When presented with multiple stimuli (like buttons to press or options to choose), our reaction time doesn't just increase slightly, it grows logarithmically with each new choice.

They created a formula for this: RT = a + b log2(n)

Sounds complicated? Let's break it down with a simple example from a TV remote:

Say you're trying to change the channel. RT or reaction time is how long it takes you to press the right button, 'a' is the basic time you need to realize you want to change channels, 'b' is how long you take to process each number, and 'n' is how many buttons you're choosing from.

With an old TV (just volume and channel buttons), you decide instantly. With today's remote (50+ buttons for smart TV, streaming, recording, settings), your brain has to process each possibility, and your decision time multiplies.

Here’s why this happens:

Think of your brain like a computer with limited RAM. Just like a computer slows down when too many programs are running, your working memory can only hold about 4-7 pieces of information at once. After that, things start falling out.

That's Hick's Law in action.

Applying Hick’s Law to Writing

So what does all this mean for us as writers? Every word, sentence, and paragraph we put down is asking our readers to make choices. Which ideas to focus on? What matters most? Where is this going?

Just like those jam buyers, our readers can get overwhelmed. The more options we throw at them, the harder it becomes for them to process our message.

The good news? We can use Hick's Law to make our writing clearer and more effective. Here are five ways to do it:

Tip 1: Choose Simple Over Sophisticated Language

Why say "utilize" when you can say "use"?

Why write "commence" when you can write "start"?

Complex words don't make your writing better. They just add to your reader's cognitive load.

Think of it this way: each sophisticated word is like adding another jam flavor. Sure, it might make you look fancy, but it's making your reader work harder to understand your message.

Same meaning, less mental effort. Your readers will thank you.

Tip 2: Less Words, More Impact

Writers have long known that constraints breed creativity. Think of Haikus (17 syllables to reflect on nature), or sonnets (14 lines to express complex themes).

These structured formats force writers to choose words carefully. When choices are limited, every word must earn its place.

Let’s try it with everyday writing:

See the difference? When you cut the clutter, your message becomes clearer.

Tip 3: One Idea, One Paragraph

Every paragraph should express one clear thought. When you pack multiple ideas into a single space, you're making your reader juggle too many concepts at once.

Let's see how this works:

See how each paragraph now focuses on one clear aspect – quality, durability, design, and offer?

Tip 4: Lead With What Matters and Reveal Details Progressively

Just like a news article leads with the headline before diving into details, your writing should start with what your reader needs most.

Think of it as a pyramid—most important information at the top, supporting details below. This way, readers get the key message even if they don't read everything.

See how the second version puts the key information upfront? No one has to search for the main point.

Tip 5: Group Related Ideas

Our brains naturally look for patterns. When ideas are scattered randomly, readers waste mental energy trying to connect the dots.

See how grouping creates instant clarity? Instead of a random list, readers see clear categories with a focused action step.

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With Hick’s Law, you’re making life easier for your reader. Remember, sometimes less is more.

“Every student is expected to write an intensive research paper based on a single work of art of their own choosing. And the first thing I ask them to do in the research process is to spend a painfully long time looking at that object”, writes Roberts about her process.

Before any research begins, each student must spend three full hours in front of their chosen artwork. They are asked to simply observe and note down their evolving observations and questions that arise.

No phones, no books, no distractions. Just looking!

What happens during those three hours is a revelation. Students begin to notice intricate details, hidden patterns, and subtle relationships that remain invisible to the casual glance.

“What this exercise shows,” Roberts explains, “is that just because you have looked at something doesn't mean that you have seen it. Just because something is available instantly to vision does not mean that it is available instantly to consciousness.”

In an age where we're conditioned to consume information at lightning speed, Roberts argues that this ability to slow down – to truly see rather than merely look – isn't just an art history skill. It's a vital capacity for deep understanding in any field.

“The deliberate engagement of delay should itself be a primary skill that we teach,” she insists, making a case for patience not just as a virtue, but as a strategic skill for deeper comprehension.

Understanding ‘Slow Looking’

As you might have guessed, the idea of Slow Looking emerged from the world of art education, pioneered by researchers at Harvard's Project Zero.

Shari Tishman, a senior research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, defines it simply: “It means taking the time to carefully observe more than meets the eye at first glance.”

This isn't just about looking longer. According to Tishman, Slow Looking is “a way of gaining knowledge about the world.” It helps us discern complexities that can't be grasped quickly, engaging our brain in a different way than our usual rapid processing.

While the average museum visitor spends just eight seconds looking at each artwork, Slow Looking invites us to move beyond these first impressions and discover layers of meaning that only reveal themselves through patient observation.

The Power of Slow Looking in Writing

What happens when we apply this art of patient observation to writing?

Just as Roberts' students discover hidden patterns in paintings, writers who practice Slow Looking develop a deeper understanding of their characters, worlds, and narratives.

Let's explore five ways Slow Looking can elevate your writing:

1: Enhanced Ability to Notice Details

When you practice Slow Looking, you train yourself to notice the subtle textures of everyday life.

Instead of just seeing a garden, you begin to notice the trembling of leaves in the breeze, the geometric precision of a spider's web, or the way morning dew creates miniature universes on the tips of grass blades.

2: Enriched Descriptive Language

As you spend more time observing, your descriptive language naturally evolves beyond generic phrases. A "busy street" becomes "a stream of yellow cabs flowing around delivery trucks like water around rocks."

A "sunset" becomes "the sky bleeding orange into purple, painting the clouds in watercolor edges."

Your writing gains precision and originality because you're describing what you actually see, not what you think you should see.

3: Deeper Character Development

Character development deepens through careful observation of human behavior.

When you slow down to observe people, you start noticing the subtle tells of emotion – how someone's hands become more animated when they're talking about something they love, the way their shoulders soften when they're with family, the unconscious mirroring of postures between close friends.

These nuanced observations help create characters that feel authentically human.

4: Richer World-Building

Whether you're writing fiction or non-fiction, Slow Looking helps you create more immersive worlds.

You notice how environments affect people, how spaces tell stories about their inhabitants, how atmospheres shift with time and circumstance.

A bedroom isn't just furniture and walls. It's a biography written in objects, a landscape of habits and preferences, a container of countless small stories.

5: Ability to See Things from Different Perspectives

Slow Looking trains you to see beyond your first impressions. You begin to notice how different people interact with the same space, how various characters might interpret the same event, how time and context change the meaning of things.

This multiplicity of perspectives adds depth to your writing, helping you create more nuanced and thoughtful work.

How to Practice Slow Looking

Like any skill, Slow Looking takes practice.

Here are some ways you can start incorporating it into your writing practice:

1. Start Small

Begin with just 10 minutes of focused observation. Choose a single subject – it could be a tree outside your window, a busy intersection, or even your own living room.

Don't write yet; just observe.

Notice how your perception deepens as time passes. What details emerge in minute eight that weren't apparent in minute one?

2. Use Prompts

When observing a scene or subject, ask yourself:

• What did I notice first? What did I notice last?

• What sounds, smells, or textures am I discovering?

• What patterns or relationships are emerging?

• What would different characters notice about this same scene?

3. Practice in Different Settings

• Cafés: Observe the flow of human interaction

• Public transport: Study how people inhabit shared spaces

• Parks: Watch how nature and human life intersect

• Your own home: Look at familiar spaces with fresh eyes

4. Keep an Observation Journal

Carry a small notebook and practice what Shari Tishman calls "open inventory" – listing everything you observe without judgment or categorization.

Don't worry about crafting perfect sentences. Just record what you notice. These raw observations often become the most authentic material for your writing.

5. Resist Immediate Interpretation

This is perhaps the most challenging part. When we see something, we tend to immediately categorize it or assign meaning to it.

Instead, try to delay that interpretation. First, just collect the details. Let the meaning emerge gradually, just as it did for Roberts' students with their paintings.

- - -

Start with what interests you most, and let your practice grow from there.

• Social media users scroll through 300 feet of content daily.

• Business professionals spend just 2.7 seconds deciding if an email is worth their time.

• Website visitors take only 0.05 seconds to form an opinion about a website.

Our brains make these split-second decisions for survival. It's hardwired into our DNA.

Think about it: for our ancestors, a rustle in the grass could mean wind—or a predator. The ability to instantly filter signals from noise meant the difference between life and death. This ancient instinct still drives how we process information today.

Every piece of content gets run through three rapid filters:

• Relevance: "Does this matter to me right now?"

• Value: "What's in it for me?"

• Time Investment: "Is this worth my attention?"

Miss any of these filters, and you've lost your reader forever. But hit all three? You've got their undivided attention.

The Power of Hooks 

This is the power of hooks in modern communication. Whether it's the opening line of your blog, the first few sentences of your LinkedIn post, or those initial seconds of your TikTok video—hooks determine if your message lives or dies.

A hook isn't just a catchy opening line—it's a psychological key that unlocks these ancient filtering systems. In those crucial first seconds, your hook must convince the reader’s brain that your message is worth its precious attention.

A well-crafted hook is the difference between content that gets ignored and content that gets devoured. 

7 Psychological Techniques to Help You Write Hooks That Command Attention

You've seen those opening lines that grab you by the collar and won't let go. The ones that make you forget your coffee's getting cold. 

Here are seven psychological techniques to help you write those: 

1. Create an Information Gap 

Remember the last time you couldn't stop watching a Netflix series? That cliffhanger feeling is called the curiosity gap, and it's like an itch in your brain. 

When Orwell opens '1984' with 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,' your brain instantly needs to know what kind of world has thirteen-hour clocks. 

The feeling of needing to know creates a psychological itch we have to scratch.

Example: "I spent 30 days tracking every second of my time. What I discovered made me quit my job." (Notice how your brain immediately wants to know what they found out?)

2. Trigger Loss Aversion 

Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman proved we feel the pain of loss more intensely than the pleasure of gain. It's why "Don't miss out" hits harder than "Join now." Our ancient brain sees missing information as a survival threat. 

When an article opens with 'Most writers make this common mistake in their first paragraph – and it costs them 80% of their readers,' you can't help but read on. Your brain hates the idea that you might be losing readers without knowing it.

Example: "While everyone's focusing on crypto, quiet millionaires are stockpiling something else entirely." (Your brain immediately fears missing crucial information.)

3. Break Expected Patterns

Your brain processes millions of inputs daily, mostly on autopilot. But when something breaks the pattern, your attention system instantly activates.  

It's why headlines like 'I built a million-dollar business by working one hour a day' stop your scroll. They break the ingrained pattern of 'success requires hard work.’

Example: "I used to believe hard work was the key to success. Then I met a lazy millionaire." (The contradiction forces your brain to recalibrate.)

4. Mirror Their Experience

We're all searching for ourselves in everything we read. 

When you read 'You've checked your phone 47 times today, and it's not even noon,' you feel exposed. Why? Because the writer just named a private behavior you thought only you had. This recognition of shared experience creates immediate connection. 

Example: "You know that voice in your head that says you're not good enough? Here's where it really comes from." (It works because it names a universal experience we thought was private.)

5. Demonstrate Social Proof 

We're tribal creatures. When a crowd looks up at the sky, you look up too. It's instinctive. 

Researchers found that hotel guests reuse towels 33% more often when told "75% of guests in this room reused their towels" versus generic environmental messages. Specific social proof hijacks our herd mentality.

Example: 'Tim Ferriss, James Clear, and Seth Godin all swear by this unusual opening technique in their newsletters.' (It works because we trust and want to follow what successful writers actually do.)

6. Challenge Common Beliefs 

Your brain builds mental models of how the world works. When something challenges what you think you know, it creates tension.

Like a buzzing mosquito, your brain won't rest until it resolves this tension. 

Example: "Everything you know about creativity is wrong. Beethoven's process proves it." (Forces you to question established beliefs, creating that must-resolve tension.)

7. Highlight Contrasts 

Our brains are wired to notice dramatic differences. Think about how a sudden plot twist grabs your attention, or how a dramatic before-and-after keeps you scrolling. In hooks, sharp contrasts create instant intrigue.

Example: "I was dead broke on Monday. By Friday, I had $50,000 in my account. The difference? A 3-minute conversation with a stranger at Starbucks." (The contrast between extremes - broke vs. $50k - makes your brain need to know more.)

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The difference between being scrolled past and being read deeply often comes down to those first few sentences. Write them with purpose.

Over 90,000 spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground hold their breath as this nail-biter of a match hangs in balance.

India needs 31 off 12. 

Haris Rauf, Pakistan’s pace beast, steams in to bowl.

Hardik Pandya on strike.  Just a single comes off the first ball. 

Another single.
Dot ball. 
One more single. 

The pressure mounts. India now requires a daunting 28 from just 8 balls.  

The ESPNcricinfo gives India a mere 3.1% chance of victory at this point. 

Virat Kohli takes strike. 

“I remember talking to myself,” Kohli later recalled. “'Come on, Cheeks,' I said. You have to hit two sixes. Nothing else existed for me at that moment. It was so clear. I didn’t know how but I just wanted to hit those two sixes”. 

Kohli is in his zone. He’s entered a state where nothing else exists but the task at hand. He isn’t thinking about the bowler's skills, the pitch, the dimensions of the ground, or even where to hit.

The odds are against him, but what happens next is nothing short of extraordinary. 

Rauf charges in again. The ball is back of length. 

Kohli, in a split-second decision, gives himself a bit of room, stands tall, and executes one of cricket's most challenging shots—a back foot straight six down the ground. 

The crowd erupts. 

This was the shot where the momentum shifted. This was the shot that eventually won them the game.

“It didn't come from thought,” Kohli reflected. “It came from something else that I can't explain. I have said this many times—I can't even claim this. I can't explain what happened or why. I've never been that present in my life. It was surreal.”

At that moment, his 20 years of practice came together. Every shot, every training session, every hour of dedication—it all led to this. Kohli's body knew what to do before his mind could think. He ‘let go’, and his cricketing instinct took over.

‘Flow’ State: The Secret of Extraordinary Performances

What Kohli experienced that day wasn't just luck or chance. Psychologists have a special name for it: they call it a “Flow state.” This idea was first introduced by a researcher named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 

He came up with this term when he found that sometimes, people get so caught up in what they're doing that everything else seems to fade away. Time flies by, self-doubt disappears, and they're completely focused on the task at hand.

This is exactly what happened to Kohli. He wasn't thinking about the pressure, the roaring crowd, or even his own technique. He was simply... playing.

The Brain on Flow: What Happens When You’re in the Zone

To understand what’s going on in our brains during these ‘Flow’ moments, John Kounios, a professor of Psychology at Drexel University, and his team studied 32 jazz guitarists, some highly experienced and some less-experienced. 

Why jazz musicians? Because improvising jazz requires creativity, skill, and the ability to perform under pressure.

The researchers put special caps on the musicians' heads to measure their brain activity while they played. 

What they found was pretty amazing. 

The findings reveal the creative flow state involves two key factors: extensive experience, which leads to a network of brain areas specialized for generating the desired type of ideas or actions, plus the release of control – “letting go” – to allow this network to work with little or no conscious supervision.

For Kohli, it would be the brain networks formed through countless hours of cricket practice.

The researchers came up with a name for this: the "expertise-plus-release" model. It's a fancy way of saying that flow comes from two things: being really, really good at something, and then being able to let go and trust in that skill.

Creating Your Own Magical Moments of Flow

So, how does this translate to writing? Let's break it down into practical tips:

1. Write Everyday:

• Build your expertise. Just as Kohli spent years perfecting his cricketing skills, writers need to hone their craft.

• As the study suggests, this isn't just about improving technique; it's about building those specialized brain networks.

2. Make It Meaningful and Challenging:

• Choose writing projects that are meaningful to you. As the research suggests, engage in activities that are meaningful to you, that you find challenging and for which you feel that you have the skills required to come out as a winner.

• Gradually increase the complexity of your writing tasks as your skills improve.

3. Create Your Flow Triggers: 

• Kohli had his self-talk ("Come on, Cheeks"). Find what helps you enter your Flow state.

• It could be a specific writing spot, a particular playlist, or a pre-writing ritual. These triggers act as signals to your brain that it's time to enter a flow state.

4. Learn to 'Let Go':

• This is perhaps the trickiest part, but it's crucial. Once you've built your expertise, practice withdrawing conscious control.

• Trust in your skills. Don't overthink. Let your writing flow naturally, just as Kohli let his instincts take over.

• Remember the words of jazz great Charlie Parker: "You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail."

5. Embrace Imperfection

• Give yourself permission to write badly. Sometimes, the flow comes after you've pushed through initial resistance.

• Use timed writing sprints to force yourself to keep going without stopping to edit.

By following these steps, you're setting yourself up for those magical moments of flow in your writing. It takes time and practice, but soon you might find yourself hitting those metaphorical sixes on the page, just like Kohli did on the cricket field.

It's just another day of observing the usual: whenever the monkey reaches for food, certain brain cells light up, making a distinctive crackling sound.

But this one fine day, something strange happens. “When I myself at one point extended my arm towards the nuts”, recalled Gallese, “the crackle occurred too—as if the monkey had moved. But it was only watching quietly.”

At first, they thought it was a glitch in their equipment. But the signal repeated every time the animal saw Gallese reaching for food. It was as if the monkey’s brain was in sync with the researcher’s brain.

“When an animal observes another's movements, the observer's neurons mirror the other's behavior. That's why we called them mirror neurons”, explained Gallese.

And just like that, with a reach for a snack and a curious monkey, a groundbreaking discovery was made.

More Than Just Monkey Business

As it turns out, we humans also possess these remarkable mirror neurons, and they play a crucial role in our ability to learn through observation and to empathize with others.

Have you ever wondered why you yawn when you see someone else yawn? Or why you find yourself tearing up during a heartbreaking scene in a movie, even though you know it's not real? That's your mirror neurons at work.

In humans, mirror neurons don't just fire when we see actions—they also activate when we read or hear about actions. For instance, read this sentence: “She scraped her long nails down the blackboard”. It’s very likely that you cringed (I mean, how could you not?).

That's because the same areas in your brain responsible for sensory and motor functions light up as if you were experiencing the action yourself.

This mechanism explains why we get so invested in stories, whether in books or on screen.

It's not just imagination – it's our mirror neurons allowing us to experience the world from someone else's perspective.

Brains in Sync: The Magic of Story

Now here’s where it gets really interesting.

Research by Uri Hasson at Princeton University has shown that during storytelling, something magical happens: the neural activity in the listener's brain begins to mirror that of the storyteller's brain.

As the story unfolds, the listener's brain synchronizes with the storyteller's, creating a shared experience that transcends the physical gap between them.

This “neural coupling” explains why we become so immersed in well-told stories.

Source

When you read about a character fleeing from danger, your brain reacts as if you're the one being chased. When the character triumphs, your brain's reward center lights up, releasing a hit of dopamine as if you've achieved the victory yourself.

Lessons for Writers

1. Show, Don't Just Tell: This age-old writing advice takes on new meaning in light of mirror neurons. By showing actions, emotions, and sensations rather than simply stating them, we give our readers' brains more to mirror and simulate.

Example: Instead of "Mike was angry," try "Mike's fists clenched, his knuckles whitening as he gritted his teeth."

2. Engage the Senses: Appeal to the senses in your writing. The more sensory information you provide, the more fully you can engage your readers' mirror neuron system.

Example: "The coffee's aroma filled the room, its warmth seeping through the mug into her cold hands."

3. Dive Deep into Character: The more we understand and convey our characters' inner worlds, the more opportunity we give our readers to truly connect with them.

Example: "Sarah's heart raced as she approached the podium, her mother's words echoing in her mind: 'You've got this, sweetie.'"

4. Mind Your Pacing: Consider the rhythm of your storytelling. Varied sentence structures and purposeful pacing can help maintain the neural synchronization between you and your reader.

Example: "He ran. Faster and faster. The forest blurred around him. Branches whipped his face. Still, he kept running."

5. Harness the Power of Novelty: Our brains crave new experiences. When we encounter something novel, our brain releases dopamine, encouraging us to pay attention. Use unexpected twists, unique characters, or fresh perspectives to keep your readers engaged.

Example: "The ghost rolled its eyes at the new family moving into its house."

6. Create "Neverlands": Transport your readers to what author Jonathan Gottschall calls "Neverland"—a place of imagination and mystery that's often more captivating than everyday life. This transportation, facilitated by mirror neurons, can make your stories truly unforgettable.

Example: “In this city, the Mood Police monitored every smile."

The discovery of mirror neurons offers us a glimpse into the biological basis of storytelling. It reminds us that writing is not just about words on a page, but about creating shared experiences that resonate deep within our readers' brains.

By understanding this neural mechanism, we can craft more engaging, empathetic, and powerful stories.

So the next time you sit down to write, remember: you're not just stringing words together—you're creating a neural symphony in your readers' minds.

During summers, I would read books, but the idea of writing—sitting down and putting my thoughts on paper—never occurred to me.

The idea of writing did come to me later in life, in my early 20s, as a defense mechanism. You know that phase in life where nothing seems to be working out for you? I had recently moved to a bigger city and had gone through a heartbreak. Life in this new city, away from my family, wasn’t ideal. And this is when writing found me.

I just took my journal and started writing whatever was in my head. There was no end goal or purpose—only the expression of what I was feeling. Writing became an enjoyable activity in and of itself.

In fact, there’s a word for this kind of experience: Autotelic. From the Greek “auto” (self) and “telos” (end)—an Autotelic is “something that has a purpose in, and not apart from, itself.”

I wrote about my insecurities, my resentments, my fears, my dreams—all on paper, all out in the open. Writing helped me make sense of the world around me, to process my emotions, and to quiet the noise in my head. And it worked. The more I wrote, the greater clarity of thought I got.

Over time, it gave me a sense of control over my thoughts, and more importantly, my life. I could identify the flaws in my thinking, detect patterns, and ease the anxiety from overwhelming thoughts.

Little did I know that writing would become a part of life. It was the only thing I felt truly capable of, the only thing I could contribute to the world with.

But somehow, writing for myself became writing for others. I wrote for cloud hosting companies that needed copy for their landing pages, for athletes who wanted to share their successes, for lice removal companies that needed 8 blogs for 8 different locations.

In the midst of all this, I lost that young boy who wrote in his journal just for the sake of it. Now, every piece of writing has a goal, an ROI attached to it. It could be lead generation, SEO ranking, or just personal recognition.

As someone who dedicates himself to the written word, I don’t mind this kind of writing as well. It’s my job. It’s what puts food on the table. And I do enjoy it (for the most part). The point is I miss the time when I wrote just for the sake of it.

I want to end this newsletter with a lesson from a different field: skateboarding. In one of his interviews, Rodney Mullen, the godfather of modern street skating, shared some profound wisdom. He said that that money, respect, admiration, or fans can’t be things that drive you.

He explains, “If you decide those things are why you’re doing what you’re doing, your days are numbered. Because all that stuff eventually fades to just static, and you’re left with you and what you do. I see people with talent all the time, but the one thing they don’t have is just that love for doing something for the sake of it. I have that. I’ve nurtured it in my life. And I think that’s been a key for me, of why I’ve been able to sustain this fire that’s so seemingly easily quenched. You know?”

Finding joy in what you do for the sake of it and keeping the fire alive—that’s the goal.

Dear Reader,

It's been a year since my last newsletter. I understand that you've subscribed but haven't gotten any value out of it in that time, and I’m sorry about it. 🙏

This past year has been crazy for me. I’ve been juggling a bunch of clients along with a full-time job, and the stress, the all-nighters, and the overwhelming workload became too much to handle. So, I had to put a pause on this. 😓

But things have changed. I have left my full-time job and have gone all in on freelancing. This means I can spend more time on this newsletter and make it better for you. 💪

What's more, I have also decided to broaden the focus here. I don’t want to limit it to just copywriting. I want to write about other facets of writing and explore how creativity, storytelling, and various areas in psychology intersect with writing. This will give me more scope to play around with and will hopefully benefits all kinds of writers, not just copywriters.

To reflect this new direction, I'm rebranding from “Psychology Meets Copywriting” to “Psychology Meets Writing.”

Here's a taste of what you can expect in the coming weeks:

• Psychology of Hooks

• Using Psychology to Create Complex and Believable Characters

• Finding the State of ‘Flow’ as a Writer

• Creating a Content Strategy with the help of Psychology Principles

• Battling Imposter Syndrome

If you feel like this doesn’t resonate with you, please feel free to unsubscribe. No hard feelings. Though I'll still have your email address... maybe I'll use it to send you random facts about the psychology of procrastination? (Just kidding... maybe. 😉)

I'm excited about this fresh start. I hope you'll stick around as we learn more about writing and psychology together.

Here's to new beginnings and better writing! ✨

Ahsan

Whether it’s a blockbuster in a packed cinema hall or a sales email, the idea is to make an impact on the audience. That impact could be entertaining them, educating them, or persuading them to buy a product.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that writing a Netflix show is the same as writing the landing page copy of a furniture website, but there are a few principles that apply to both.

This week, we are exploring some screenwriting principles that apply to copywriting.

This is going to be a long read, but please bear with me. So, let’s begin.    

The Opening Scene

Imagine the captivating opening shot of "The Dark Knight," where the Joker orchestrates a bank heist. This brilliant opening not only introduces the central conflict but also establishes the tone and sets the stage for the rest of the film.

Similarly, in copywriting, a compelling opening section grabs readers' attention and entices them to scroll down and read further. By addressing a pain point or presenting an intriguing question, you create an irresistible urge for readers to delve deeper into the story you're telling.

Show, Don’t Tell

A brilliant example of this principle comes from Anton Chekhov’s quote, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

We see this principle over and over again in films. In Fargo, the relationship between Margo, the protagonist, and her husband is effectively shown, and not told, to us.

There’s rarely any emotion expressed. But we know they care for each other by how they interact with each other.

This principle applies to copywriting as well. Instead of explicitly stating the qualities or benefits of a product or service, use storytelling techniques and descriptive language to vividly demonstrate their value. By showing readers how their lives can be transformed through your offering, you create a more immersive and persuasive experience.

Three-Act Structure

The three-act structure, comprising the Setup, Confrontation, and Resolution, is a staple in many films.

In copywriting, adapting this structure guides readers on a persuasive journey.

The Setup introduces a problem or need, captivating their attention. The Confrontation presents the features and benefits of the product or service, keeping readers engaged. Finally, the Resolution provides a clear call to action, urging them to take the desired step.

By following this structure, you create a well-rounded and engaging narrative that leads readers towards conversion.

Chekhov’s Gun

A variation of Checkov’s gun principle says, “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”

The movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ is filled with seemingly trivial details that turn out to be instrumental in Andy’s escape. For instance, Red gives him a Rita Hayworth poster to apparently help him cope with loneliness. But that poster had a greater purpose – hiding his escape hole.

In copywriting, every element should serve a purpose. Just as a gun shown in a movie must be used later, every word, sentence, or image in copywriting should be carefully selected to propel the narrative and support the central message. Each component should contribute to building interest, evoking emotions, and motivating readers to engage further.

The Bomb under the Table

There is no better creator of suspense in movies than Alfred Hitchcock.

He said, “Four people are sitting around a table, talking about baseball or whatever you’d like. Five minutes of it. Very dull. Suddenly a bomb goes off. Blows the people to smithereens. What does the audience have? Ten seconds of shock. Now, take the same scene and tell the audience there is a bomb under that table and [it] will go off in five minutes. Well, the whole emotion of the audience is totally different, because you’ve given them that information”.

In the timeless classic "Psycho," Hitchcock skillfully builds tension throughout the film, keeping audiences on the edge of their seats.

In copywriting, this rule translates into highlighting the potential negative consequences of inaction or missed opportunities. By emphasizing the urgency and illustrating the transformative power of the product or service, readers are compelled to take immediate action, fearing the repercussions of delay.

Hope you had fun reading!

Until next time. :)

Once I was done, I thought it would be quite relevant for other writers as well. So, I created a customizable Notion template that anybody can use. 🙌

It’s a very simple [and pretty basic] template, nothing fancy. Here’s how you can use it:

1. Go to the link here.

2. In the price box, simply write ‘0’ and click ‘I want this!’.

3. Enter your email address and hit ‘Get’.

4. Click on the template link and you’ll be taken to the Notion page.

5. Time for the fun part. Click duplicate and start editing. Play around with it and add your unique touch to it.

If you get stuck somewhere or need any other help, feel free to reach out to me.