Psychology of the Reader

S23 Bonus – Evoking the Right Emotions in the Reader

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours. – The History Boys

Read More

S32E8 – The Debate About Trigger Warnings

I wondered, reading about the college discussions, whether, one day, people would put a trigger warning on my fiction. I wondered whether or not they would be justified in doing it. And then I decided to do it first. – Neil Gaiman

The idea that you have to be protected from any kind of uncomfortable emotion is what I absolutely do not subscribe to. – John Cleese

Read More

S32E7 – The Reader and the Fourth Wall

Hey! Yeah, you! I’m down here, busting my ***, while you sit on yours watching me jump around? How is that fair? –
Deadpool

Read More

S32E6 – How Tropes and Clichés Play Into Reader Psychology

Plenty of masterpieces are just one cliché after another, Mozart for example, but that’s quite natural, because if you think about it, two clichés that have met one another can beget the most original and profound effect. – Thomas Ades

Read More

S32E5 – The Psychology of Names and Sounds

Never trust a man with two first names, especially if one of them’s a woman’s. – Joel Hodgson, Mystery Science Theater 3000

Read More

S32E3 – Impact of Opinions on the Reader

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. – Brandon Sanderson

Read More

S32E2 – Reading to Escape

Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are. – Mason Cooley

Read More

S32E1 – The Mechanics of Reading

Consolation from imaginary things is not imaginary consolation. – Roger Scruton

Read More