Mirror neurons are the writer's secret weapon
As precise and potent as a Japanese kendo master's wooden sword
You know the feeling: somebody smiles, and you can’t help smiling. You see a face contorted in pain, and a grimace contorts your face too.
Not only is your face mirroring that other face; there’s a shift in your internal weather. With the smile comes a little jolt of happiness, like a shaft of sun breaking through clouds. Nothing in particular may have happened to make you happy, even though it’s always good to see more happiness in the world, so the happiness you’re feeling is not actually your own; it’s an echo of that other person’s happiness. Same with the grimace: there’s a vague sensation of discomfort, like a cold wind blowing at you. You feel like you feel when you’re in pain, even though you aren’t.
This doesn’t happen when someone tells you they feel happy or they feel pain—let’s say, over the phone. But when you see the effect on their body, your mirror neurons kick in and literally cause your body to mirror theirs. Not just externally: you feel that ray of happiness, or that vague sensation as if you’re in pain, because your body releases hormones that mirror the hormones their body is releasing.
When you’re given information, your rational intelligence processes it and makes a decision to act: say something, do something to share (or perhaps undercut) the happiness, or alleviate (or increase) the pain. If you watched yourself back on video, you’d probably see little difference on your face. But when you’re in the physical presence of that other person, smiling or contorting in pain, your response is not rational. Maybe you’d call it intuitive, or instinctive. The sensation is catching; it feels like your body has outpaced your brain. In fact, your mirror neurons and the chemical system of your body and brain have outpaced your rational mind.
Why is this the writer’s secret weapon? If you’re writing fiction, your reader doesn’t even inhabit the same reality as your characters! Memoir brings you a bit closer, but you’re still a long way apart in time and circumstance. Answer: because with your words, you can conjure your characters’ physical body, their physical sensations. And your reader’s mirror neurons will respond, echoing the emotion those physical sensations convey.
If I tell you I’m anxious, you might think, hmm, I wonder why she’s anxious, or you might think, snore, why should I care? What happens if I tell you I’m so anxious that my foot won't stop twitching and I feel like ants are crawling on my upper arms? You still might not care that I’m anxious, especially if you don’t even know me, but do you feel a shadow of my anxiety? Even a little twinge of uneasiness?
I’m actually not anxious right now. I just remembered what it felt like when I was, and jotted down a few details. Obviously, it would be a lot more powerful if embedded in story.
And when I say “I remembered what it felt like,” it wasn’t memory of bodily sensation. It was memory of feeling that emotion, then allowing that emotion to be present in me as I sit here, then focusing my attention on the parts of my body where sensation was most intense.
This, too, is research, just like looking up what undergarments people wore in the 18th century or how many hours it takes to drive from Des Moines to LA.
Do this research for points in your story where the character (you, if it’s a memoir, or any character in a novel) is feeling an intense emotion. Close your eyes, remember a time when you felt that emotion yourself, and bring the emotion up in your body as powerfully as you can. Grab your notebook and describe how your body feels: head to feet or feet to head, core to fingertips and toe-tips or digit-tips to core. You may notice physical sensations that you've never paid attention to before: the set of your shoulders, the skin behind your ear, some part of your body that feels unexpectedly heavy or buoyant.
This exercise should give you plenty of material to choose from. You may not want to use everything; maybe one intense detail will do.
And what about the wooden sword of the kendo master?
It’s not the real thing, just as the words you write are not the real body. It’s the image of the thing, as your words create an image of the body. The precision of the master’s movements drawing patterns in the air is the specificity of your words building a person in your reader’s imagination. The involvement of the master’s whole body, each muscle working in synchrony to create balance and grace, is the involvement of your whole body synchronizing sensations to create an authentic, dimensional, mirror-neuron-triggering reality.
And even better: your reader isn’t fighting back.