A Writer's Brain

Paula looks at how writers use different parts of their brains

Recently, I read an article about how writers use their brains, and here is my summary of the findings.

To begin with, the researcher and his team asked 28 volunteers to simply copy some text, giving him a baseline reading of their brain activity during writing.

Next, he showed the volunteers a few lines from a short story and asked them to continue it in their own words. They could brainstorm for a minute, and then write creatively for about two minutes.

The researchers found some regions of the brain, inactive during the copying session, became active during the creative process. During the brainstorming sessions, the vision-processing brain areas of the volunteers became active. It seemed they were visualising the scenes they wanted to write.

Other regions became active when the volunteers started jotting down their stories. It was possible that one region, the hippocampus, was retrieving factual information that the volunteers could use.

Another region near the front of the brain, known to be crucial for holding several pieces of information in mind at once, also became active as well. Juggling several characters and plot lines may put special demands on it.

However, this study was limited. The volunteers had no previous experience in creative writing.

The researcher decided to repeat the tests with full-time writers to see if their brains responded differently. He recruited 20 writers who were taking a creative writing programme at a University. They took the same tests and the researchers compared their performance with the novices.

What’s interesting is that the brains of experienced  writers appeared to work differently, even before they set pen to paper. During brainstorming, the novice writers activated their visual centers. By contrast, the brains of expert writers showed more activity in regions involved in speech.

The researcher concluded that the two groups were using different strategies. The novices were watching their stories like a film inside their heads, while the writers were narrating it with an inner voice.

Once the two groups started to write, another set of differences emerged. Deep inside the brains of experienced writers, a region called the caudate nucleus became active. In the novices, the caudate nucleus was quiet.

Evidently the caudate nucleus plays an essential role in the skill that comes with practice, including activities like board games. When we first start learning a skill, we use a lot of conscious effort. With practice, those actions become more automatic. The caudate nucleus and nearby regions start to coordinate the brain’s activity as this shift happens which suggests the experienced writers were using skills they had already learned.


This article intrigued me. I’ve heard other writers talking about how they see their stories being ‘acted out’ in their mind’s eye, rather like a movie, but I’ve never been able to do that. Yes, I can see my characters, but when I write, I’m not watching the movie. Instead, I’m playing a part in the movie, and seeing it through the eyes (and other senses) of whoever’s POV I happen to be in at the time. Maybe that’s what the researcher mean by ‘narrating it with an inner voice’.

I can relate to the hippocampus retrieving information, and also to the area of the brain that juggles the plot! The caudate nucleus is interesting too, as it presumably includes basic skills such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation, as well as the other skills we use when we write, including our vocabulary, and the various others things we’ve learned about what to do and what not to do!


Has this made you analyse how your brain works when you’re writing?