Is your Day divided into the Chapters of a Book?
Your brain splits your day into Chapters
Researchers at Columbia University, who were studying the brain and how it works, discovered that your brain divides time. The brain uses key events in a day, to divide your day, just like the chapters of a book.
Is that not just fascinating and what would it mean for us as writers? Our brains are capable of splitting time into sections, filled with specific incidences, places and events. It would be fascinating if we tried to write our day into the chapters of a book and see how it unfolds.
Therefore, writing and creating chapters from the time we awake from sleep to the time we lay down our heads to rest at night, could be broken into chapters of a book. This would be the probable format of a book of a day lived by any person, no matter where they were in life and whatever work they did. It would begin with getting up from sleep, ablutions, breakfast, the first three chapters or they could be two chapters. The next fourth chapter would be about getting ready for work and stepping out.
The fifth chapter could be about getting public transport, walking or driving to work. The sixth chapter in the book of a day would be arriving at work, sitting at your desk at attending to whatever work that needed to be done. The seventh chapter would be about lunch and interacting with friends and colleagues. The eighth chapter of your book in a day would be the after and early evening at work. The ninth chapter would be about travelling back home. The tenth would be having dinner, and relaxing with family or friends. The eleventh chapter could be getting into bed. There you now have the eleven chapters of your “Book of a Day”, as created by your brain.
Perhaps, using the same principle, you can create the next chapters of your book, with a beginning where the hero prepares for the journey, the Hero sets off on his or her quest, after being given a mission. The Hero faces challenges at work and overcomes them. After a resolution is achieved, the Hero returns home, exhausted after a busy day at work and goes to bed, having completed his mission, saved the day and transformed himself into a better person. This is very similar to the person who goes out every day to work and returns, having been transformed by his or her life experiences. What do you think about this pattern of the brain dividing the day into chapters and about your life as a writer, writing a novel or a story?
Study reveals the brain splits the day up into chapters like a book
