A Scientific Turn in the Genre of How to Fiction Writing Manuals 4th Edition by Stefan Veleski

The last two years have seen the publication of two books in the genre of how-to fiction writing manuals that use science both as a selling point and as a genuine analytical par-adigm. The  Science  of  Storytelling  by  Will  Storr  and  The  Science  of  Screenwriting  by  Paul  Joseph Gulino and Connie Shears use insights from the cognitive sciences and evolution-ary psychology, while retaining their practical, how-to character. This review article goes through some of the main clusters of advice shared by the two books, dealing with infor-mation  processing,  attention  allocation,  the  implications  of  human  sociality  for  fiction,  and story structure, while fitting their takes on these issues within the fields of biocultural criticism and cultural evolution. Despite containing occasional flaws and confusions about theory common in pioneering works, these books could be harbingers of change for the genre and an important step in the bottom-up infusion of biocultural theory into literary studies.