The keys to success of a story are to evoke the emotions of curiosity, surprise, and suspense, as well as disgust or ingroup-outgroup hatred, and for its parts to fit together into a coherent structure

A very good summary of the little understood field about what determines whether a story catches on or survives over time. From The Theory of Narrative Selection by Sarah Perry.

Friggeri et al. (2014), studying rumor cascades on Facebook, found that while only 45% of the rumors covered on Snopes.com (the famous urban legend debunking site) are false, 62% of the rumors shared on Facebook were false. 26% of the stories on Snopes are labeled true, while only 9% of the rumors shared on Facebook were true. False stories seem to enjoy an advantage at the outset.

Interestingly, however, the few true stories that were shared had longer “rumor cascades” of subsequent shares than false stories (an average of 163 shares per upload for true stories, vs. 108 for false stories). Unfortunately, being “Snoped” (a user commenting on the rumor with a link to Snopes) does not seem to hinder virality much; over half of the shares of false and mixed items occurred after the item was Snoped.

If the keys to success of a story are to evoke the emotions of curiosity, surprise, and suspense, as well as disgust or ingroup-outgroup hatred, and for its parts to fit together into a coherent structure to produce these emotions, then the truth is limited. A true story is heavily constrained: it must have a source in events in reality, and its elements may not change.

Very interesting. 62% of Facebook shared news (rumors) is false? Quite high. True stories are more shared. Hmmm.

Here were my take-aways from the research. These are the elements that increase the chances a story will be shared across the population and over time.

Integrated structure of the story.

Narrative elements that are counterintuitive enough to be interesting and memorable, but not so counterintuitive as to lose coherence.

Stories that evoked disgust were more likely to be shared, and the more disgusting, the better.

Evoking the emotions of curiosity, suspense, and surprise were crucial to viewers enjoying stories, and perceiving them as stories.

The fit between all the elements of a story, and not those separate elements themselves, underlies success and memorability.

Establishing the goodness of the ingroup and the badness of the outgroup.

The dynamic of story transmission varies depending on whether it is vertical (from respected and admired sources) or horizontal (affiliative peer groups). Horizontally disseminated stories have greater potential for harm than vertically disseminated stories. (Importance of trusted sources)

Summary

If the keys to success of a story are to evoke the emotions of curiosity, surprise, and suspense, as well as disgust or ingroup-outgroup hatred, and for its parts to fit together into a coherent structure to produce these emotions, then the truth is limited. A true story is heavily constrained: it must have a source in events in reality, and its elements may not change.