Cognitive Biases are a Writer’s Best Friend

Those poor human minds of ours are constantly tripping us up. We fail to see the forest for the trees; we allow wording to confuse us and our expectations to run away with us; once we know something, we underestimate how hard it is to learn; we let initial offers cloud our judgment as to how much something is really worth… But what if frailties like these are also the secret behind literary effects that delight us, surprise us, and console us? Could we learn to be grateful for the relatively harmless quirks of our cognitive apparatus? And in cases where those quirks are pernicious, could certain kinds of fiction chip away at them?