Didn’t your mother always tell you to “think before you speak?” Or perhaps, “think before you act?” If she did, it was for a good reason: speaking or acting on our initial impulses can get us into trouble. That’s because when we’re overwhelmed, signals to the amygdala – the part of the brain that  controls the emotions – bypass the rational, thinking part of the brain, called the cortex. And there’s a good chance we might say something we regret,  or act out in embarrassing ways. We might even become aggressive.

A college class I once took on writing the short story brought home how writers can use the same sequence to help readers understand the characters’ behaviors. One of our course textbooks was a thin but meaty volume titled, Scene and Structure, by the late author and screen writer, Jack Bickham. In addition to writing dialogue in stimulus-response style, Bickham emphasizes that characters’ responses should be written in a particular sequence: emotion, thought, action, and dialogue. It would seem Bickham was up on his neuroscience as well as fiction writing.

Here’s a paragraph I put together to exemplify Bickham’s suggested sequence: Juliana felt like crying. After years of hearing only rumors, the evidence was finally staring her in the face. She’d learned from a trusted staff member that Roland Jeffries had been skimming money from the orphanage’s operating funds. He’d cut the children’s food budget without notifying the board and allowed the dormitory beds to become infested with insects. She had only one message for the doddering old fool, and she couldn’t wait to deliver it. Dodging puddles along the dirt driveway, Juliana barged into the director’s office. She was met by chorus of dissonant pings as leaking rain water struck the strategically positioned pots and pans.

Jeffries had his feet on the desk, tie hanging loosely around his neck. He raised a finger. “Watch this,” he said. And he tossed a foam ball into a toy basketball net attached to a rusting file cabinet. “Three points!” he declared.

Juliana’s chest filled with rage. Firming her jaw, she crossed the floor, picked up the foam ball, and hurled it at him. Then at the top of her lungs, she yelled across his desk, “These children deserve better!”

Jeffries’s response would follow, then Juliana’s, etc.

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