If a book is full of vivid and somber events, it is more likely to attract more readers and be more commercially successful. The optimal structure for a bestseller was determined by scientists from Canada and the United States using computational linguistics methods.

People’s preferences and the factors that influence them are actively studied in modern science. Recent studies have shown that political views are most likely to change as a result of interactions with people in the immediate environment, and literary preferences, like appearance, are hereditary.

Playwrights already knew that the impression of a theater play or film is affected by unexpected plot twists – moments when the characters’ world is “turned upside down” (as in Romeo and Juliet, when they learn about the feud between their families or come to terms with life one step away from a happy ending). Such twisted stories are perceived as more attractive, while a “flat” narrative without plot conflicts seems meaningless.

Experts from the University of Toronto in Canada and Northeastern University in the United States studied the role of unexpected events in the plot using machine learning methods. Using language models, they analyzed how the popularity of stories of various formats among readers is related to the number of plot changes, as well as the intensity and nature of these changes (positive or negative changes in the lives of the characters). The results of the research were published in the journal Science Developments.

The authors of the article examined 3,713 films, 19,339 television series, 8,663 works of fiction and 1,133 crowdfunding offers aimed at attracting funding by telling the story of a project. The more plot twists there were in the story, the more successful the product was. For example, such books in the public digital library “Gutenberg” were downloaded more than twice as often, films and series received higher ratings on the IMDb platform, and crowdfunding offers were more likely to help their authors get money for the implementation of the project.

The amount of “hesitation” among content consumers increased from success and joy to sorrow and from joy to sorrow. Gutenberg users were 160% more likely to download books that had side-by-side plots that varied as much as possible in tonality than those with more “even” narratives. The researchers found a similar pattern in studies of movies, TV shows, and crowdfunding offerings.

According to the scientists, the results of the study point to the importance of feeling “emotional release” when reading a book or watching video content. It most likely occurs in response to unexpected plot twists.