In a fascinating new study, researchers use machine-learning techniques to analyze 1,327 literary works — including “Romeo and Juliet,” “Frankenstein” and Harry Potter — and reveal what exactly it is about popular stories that makes us love them most. The idea of graphing the emotional arc of popular stories is not a new one. Words such as “death,” “rape,” “cancer” and “die” rank at the bottom of the scale, while words like “love,” “laugh” and “happiness” are at the top. But analyzing the emotional arcs very broadly, they found that there were six types that fit 85 percent of the books they had analyzed, Reagan said. People love that story!

Source: Washington Post November 25, 2016 12:04 UTC