How Great Writers Move People
Your only goal as a writer is to make me feel something
People don’t buy products. They buy things that make them care. They buy experiences that transform them into better versions of themselves.
Your goal as a writer is to leave them feeling transformed.
People don’t take action because they want to. They take action because, in a given moment, they felt compelled to do so.
Your goal as a writer is to win that moment and leave them feeling compelled.
People don’t like, share or respond to articles that tell them what to do. They are moved by articles that they relate to — words that make them relive moments of the past or help them surface vulnerable emotions of the present.
Your goal as a writer is to arise that feeling of vulnerable relation.
Your only goal as a writer is to make me feel something.
Draw me in with that first line and leave me walking out with the last feeling inspired, empowered, enlightened, or entertained.
Great writers move people by changing how they feel.
Here are three pillars to remember any time you find yourself facing a blank sheet of paper about to begin writing.
1. Tell Me Why I Should Care
Your article shouldn’t read: “Here’s what my article is about” — no one cares what it’s about. It should read: “Here’s what my article can do for you.”
As a writer, you are in the service of others. You use the art of words to express meaning, send out a message and create a movement.
You are a giver and your medium of exchange is words.
The only way you’ll get me to take an action is by stirring emotion in me.
If you want me to get angry, make me feel like I want to grab a chair and break it. If you want me to be inspired, make me feel like I am powerful beyond measure. If you want me to believe in myself, make me feel like I am capable of change.
Draw me in with a promise of what your words can do for me and then let them move me in that direction.
Give me a reason to stop all distractions and continue reading your story. To stop and listen to your song. To stop and learn more about your product and where it could take me.
Tell me why I should care. Tell me how you will make my life better.
If you succeed, I will feel something — I will be moved and you will be remembered.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou
2. Make Music, Not Noise
Less is more.
If you can deliver your message in 500 words why waste your energy and mine on an extra 1,000?
Anything that doesn’t serve the plot has to go.
You’ve told me why I should care and you’ve won my attention — don’t lose it.
In every new line you write, you’re either serving the reader value or you’re descending into irrelevance. You’re either making noise or making music.
Music evokes feelings, noise creates chaos.
Stay focused on the message you want me to hear.
3. Communicate It As A Story
The brain doesn’t know how to process complex information — the simpler the communication, the easier it is to digest.
“When having to process too much seemingly random information, people begin to ignore the source of that useless information in an effort to conserve calories. In other words, there’s a survival mechanism within our customers’ brain that is designed to tune us out should we ever start confusing them.” — Donald Miller
Here’s an example.
In 1983, Steve Jobs launched Apple’s computer, Lisa, with a nine-page ad in the New York Times. Nine-pages(!) listing and elaborating on all the technical specs and features of the computer.
What happened?
The launch failed and Jobs was fired.
Those nine pages evoked no emotion. People felt nothing — so he wasn’t able to move them.
But he learned a valuable lesson that will transform his career later on — people don’t want to buy products for their features, they want to buy better versions of themselves — they want to be transformed.
Similarly, people don’t want to read articles that tell them what to do, they want stories that evoke emotion and make them feel compelled to move, act, grow — become someone greater — as soon as they are done with that last line.
They want to be presented with a promise and offered a path they can follow to attain it. Your goal is to make them feel like it’s rightfully theirs to take.
Years later, when Jobs returned to Apple, the first campaign he released was cut from nine pages to two words.
On a billboard, the ad read: Think Different.
The two words that changed the world.
Think Different.
Your only goal as a writer is to make me feel something.
Once you’ve mastered that and you’ve managed to do it consistently — well, then you’ve become a master storyteller; and storytellers are the people who’ve figured out the two biggest hurdles aspiring writers, singers, speakers, branders, and filmmakers face:
- How to keep an audience’s attention until the end?
- How to make them feel something so powerful that they decide to take action (share my article, clap for it, leave a message, sign-up to my email list)?
The Three Components of Great Stories
The best stories are the simplest to understand. They express vulnerability. They embody a human-like conversational tone. They are short, straight to the point and void of unnecessary confusing details.
“A story is a sense-making device. It identifies a necessary ambition, defines challenges that are battling to keep us from achieving that ambition, and provides a plan to help us conquer those challenges.” — Donald Miller
You want me to feel something? Tell me a story that resonates with me.
- Give me a promise — tell me where you want to take me.
- Relate to my vulnerable challenges — speak to me and show me that you understand me.
- Move me forward — give me a plan to crush those challenges and reach that promise.
Tell me a story that resonates with me. It can be about you — but I need to be part of it or at least, relate to it. So if it’s all about you, and it doesn’t tell me why I should care or how you will make my life any better, then you’ve lost all my interest, my attention and thus, the ability to make me feel something.
This is my best performing story on Medium.
It gives readers a promise — “the real truth about entrepreneurship”. It’s vulnerable in that it relates to their challenges and shows them that I understand their struggles — I used “we” for inclusivity. And it leaves them with a message of hope to rally them forward — “I’m here to encourage you to take that leap of faith.”
So many readers shared that article on LinkedIn and Twitter. I received a message from a reader and it read: “I could see myself in several of your points. It’s spot on my experiences as well.”
People saw themselves in my words. They related to a story that moved them enough to feel something from it, and so they shared it with their friends and, in doing so, became my fans.
Writing Is An Art
What matters is not what you say, but how you deliver it, and how that makes someone feel as he or she reaches the last line on the page.
Writing is an art, and the greatest artists are those who moved people.
Picasso moved us with his paintings, Michael Jackson with his music, and J.K. Rowling with her imagination and stories.
Make people feel something with your words, and they will be moved. That’s how you become a great writer.
