Tell Them A Story Before You Tell Them What To Do
Do What Others Aren’t Doing to Get More Readers
Writers on Medium and its publications, Quora, LinkedIn, and other text-based social media platforms love to tell us how to do things:
- How to write better
- How to make money
- How to get a boyfriend
- How to raise kids
- How to grow cucumbers
- How to recover from a divorce
- How to do X faster
- How to slow down
The list is endless. Readers respond well to “how to” until it becomes redundant. And much of the “how to” do this and that is redundant. Another word for “redundant” is boring. Readers don’t like boring!
I write a lot about writing. I’m interested in writing. I read what others say about writing and how to improve it. I read books about writing. I’m also bored with the same advice over and over.
“Nothing to read here. Move on.”
The Difference between Ho-hum “How-to-Write” and Wow “How-to-Write”
A how-to- write article that gets a “wow” has a personal story. Maybe a couple personal stories. Could include something humorous. Something contrarian.
And it has examples, I’m constantly surprised at how few “how to” stories have examples. Maybe we’re explaining the difference between “it’s” and “its,” so we include an example:
A(wrong): Bouncy, the cat, got it’s toy from under the couch. Its Bouncy’s favorite toy. B (correct): Bouncy, the cat, got its toy from under the couch. It’s Bouncy’s favorite toy.
Even in a piece about the boring Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), I used stories.
Yes, in an article about writing, I started with a story: why for years I had three copies of the latest edition of the CMS. It’s personal story and a bit odd. Why on earth would someone have three copies of same book? Odd catches a reader’s attention.
In the middle of the article, I told a couple stories about the Oxford comma including how the Oxford comma has its own Facebook page. Readers got a kick out of some of the information about the Oxford comma. Readers like to laugh.
My story about a boring manual for writers remains one of my most frequently read stories.
Yes, I’ve written some “how to write” stories without stories. Guess I was asleep when writing them. Maybe someday I’ll go back and add a story to them.
Stories grab your readers, especially if you get in a word or two about how you felt. Emotions play a key role in pulling readers in to read what you’ve written. The first paragraph is always your story.
Maybe you’re going to to write a story listing your top ten tips for training your dog. Instead of starting with the list, tell us something funny about your dog. Tell us something naughty she did. How it was easy or not-so-easy to train her. Now I’m in and want to read more.
You might argue that your readers are in a hurry. They clicked on this article because they need these tips before their dog ruins furniture, shreds three rugs, and bites the baby.
Assuming you’ve numbered your list or used bullet points, readers in a hurry know to scroll down to the list.
The next time you write a new story think first about a personal story that goes with your topic. Start with that. You’ll get more readers, responses, and claps.
