They were immediately hooked, recounting racist incidents they had faced. Chen had engaged their attention, she says, but the emotion was all wrong. She was connecting but not inspiring. She retired the stories about Australia.
We all know that storytelling carries power in communications. But how to find the right story—one that doesn’t just grab people’s attention, but matches the marketing efforts, the data and the facts?
“What I ask myself is, “What do I want my reader or my listener to think, to feel, to do?’” Chen says. “I firmly believe, after working with so many leaders, that if you can move people’s hearts, you can move their minds and their feet.”
Here are a few tips:
1. Echo your hooks in your endings.
Like journalists with ledes, authors spend an inordinate amount of time writing the hook—the opening of a story or book. That’s because to sell a manuscript, you have just two minutes to grab an editor’s attention, Chen says.
But writers tend to pay less attention to the kicker. To give your work emotional power, echo the opening themes or images in the conclusion.
[RELATED: Join us for the Brand Storytelling and Content Marketing Conference at The Coca-Cola Company.]
“The endings amplify what you have set up in the beginning,” Chen says.
Example? She cites the farewell column by Rick Reilly, a former Sports Illustrated writer.
He opens the piece, “I am the son of a drunk, a man who was much too concerned with where his next whiskey was coming from than where I was going.”
After telling how he found a father figure and learned from great athletes, the conclusion amplifies the theme of fatherhood.
“Life's circles are funny, aren't they?” Reilly writes. “This Sunday, the U.S. Open golf tournament wraps up, but for once, I won't be there. Instead, for the first time in my life, I'll be home with my kids on Father's Day.”
“You see how it’s set up?” Chen says. “The hook: there’s a problem there. By the end, he has grown ... as a man. This is a writer. This is writing from the heart. This is self-revelatory. This is universal truth.”
2. Find your unique voice.
Voice is the first thing an editor will look at in a manuscript, Chen says.
“Does it sound real, authentic, like a person talking?” she says. “Or are you writing sitting behind jargon because it’s safer, because your leader believes in the jargon?”
She praises a charity fundraising site called The Adventurists for the dynamic tone in its “About Us” page:
What's this all about?
We're The Adventurists. Fighting to make the world less boring.
Our planet used to slap us about the face-cheeks with iron fists of adventure every day. Maps had edges to walk off. Men feared the monsters that swam the seas. Entire civilisations lay unknown.
But now, the entire surface of the Earth has been scanned by satellites and shovelled into your mobile phone tagged with twattery about which restaurant serves the best mocha-latte-frappeshite.
“If words could swagger,” Chen says, “these words would swag off the screen.”
She also notes a more subdued and comforting—but still successful—tone in the copy on a hospital’s website:
We know you have questions. What should you bring? Where will you park? When are visiting hours? How can you prepare your family for a visit? Everyone at CHOP is available to answer these questions and more so your experience with us is as comfortable as possible.
“If words could hug,” Chen says, “these words are embracing you.”
3. Metaphors speak.
When searching for a metaphor, Chen often thinks of the Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi, who said, “Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
The quote opens up metaphors in her mind, she says.
“Then I say to myself, ‘What three objects symbolize your career or life purpose?’” Chen says. “Be an owl. Be a compass. ... Be a beacon.”
4. Encapsulate messages in catchphrases.
Malcolm Gladwell is the master of coining catchphrases that capture an idea, Chen says. The tipping point, outliers and 10,000 hours are all concepts he thought of or developed.
Amy Chua seized the public’s imagination with the phrase “tiger mother,” from her book describing herself as a super-ambitious mother.
“What are the catchphrases that you have created to communicate the most important concepts in your company?” Chen asks.
One leader coined the phrase “Tamahagane grit,” from a super-strong kind of Japanese steel. She mentioned this in a speech, and the CEO said, “She’s right. We need Tamahagane grit.”
How about coining a few catchphrases of your own?
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