Photo courtesy of mike warren
Note: This is a guest post written by Jonathan from the blog Illuminated Mind.
Everywhere I look, there’s another article about engaging your readers. (Kind of like a gopher popping its head up in an arcade game.)
But what does it really mean to engage your readers?
It’s not letting me edit my own posts.
It’s connecting with them in a way that’s meaningful and interesting. It’s giving them a reason to give a sh… I mean… care.
Good writing is like velcro. If you take a close-up look at velcro, you will see thousands of tiny little hooks on one end, and a mass of tangled loops on the other. When you stick the two sides together, all the little hooks get caught in the loops. What does this have to do with writing?
Your reader’s minds are the loops, your words are the hooks.
How do you hook people’s attention? The first thing you’ll hear belted out of peoples mouths is “know your audience.” I know, we’ve heard this a million times before. Quite frankly, I’m sick of hearing it myself. I think knowing your audience is important, but a little overrated. Knowing them has a tendency to stop making a difference if you can’t give them a reason to stay, or at least bribe them with a fudgsicle.
So here’s what you can do to make them stick:
- Say the same thing twice. A lot of writers will tell you to vary your words. Don’t use the same descriptor twice. But sometimes there’s a need, and an obvious benefit, to saying the same thing twice. The benefit is getting people to pay attention and showing them that whatyou’resayingrighthere is important.
- Be wrong. Take a contrarian point of view. Reject the popular opinion. But don’t be wrong just for the sake of being wrong. Be “wrong” because you know that being wrong is really right.
- Be true. It’s easy to get caught up in writing things for the sake of popularity. We want 10,000 people to read our article. Then we reach 10,000 and we want 50,000. We start to shape our writing based on popularity and then what happens? People lose interest. Remember that people started to read your writing because you are passionate about it. Sometimes you need to give yourself a reality check, especially before you sell out.
- Show them you care. Tell them your story. Give them reasons why their problem is the same problem you’ve dealt with before. Let them know that you’ve been there. You haven’t just read the map, you’ve traversed the terrain.
- Make it real. Have you ever noticed that most blogs you frequent, most ideas you’ve remembered, and most of the things you care about, have a story related to them? Find a way to tell a story about the idea you’re trying to convey. If you don’t have a story of your own, borrow one from someone else.
- Tell them to pay attention. Sometimes being direct is the best way to get people to pay attention. Sometimes you just have to tell people that this-is-important.
- Be obvious. Don’t make them search for the meaning. Make them think, and they’ll love you. Make them confused and they’ll want their money back. It’s not a bad thing to make your readers curious, but at some point you have to satisfy that curiosity.
- Alarm them. Shock and amaze your readers with a dazzling story of immense proportions. Surprise them with a twist they never could have seen coming. Swerve, u-turn, hover, and flip. But make it relevant. Special effects can be stunning, but are nothing without good content to back it up.
See how many of these hooks you can use in your writing to engage your readers. The more of these you can weave into your words, the more you’ll make them stick (and keep them coming back for more).
PS: I found this really cool site called Letter Whiz the other day. It has a bunch of free templates for letters, as well as a great resource for finding quotes to use in your articles.
This post was written by Jonathan Mead from the Illuminated Mind. For more sticky ideas, follow him on twitter.
17 Comments, Comment or Ping
QuietRebelWriter
Great list. I have used the repeating tactic to great advantage - especially since our brains are so fried from oversaturation, reliance on skimming, etc. It’s also refreshing and surprising at the reactions that can come from genuineness and honesty in writing. Perhaps since so much out there is manufactured and artificial, the opposite is like a message from the gods.
Thanks!
Oct 1st, 2008
Patricia
Guess I am a terrible hook, or eye or velcro or tie…
I am just driven to write and write and write…get few comments and a few more subscribers…no pay
I just keep writing and writing and writing….and then I think if you just keep doing the same old thing you get the same old results…I change my writing and I keep on writing and writing and writing.
At my age, I am beginning to believe my sister - “no one wants to read or hear anything you have to say…”
I just keep writing and writing and writing…
Oct 1st, 2008
Your Friendly Neighborhood Computer Guy
Great list! I think, however, that if one uses all of these all the time, your readers start becoming numb to them and they have less effect. One thing to keep in mind is the art of using these tools sparingly, to keep your readers engaged and guessing.
Oct 1st, 2008
Mary Jaksch
Hi Jonathan!
A super post from you - as usual! The image made me laugh out loud. When I write my next post, I’m going print out this list and put it on my desk to remind myself. I think I sometimes get too self-absorbed in the process of writing, and don’t think of the readers.
Is that good or is that bad??
Oct 1st, 2008
writer dad
I know my audience, but it’s not always the readers. Often, I write to a specific person. This gives my writing a power or humor that I can’t always otherwise attain.
Oct 1st, 2008
Eugene (Editor, Varsity Blah)
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” – George Orwell
Oct 1st, 2008
J.D. Meier
A massive tangle of little hooks. I like it.
I think your point on make it real hits home because a sticky audience is about connection.
Oct 1st, 2008
Jonathan Mead
@ Writer Dad: I often write with my wife in mind, when I write about personal development. It helps a lot because she doesn’t read self-help books or personal development blogs. It forces me to write for someone without assuming they know anything in regards to what I’m writing about.
Oct 2nd, 2008
Mary Jaksch
Hi Patricia!
I visited your blog and really liked it. I left a comment and subscribed.
Keep on writing!
Oct 2nd, 2008
Mary Jaksch
Hi Eugene! That’s a powerful quote by Orwell.
I think it’s true. For example, if I want to express to someone that I love them, I’ll do that very simply. I might just say, “I love you.”
But if I need to explain to a disappointed acquaintance why I didn’t ask them to my birthday party, it would get more complex, because I don’t want to hurt them.
So, I might not say, “Oh, Geoffrey - you bore to tears, and so I don’t want you anywhere NEAR my birthday party!” :-)
I might say something more long-winded.
In terms of writing an article, Orwells words might mean that we stick true to what we believe, and don’t pretend to be or believe anything else.
Oct 2nd, 2008
SpaceAgeSage -- Lori
“Let them know that you’ve been there. You haven’t just read the map, you’ve traversed the terrain.” — This draws me to writings and blogs the most.
Great photo!
Lori
Oct 3rd, 2008
Mary Jaksch
Hi Spaceagesage!
‘To traverse the terrain’ before we write about it -that’ a very important point. It a similar one to a point that I found arresting in the WTD interview with Steve Pavlina: that we have to put ourselves into our blogging.
I sometimes think that bloggers do that to excess. I recently read all about a blogger’s breakup with their partner. I would never do that because I would see that kind of exposure as unfair towards my ex.
And I’m not the kind of person who’s going to stream out a 24 hour handycam video of my life - dirty knickers and all.
…Even if it did make my readers stick like velcro :-)
(Jonathan: what an inspired post title!)
Oct 3rd, 2008
Jamie Simmerman
“Say the same thing twice”, huh? I’ll have to think on that one. I might be able to think of a few situations where that might work. Thanks for planting the seed!
Oct 4th, 2008
Tumblemoose
Hey, how about whacked out imagery?
Holy crow, the pic on this post cracks me up. Makes me want to ask if his parents had any children that lived.
Unique perspective on sticky, too. I’ll incorporate a few of these on my next post!
Cheers!
George
Oct 7th, 2008
Patricia
Mary,
Thank you for subscribing to my blog and saying that you liked it…music to my ears…
I am just back from doing a workshop in Hawaii to make some money to keep going…it was too hot/dripping hot/ and the crisis the islands are in over food and petroleum is scary, scary….I think the island canary is dead and they are right at a brick wall. I was so overwhelmed I have come home very ill - trying to make sense of it all and all that I learned.
I will be putting some new info on my blog about my learning…
Traveling to do a workshop is not as much fun as writing….and I am not sure I truly broke even.
Oct 14th, 2008
Jun Loayza
My favorite tip is to “be wrong.” It’s so counter intuitive and so useful!
I had the opportunity to interview Jonathan for FDTV
You can check out the interview here
Hope that everyone enjoys the interview and I look forward to feedback
- Jun Loayza
Nov 26th, 2008
Reesa
I started reading this solely because of the title. What you said was a big hook to my loop of a love of writing. Very humorous and very true!
Jan 13th, 2009
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