Do you have a great writing technique? Maybe you work on specific strategies, like building anticipation, or perhaps you focus more on packing your content full of emotion. Plenty of different techniques can improve your writing. Trying each out only makes you a better writer.
One writing technique spans all forms of writing, though, from persuasive copy that sells to advertisements that incite to stories that entertain.
It’s storytelling, and it’s a technique that works.
It Was a Dark, Stormy Night
You may not see the relation between a good story and your latest copy on a miracle cream or a sales pitch for a new gadget – but I do. A story worth telling captures interest right away.
One single sentence can set the mood in an instant. Make your opening statement pack a wallop. Grip a person from the moment he or she reads that opening sentence, and you’ll turn that individual into a reader, or even a customer.
Eyes are the Windows of the Soul
See deeper than words. Let readers look right into the soul of your writing – even if it’s boring ad copy. Every piece of content you write needs to have some sort of emotional impact that creates a bond between your words and your readers.
Pain. Suffering. Hurt. Challenges. Obstacles. In a novel, the suffering of characters creates a bond between them and the readers. In copywriting, conveying to people that the company knows and cares goes a long way.
Oh, No! What’ll They Do Now?
Building anticipation is crucial. Novelists need a page-turner, and copywriters need conversion. As you unwind your story of emotional trials, tribulations and obstacles, work on building anticipation to near-epic proportions.
Readers reach the pinnacle, the peak of the story or the crux of the copy. As a writer, you can tip them over the ledge (gently, of course). When you present the story’s climax or the problem’s solution, you’ll have readers eating out of the palm of your hand.
A Soft Place to Land
Let-down counts. Give readers that afterglow effect that lowers them from the peak of your writing into a state of fulfillment. That doesn’t mean leaving them with happiness – many a great novel and many a page of web content leaves readers with another emotion completely.
But it does leave them with the feeling that they got what they wanted. Their need for a solution, for a good story, for a great gadget or for entertainment was fulfilled. They are confident. They are complete.
And they’ll come back for more.
