Daily Lab: “The reader is the little car.”
Making it easier to drive through your writing.
If you want your prospects to read your marketing content, the author George Saunders has a trick:
Think of the reader like a little car.
Stay with me here.
According to Saunders, “The writer's task is to place gas stations around the track so that the reader will keep reading and make it to the end of the story.”
If the car runs out of gas, the reader doesn’t get out and walk through the rest of our writing—they go somewhere else.
So, what counts as a gas station? Saunders calls them “manifestations of writerly charm.”
Things like, “Bursts of honesty, wit, powerful language, humor; a pithy description of a thing in the world that makes us really see it, a swath of dialogue that pulls us through it via its internal rhythm—every sentence is a potential little gas station.”
Now, take a second and think of how many things you stopped reading already today because there weren’t any gas stations.
And now, think of the last marketing content you put out into the world. Were there pit stops?
Could your About page on your website have some extra “writerly charm”? Your emails? Your LinkedIn posts or newsletters?
We might not see ourselves as entertainers, but we should see ourselves as joyful guides.
People need to get through our marketing to get much out of it.
It’s our job to make the journey as fun as possible.
Join us on October 27th for “Outer Crisis, Inner Calm”
Participants will be guided through three sets of high-pressure scenarios, demonstrating how to apply emergency strategies to perform at your best, and lead your team at theirs, as things heat up.
Without burning out—or burning bridges—along the way.
Secure your spot today!
