Can you tell a story in only six words?
That was the challenge posed to the legendary author, Ernest Hemingway, at least according to legend.
His answer was a resounding yes.
But not just saying he could, showing he could…
And in the most powerful, memorable, and poignant of ways.
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This is the six word story Hemingway is reputed to have written:
- For sale, baby shoes, never worn.
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I’ll leave a suitable pause to let your thoughts run.
Which is, of course, one of the great powers of a story:
To engage the emotions and the imagination.
I know you'll have been exploring the realm of the mind, wondering what could have happened to give rise to that minimalist tale.
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Why do I share the great Hemingway story?
It’s because one of the best ways to generate interest in your own work is if you can tell a brief story to capture it.
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Far too often, when people are asked what they do, they say:
- Well, it’s a bit of this, some of that, and a little of something else.
Which hardly cuts through, and helps people understand, engage and remember.
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Whereas a brief story to explain your offering is far more effective.
For example, with my company, Creative Warehouse, we say:
- All your communication problems solved with style.
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Which, I think (and happily I’m told) is far more effective than just saying:
- We create your key messages and turn them into websites, blogs, social media posts, news releases and pitches for work, as well as filming and producing your videos.
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Interesting, isn’t it?
The power of brevity, and leaving space for the imagination - classic storytelling - is far more effective than trying to spell out what you’re saying.
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But the Creative Warehouse words come nowhere close to the iconic story of a product.
For that, the gold standard, we have to travel back almost a quarter of a century, and to Apple (who else?)
Which brings us to the launch of the iPod.
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They could have talked about its memory capacity, and playback fidelity, and battery life, and size, and weight, and tried hard to impress with all that fact, data and detail.
But no. Not Apple, no way.
Instead, they simply said:
-1000 songs in your pocket.
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How about that for the story of a product?
So elegant, so beautiful, and so very effective.
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And so!
If you want to attract interest in your work, you know what you need to do:
Not go on and on and on, and then on and on some more at length about your offering…
Tell us a short and simple story instead.
