Like Gum on the Bottom of your Shoe
Comments (0) Imagine writing a logline query so sticky that no agent or editor could forget it. Or creating characters and stories that stick in people’s minds like an annoying ad jingle. Ahhhhhhh…..Ok, I’m back.
Some ideas stick even though there is nobody blogging, tweeting, posting, facebooking, yodeling, or organizing any marketing campaigns around them.
The examples are all around us.
From Snopes.com:
Oh, and by the way, none of the above are true! Some from movies and TV stick in your mind like the theme from Gilligan’s Island. (wince, sorry.)
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Or from politics…
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Or even from fables…
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In their book, Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath examine the similarities across time, space, and media between short messages that “stick” and those that fade away. They suggest a stickiness test you can apply to loglines, hooks, concepts, characters or anything you want to stick like done spaghetti to a cabinet door. Since Made to Stick is a business book, they have a snappy mnemonic to help you remember the key elements that will make your message stick like gum to tennis shoes: SUCCESs! Woot!
Just for you, I’ve summarized some the key messages from Made to Stick and suggested ways to apply them to your writing.
| S | simple | Find the core of your story. What one single thing when told says volumes? Find your theme and distill it into a few words. To find it, they suggest answering questions like “The single most important thing in my story is….”, if I could only tell you one thing about my story it would be….”
The Heath’s use Southwest Airlines mantra “Southwest is the low cost airline” and James Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid” from the 1992 Clinton campaign. These two concepts unified their organizations. If we think literary, we find: “an orphan boy is really a powerful wizard” or “…the lion fell in love with the lamb.” These aren’t loglines for Harry Potter or Twilight, but they encapsulate the one thing core to the story. |
| U | Unexpected | We’ve all heard “same but different” way too many times! Take a known motif and twist it enough that it is still recognizable but new. This triggers our natural surprise reaction and makes us do a double take. Exactly what you want that agent to do!
The Heath’s use the examples from the anti-drug ads from the 80′s “…this is your brain on drugs,” an image of a frying egg in a hot pan, and the wild Southwest airlines flight attendant who tells her passengers that “while there may be 50 ways to leave your lover, there are only 4 to leave this aircraft!” The unexpectedness relies on taking something that is familiar and twisting it to capture attention. Kind of like sparkly vegetarian vampires and Harry Potter’s society within a society with many elements very much like our own such as the Ministry of Magic and penalties for underage flying. |
| C | Concrete | In a story, we create concrete moments with key details: an aching smile, a eggshell-pink china cup. The Heath brothers suggest that we take that a step further and ground the details in the specifics relevant to our audience. The more universal the detail the wider the message.
The Nature Conservancy, rather than just asking for donations to save protected lands, now ‘sells’ actual parcels in exchange for donations. While, Nordstrom does not tell it’s sales associates to “provide exceptional service” it tells them about the sales associate who ironed a customer’s shirt or accepted a customer’s returned tire chains (Nordstrom, a high-end department store, does not sell tires!). Unexpected and Concrete go together, the examples that I gave above from Twilight and Harry Potter are both unexpected and concrete. |
| C | Credible | You can imbue an idea with credibility by making it come from a respected source. The secret flights rumor above is more credible because it invokes the gravitas of the FBI. Hey, if the FBI says so… You can also increase the credibility by honing details or adding statistics. The seven year gum, for example, works partly because of the detail of seven, not “a few” years.
What the Heath’ s call the “Sinatra Test” comes from the song New York, New York when Frank sings…”If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” You know it’s true because New York City is specific and commands respect, and Frank knows what he’s talking about. But the stickiest way to make an idea credible is to make your audience the authority, as Wendy’s did in their 1980s ad “Where’s the beef.” Wendy’s used the common knowledge that most fast food hamburgers were small! We all knew that! |
| E | Emotional | For a message to stick your readers must care. One of the simplest ways to make people care is to create an association from your concept with something they do care about.
Ads for a single, named, and pictured starving child in Africa are effective because we all know children of that age. If you can make your message relate personally, that’s even better. Drive around your town and look at the poster board ads for examples like “You can be thinner in 5 days” or “Make $125,000/year working 4 hours a day from your own home.” You may not believe them but you recall them. These ads appeal to your desires and that’s emotional and personal. I’ll leave you with one that I love, the anti-littering ad scattered on Texas highways that speaks to our belief of the tough Texan: “Don’t mess with Texas.” |
| S | Stories | This one is more obvious for us. After all we write stories!
But studies show that when we read stories we create pictures in our heads, more than that, we create a sort of plot-pathway. When the stories we read are logical and consistent (i.e. draw a realistic path) we integrate them into our thoughts and remember them. We also recall the concepts far better. The story becomes lifelike. How lifelike is the magical world of Harry Potter? It springs to life, in part, due to the internal consistency and attention to detail that J.K Rowling applied to her world-building, coupled with her familiar and realistic plot elements. |
Made to Stick is a book for anyone who wants their message to stand out. I’ve only touched on a few of the useful concepts in this book. I encourage all of you to read it, and apply the message like superglue to your next pitch, logline, query, and manuscript.
Now go out and be sticky!
(initially published Jan 9, 2011 on SavvyAuthors.com column, Connect the Dots.)
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