Persuasion Should I Use a Story or Numbers or Both

I scrutinize a great book a date back called Made to Stick by Dan and Articulation Heath. In the book the authors talked about a check of different approaches to hoist chips for children; sick, underprivileged, starving children. The investigation used three different approaches.

The charity created one message requesting donations and talked about the literally millions of children who starve to death. The charity used numbers and statistics that were sickening in their magnitude.

In wider prayer the charity simply talked about one real little daughter. Her head was Rokia. The charity showed an actual picture of Rokia and explained her personal plight. The charity appealed for a write-off so they could feed Rokia and help maintain her healthy and clothed.

In the poll epic of the request for donations, the charity told Rokia ' s story and added the statistical information with well put together graphs and visuals showing the plight of millions.

Question: Which one do you think worked best and which worked the least best?

Answer: All of the requests resulted in a number of donations. The one that worked least well was the one that had both statistics and the individual story. The one that worked next best was the one with the statistics, numbers and graphs. The one that worked the very best was the story of the plight of one young girl named Rokia.

Why? We all know the power of the specific story. Aesop ' s Fables, Parables, Nursery Rhymes, all work because the story teaches. Stories grab us in ways that nothing else can because we were trained from an early age to pay attention to information wrapped in a story. Song lyrics, good song lyrics, are a short story. Many psychologists say that the story is a way for our wonderfully complex brains to retain information and retrieve it effectively. For hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors used stories to teach and persuade.

And, most importantly, stories appeal to our emotions. Emotions are necessary to our ability to make decisions. Most research done about decision making now shows that decisions are made based on emotions.

The statistics and numbers worked because we sometimes override our emotions and make decisions in ways that we think are rational.

Why didn ' t the combination of the two work better? Apparently, the part of the brain that responds to the appeal of the story is interfered with when we focus on numbers. When people are confused, suffering from interference, they don ' t make even simple decisions, like sending a small check to keep one little girl from starving.

Activity Triggers / Action Items:

1. Use short, true, specific, stories to persuade. Start collecting these stories on X date at X time.

2. Pare the stories down to their bare minimum while still maintaining enough specifics to appeal emotionally. Edit your stories on this X date at X time.

3. Always check your attempts at persuasion to make sure you are not using number based evidence and story based evidence together, canceling each other out.

Should You Start Your Story At The Beginning

In the beginning of the story, you devoir inculcate your main constitution and the basic plot of the story. The beginning of your story should grasp your tutor ' s attention. It has been oral that considering of the attention spans of people today, you have unequaled 3 - 5 seconds to capture their attention. That ' s not much time. For this reason, your first sentence essential be a powerful one - a hook, seeing we writers call it. It demand capture the tutor ' s attention so that they will want to hold back reading. A stupid first sentence or first matter will ok the orator tossing the book on the fast food or placing it back on the bookshelf. Obviously, that is not what we want. No matter how good your story is, if you fail to hook your preacher with your beginning, your story will probably go unread. Here are a few examples of good beginnings that hook the reader and immediately draw him into the story: Nothing ever starts where we think it does. So of course this doesn ' t begin with the vicious and cowardly murder of an FBI agent and good friend named Betsey Cavalierre. I only thought that it did. My mistake, and a really big and painful one. - Violets Are Blue, James Patterson Notice in this example, the author tells you that the story doesn ' t start where you think it does or even where the main character thought it did. This leaves you wondering where the story actually begins, as well as intrigued by the knowledge that you ' ll be helping to solve a crime. The New England woodcarver Jacob Adams was having a lean year - as lean and unprofitable, he thought, as if the Devil himself had a hand in it. If Jacob Adams had been born two hundred and thirty years later, he would simply have thought, Business is lousy. - Ghost Ship, Dietlof Reiche In this example, you, as the reader, are intrigued by the last sentence. Why would Jacob have thought differently at present than he would have 230 years later? What led him to believe that the Devil himself had a hand in his lean and unprofitable year? In just one short paragraph, you are left with questions that beg to be answered. Winter ' s chill hung in the air like thousands of polished silver shards, poised to fall soundlessly to the ground. A young woman stood in the midst of the chill, heedless of its potential to harm her, and motionless, as if simply breathing in and out was all she could manage. She remained there for quite some time, fighting visibly to keep herself upright. In time, she took a careful step forward, only to rest again, still breathing raggedly, still adding to the frost. - The Mage ' s Daughter, Lynn Kurland Again, the author begins in the middle of the story, leaving you feeling like you must read on to figure out what ' s happening. Who is this young woman? Why is she so weak? What happened to her? Will she be alright? Many new writers are under the impression that at the beginning of the story they have to spill out, in great detail, everything that they know about the main character and the plot of the story. Big mistake! This will cause your readers to feel as if you ' re simply throwing bits of information at them and expecting them to make sense of it. Character development and plot development can take place later in the story. It can be worked in as you go along. Don ' t give in to the temptation to deliver all your facts on the first few pages of your book or first few paragraphs of your story. If you do, you leave your reader with nothing to look forward to, and therefore, no reason to finish reading.