“Prose is architecture. It’s not interior design.”

— Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning novelist

Study after study shows that when you add interesting, concrete details to your message, people remember them — sometimes to the exclusion of less fascinating, more abstract ideas.

But the power to attract may also distract readers from your main idea. If your “seductive details” don’t illustrate your key points, they can:

• Draw attention away from more important ideas (Luftig & Greeson, 1983)
• Disrupt text processing (Garner, Gillingham & White, 1989)
• Cause readers to forget the important information while remembering the interesting stuff (Baird & Hidi, 1984)

“Interesting but unimportant information frequently disrupts the learning of more important ideas,” writes Suzanne Hidi, associate member, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Centre for Applied Cognitive Science.

‘The seditious dealings of seductive details’

Indeed, say two researchers at Texas A&M University.

Ernest T. Goetz and Mark Sadoski reviewed the literature on “the seductive detail” and found these problems with that assumption.

So are readers being “bewitched by distracting details, bothered by incoherent text or bewildered by incomprehensible abstractions?” the researchers ask.

Not on your watch. Instead of adding irrelevant but colorful details, illustrate your important points with relevant concrete details. Make the important interesting, and people will remember your message — main points as well as colorful details — for far longer than if you bored them to death with important abstraction.

Avoid ‘Visual Vampires.’

Call these interesting but unimportant elements “Visual Vampires.” That’s PreTesting’s term for images that attract audience members in television ads but that don’t draw them to the product.

PreTesting is a Tenafly, N.J., company that gauges consumers’ reactions to ads by measuring their “saccadic” eye movements, or how fast their eyes vibrate.

Ads featuring men with wacky, red, pigtail wigs (Wendy’s), dogs wearing dentures (Citi) and an exotic woman stretching (Hormel) all grabbed attention. But they failed to keep it long enough to for viewers to read the copy or hear about the products.

Build an argument.

So take a tip from Hemingway. Ask, are your creative elements architecture, helping you build your argument? Or are they interior design, just putting wallpaper over your message?

If they’re interior design, they could be distracting readers from your key ideas. Instead, support your abstract, important ideas with concrete, interesting material.

Remember: It’s not enough to make your copy interesting. Our job is to, in the words of James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, “make the important interesting.”

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Sources: Suzanne Hidi, “Interest and Its Contribution as a Mental Resource for Learning,” Review of Educational Research, Winter 1990, Vol. 60, No. 4, pp. 549-571

Kenneth Hein, “Beware of Visual Vampires, Warns Measurement Firm,” Brandweek, Nov. 26, 2007

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My crotchety neighbor likes to quote his favorite philosopher, Anonymous:

“If a man speaks in the forest, and no woman is there to hear him, is he still wrong?”

For communicators, the question is a little different. David Murray, executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association, says:

“If nobody hears your strategic messaging, does it make a sound?”

The biggest risk in communications is not that we might offend someone with creativity or write something that’s eye-rollingly goofy. The biggest risk communicators run is that we never get heard at all.

How do we engage people and get them excited about our content? The key is to make our content more creative.

Whatever type of content you’re creating — from long-form blog posts to teeny tiny social media updates, from content marketing pieces to speeches, from web pages to white papers — you’ll create more successful content when you make it creative.

200 years of research

In the early 19th century, German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart said that interest leads to understanding, learning and memory — and even inspires readers to learn more.

For nearly 200 years, researchers, philosophers and communicators have seen the link between interest and learning.

One of those researchers is Suzanne Hidi, associate member at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education’s Centre for Applied Cognitive Science. In “Interest and Its Contribution as a Mental Resource for Learning,” she presents a research review on how interest helps people learn.

Interesting copy, according to Hidi’s review of the literature:

• Encourages reading and improves comprehension (Hidi and Baird, 1986)
• Increases understanding (Bernstein, 1955)
• Aids in learning (Hidi and Baird, 1986; Shirey and Reynolds, 1988)
• Helps people remember (Hidi and Baird, 1988)
• Helps readers to come up with fuller, better and more creative responses (Bernstein, 1955)

And that, of course, will dramatically increase your business success.

Why creative content writing? Because creative content:

1. Grabs attention.

Our readers receive the data equivalent of 174 newspapers a day — ads included, according to a study by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication.

How do they sort through all of that incoming to select the tiny fraction of pieces they’ll actually read?

They ask what they’ll get out of it versus what they have to put into, according to communication theorist Wilbur Schramm’s Fraction of Selection Model. (Or “expectation of reward divided by effort required,” in Schramm’s words.)

One of the key rewards of reading is entertainment. That’s another reason a high-quality content strategy includes creative content writing.

2. Keeps attention.

Creative material also keeps attention — through the piece and over time.

“Make the important interesting.”

— James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly

That’s one reason the entertaining feature-style story structure outperforms the boring inverted pyramid in study after study.

That means the communicator’s job is to “Make the important interesting,” says James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly.

3. Communicates better.

Some concepts you can only explain through creative writing techniques.

“Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.”

— Marshall McLuhan, communication theorist

For instance, former surgeon general C. Everett Koop once compared a sophisticated technique for correcting an undeveloped esophagus to “threading together two wet noodles in the bottom of an ice cream cone with your eyes closed.”

That’s a concept you can only communicate to a lay audience by using the creative technique of metaphor.

4. Enhances credibility.

People are more likely to believe information if it’s presented as an anecdote than if it’s presented as a number, according to Peg Neuhauser’s Corporate Legends and Lore.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

— Mark Twain

Why are stories more credible than statistics?

One reason is the Peer Principle of Persuasion: People connect with people. Readers find messages more readable, understandable and persuasive when you let a person stand for your point. That’s one reason human interest is so persuasive.

And why are statistics less credible than stories?

Your readers have learned not to trust every number they encounter. “There are three kinds of lies,” as Mark Twain said back in the day. “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

5. Lingers longer in the readers’ mind.

People are more likely to remember creative content than boring content.

One reason, according to Neuhauser: People process just plain facts in one way — intellectually, it goes through their brain. But they process the creative technique of storytelling in three ways:

1. Intellectually
2. Visually
3. Emotionally

That’s three ways readers can tamp it into their minds … and three ways they call pull it up later, when they want to remember the story and its point.

6. Gets shared.

If you want your message to get shared, you need to give readers something worth sharing. People are likely to share humor, stories and other entertaining elements.

People are most likely to share information, according to research by Chadwick Martin Bailey:

• Because I find it interesting/entertaining (72%)
• Because I think it will be helpful to recipients (58%)
• To get a laugh (58%)

But when was the last time you had some friends over for a pitcher of your signature margaritas, and you all spent the evening batting around a few good statistics?

If you want people to share, give them something shareable.

7. Slashes burnout, improves performance.

Content writers enjoy creating content that’s entertaining more than hashing out the same, old Ws and H again and again. That means they’re more likely to stay engaged with their work when they’re flexing their writing skills.

That’s a win-win for employers as well as communicators.

8. Sells products, services, programs and ideas.

As midcentury adman David Ogilvy said:

“Nobody ever sold anybody anything by boring them to death.”

Want readers to buy your Whozit or Whatzit? Choose creative content writing.

Learn more about creative content writing.

Find out about:

• A creative process for coming up with better topic ideas and other concepts
• How to optimize creative content for search engines and real readers
• How to write with description, wordplay and other creative techniques

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A hand shoots up in my Make Your Copy More Creative workshop.

“But,” the communicator says, “don’t you risk confusing people with wordplay?”

Well … yes, you do. And that’s part of the point.

When readers encounter wordplay, they first try on the literal meaning of the words. When that doesn’t work, they seek alternative meanings.

Because readers spend extra time and attention on wordplay (PDF), they understand it more fully and remember it longer.

And that’s just one benefit of wordplay. Among others:

1. Wordplay grabs attention.

Meet your Broca area — a small part of your brain located in the frontal lobe of your left cerebral hemisphere. It’s your body’s language control center.

You can thank your Broca for helping you sort through the 5,000 messages you get every day — that’s nearly 2 million a year — PLUS social media, without having to process every word.

Remember that old Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson?

What we say to dogs: “Okay, Ginger! I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage, or else!

What dogs hear: “Blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah.”

Your Broca is Ginger: not paying much attention to most messages — until something interesting comes along.

Well-worn phrases like “a rough day” are so familiar they don’t activate your Broca. Plain old splainin’ doesn’t do anything for it either. Why even bother decoding those words into meaning?

But puns and other wordplay activate Broca’s area.

Want folks to pay attention to your message (PDF)? Activate their Brocas with wordplay.

2. Wordplay is more fun.

Figuring out a pun is a little like figuring out a riddle or solving The New York Times crossword puzzle. It’s fun! It also feels good to figure out a twist of phrase.

Call it “the pleasure of the text,” the reward that readers get from figuring out figurative language. When readers discover the hidden meaning behind your wordplay, they congratulate themselves on their astuteness.

3. Wordplay feels good.

And when that twist of phrase tickles your readers’ funny bones, their brains deliver a dose of dopamine. Then, if you really crack up, neurons called spindle cells spread the joy across the brain.

4. Wordplay changes minds.

The good feeling readers get from figuring out puns and other plays on words also helps create a positive attitude toward your message. That puts readers in an agreeable mood and may even open their minds to your message.

In fact, ads using rhetorical techniques were 166% more likely to persuade readers (PDF) than ads that did not, according to two researchers from the California State University at Sacramento. They correlated ads with figurative language in Which Ad Pulled Best against results.

Move readers to act

5. Wordplay is more memorable.

“Words that roll off the tongue stay in the brain,” says Sam Horn, author of Pop!: Stand Out in Any Crowd.

Indeed.

Those two Sac State researchers also found that ads using rhetorical techniques were 229% more likely to be remembered than ads that did not.

And, in another study, four researchers had half their participants read alliterative passages and other half read plain-old passages. Those who read the alliterative passages remembered more of what they’d read than the control group.

Play to win.

Want readers to pay attention to, enjoy, remember and act on your messages? Try wordplay.

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Sources: “Awesome Alliteration Analysis Posits Power Of Poetry And Prose,” Scientific Blogging, July 30, 2008

Cristen Conger, “Is there a scientific formula for funny?” How Stuff Works, June 7, 2011

Francisco Javier Díaz-Pérez, “The use of wordplay in advertisements published in men’s magazines: a comparative study in the UK and Spain” (PDF), Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, 2012, vol. 20, pp. 11-36

David Glen Mick and Edward F. McQuarrie, “Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language” (PDF), Journal Of Consumer Research, March 1996

Stefan Kjerkegaard, “Seven Days Without a Pun Makes One Weak: Two Functions of Wordplay in Literature and Literary Theory,” Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2011

Gail Tom and Anmarie Eves, “The Use of Rhetorical Devices in Advertising,” Journal of Advertising Research, July-August 1999

Leo Widrich, “The Science of Storytelling,” Daily Good, Feb. 21, 2013

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