SKILL TO LEARN
Have you ever read or heard a line that felt electric? Things like...
“All that we are not stares back at what we are.” -Keith McNally, I Regret Almost Everything
“When your love for a person is so profound the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, your skin. -Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful
“A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else. -Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
These sentences bend language. They hit you emotionally and physically, turning into a mantra, an earworm, a worry stone you keep palming over and over again in your mind.
Great insights are like that too. Electric. Sticky. Sharp like a razors edge.
Stringing together words in this manner is hard, but, worthwhile. Well-written insights immediately inspire. They get clients excited about what the creative work may look like, and get Creatives excited about what they could make.
That said, beautiful language cannot compensate for an empty idea. It’s not enough to sound good. It has to mean something. The trick is being clear, editing ruthlessly, and trusting your gut to know when you land the right sentence.
When I write insights, I resort to these seven questions to help me push the language:
What’s the most extreme version of this?
What am I too afraid to say out loud?
What’s the rudest way to say this?
What’s a metaphor for this?
How would a 5 year old say this?
What if I personified this?
What’s the enemy?
Additionally, look at synonyms using resources like WordHippo. Dive into the etymology of the word. Examining language from different angles unlocks new ways to play with it.
1 ACTION TO TAKE
ONE ACTION TO TAKE
The best way to get better at writing insights is to play with the language yourself. So, let’s put the seven questions to work.
Client: Pretend you work for Starbucks and they want to run a campaign that sells more herbal tea in the U.S.
Original Insight: Coffee has one direction: up. But life pulls us in every direction. Herbal tea lets us sip toward whatever state we want next.
Using the seven questions above, rewrite this insight seven different ways.
What’s the most extreme version of this?
For example: Coffee straps a rocket to your nervous system and fires you into the day. Herbal tea asks where the hell you actually want to go.What am I too afraid to say out loud?
For example: We’ve cast tea as something you drink when you’re sick.What’s the rudest way to say this?
For example: Coffee is for people who are unoriginal. Tea is for people with taste.
Now you try the final four:
What’s a metaphor for this?
How would a 5-year-old say this?
What if I personified this?
What’s the enemy?
Don’t worry about writing seven good insights. Be extreme. Rude. Childish. Weird. The goal is to push the thought somewhere your first draft never would have gone.
Then, steal from yourself. Circle the words, phrases, or ideas that feel electric. Combine them. Cut everything else. Keep rewriting until you land on one sentence you can’t stop thinking about.
