Stephen Monrad

This is a continuation of the discussion I started on Monday about my writing and the book “Made to Stick.” Today I am going to write about the chapter “Unexpected” in “Made to Stick.”

“Made to Stick” says that people respond to unexpected messages. This is good news for me because my core message that we can build an economy that works much better than current ones is definitely unexpected. Most people believe that market based economies are the best option available. While there are problems, alternatives have even greater problems. The idea that major improvements to the economy are possible is certainly unexpected.

My problem is that my core idea is too unexpected. Readers are going to respond to my core message with disbelief. Like if I announced that aliens from Mars were living among us, people will immediately be skeptical. If I launch into a long discussion of my vision for how a better economy could be built, people will lose interest or find fault with what I am saying before I can fully make my case. The easiest criticism to make is that my ideas sound like communism and communism failed.

“Made to Stick” has an answer for this. They say that the way to sustain interest is to open a series of small gaps in people’s understanding and then fill them. People respond well to a series of manageable challenges to their understanding of the world. They don’t respond well to a huge chasm.

So, once I state my goal of trying to convince people that a much better economic system is possible, I need to drop back onto familiar ground. I then need to create and fill gaps in a way that leads people towards the conclusions I have reached. I need to think of my story as a mystery. Readers don’t understand why I believe my core message. I need to work bit by bit using the gap method until people see why.

This suits me just fine because I can use all the messages I had to filter out when I honed in on my core message as stepping stones. For example, I can talk about irrationality as a step towards understanding why a better economy is possible.