On this day, 17 years ago:

Not even spring yet down under, and my husband Steve is in full clean-out mode. He's sold our old Plasma TV that's been sitting in the garage for years. I genuinely think it hurt him to part with it lol.

"Hey, all those old notebooks in the garage," he said the other day. "Do you still need those?"

"YES!" I exclaimed sharply. Some of them I've had since I was 11 years old. You ain't ditching my diaries bro.

"Well... can they live somewhere else?"

So they're now all safely in one of my desk drawers. And just now I was thumbing through one from 2009... because I had literally NFI what to write about in this email and hoped it'd give me some inspo.

And it suuure did:

17 years (and 3 days*) ago, I wrote a little passage about storytelling that I still find pretty bloody relevant today.

If the pic doesn't load or is too hard to read, here's the transcript:

17/08/09–11:32am

I'm starting to realise that everything in a story does not need to be explained in minute detail. More importantly though, that every detail does not need to be completely understood.

This is a big revelation for me. We are human and as such as we cannot possibly provide a reason for everything we do or feel.

Sure, there are conscious reasons for almost everything, but there are also subconscious ones that cannot be explained. That are perhaps slightly out of character, or maybe even what defines our character.

It's hard to explain, but I think need to realise that ambiguity can be my friend in writing. It's a gateway to a reader's imagination.

Sooo ignoring the fact that apparently I didn't know what a contraction was back in 2009, and that I signed each entry like a total wanker...

This is a pretty cool little snippet into how I think (thought?) about storytelling.

I don't know if this is obvious, but I was NOT talking about copywriting or business writing/storytelling when I wrote this. I don't think I even knew what copywriting was 17 years ago.

I was talking about the secret sci-fi/fantasy novel I mentioned in Tuesday's email that I want to write (and have been writing on and off for about 20 years now lol).

And reading it now, I can remember why I was so excited by the idea.

When you're writing fiction, one of the fastest ways to make a character feel fake as fuck is to explain too much.

"She was angry because her childhood wound had been triggered by an unresolved fear of abandonment."

Lol. It's not EXACTLY what my writing was like when I was a kid, but it's close. 🤣

Eventually I realised I could just let her slam the cupboard. Let her say "I'm fine." And the reader would be smart enough to figure out there's something happening beneath the surface without me having to spell it out for them.

And then, when the moment was right, I'd be able to HAMMER my point home, and the reader would feel that immense satisfaction you get when the plot points are all wrapped up nice and neat with a bow and the world finally makes sense.

I'm not the only one who believes it's one of the best feelings in the world, right??

(Side note: fucking hate when books/TV shows/movies rush their plot points or leave loose threads. Once upon a time I actually wanted to be a TV series "canon advisor"—yep, it was real job—and be the one that prevented this from happening.)

Now, before you get any stupid ideas in your head: please DON'T go all "show, don't tell" crazy in your content.

Sometimes A LOT of the time in copywriting, you just need to tell the reader wtf is going on.

Don't do a ChatGPT and string like 5 different metaphors together for what should've been a really simple idea and call it copy.

It ain't even prose, mate. It's closer to a term I use a lot when describing the North-South Expressway in Adelaide:

"Over-Engineered."

But there's a difference between being clear and just narrating a boring ass sequence of events (This happened, then this happened, then I learned this 🥱).

Even though I wasn't talking about copywriting back in 2009 when I wrote that diary entry, I still reckon this is what I was trying to articulate.

When I referred to "ambiguity" I didn't mean be vague. I meant intentionally leave gaps in your writing so the reader can fill in the blanks.

Maybe you open your next post by waking up to your first Stripe payment notification, after months of trying to get your product out there.

Maybe you write an email about a conversation you had with a client, where what you've been teaching them finally clicked and they landed their first deal.

...Or maybe you just share a silly story about your husband spring cleaning before segueing into a copywriting lesson. 😝

Clear is good. Useful is good. But curiosity is what makes people pay attention... and you get that through a little bit of ambiguity (and a lot of pacing, as per my last email lol).

Give them just enough to start playing the movie in their own head, then you can land your point.

Cheers,
Cass

P.S. *Yes, my subject line lied a little. I was 3 days off it being "on this day" but shhh, it sounded better. 🤫

P.P.S. If you're reading this thinking, "Well shit, my storytelling sucks," relax. You don't have to be perfect at this from day dot. Re-read the crappy diary entry from 17 years ago compared to this email.

Also, that jokey-but-not-jokey line I wrote about an angsty teen girl? When I was 15, I won an AWARD for that story.

Measure yourself against where you're actually at. Focus on incremental improvements. And maybe one day you too can drop F-bombs (and even some C-bombs lol) to your email list and still make sales lol.

...Like the sales I plan to make next week when Brief #2 is ready! More on what this month's topic is in the coming days. 😎