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One Story Beats a Dozen Adjectives Pick up a good magazine and glance at a few stories. You may spot a pattern that tells you something. Today, most nonfiction writers begin their articles with an illustrative story. It’s a device so pervasive there is a name for it: synecdoche. Trial lawyer Gerry Spence always makes a point with a story. Spence knows that for all the enormous changes in Western culture since the Greeks, today, almost 2,500 years after Euripides, our primary form of entertainment is still the dramatic narrative--the story. More marketers should discover the power of stories. Just as stories make articles more interesting and make Spence's arguments more persuasive, they make marketing communications more effective. Synecdoche works because people are interested in other people, and stories are about people. Gerry Spence's story of a person wronged by excessive police force does not need the words "pain" and "injustice." His vivid story makes jurors feel the pain and injustice. Like clever journalists and great lawyers, marketers who tell true stories make their presentations more interesting, more personal, more credible, and more felt--and more persuasive. Don't use adjectives. Use stories.
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