Image credit: Time Magazine
I’ve been Twaining a bit at the gym these last few days. I know, you think I’m doing the baby talk version of training. Sorry to disappoint. I’ve been reading some of Mark Twain’s thoughts on writing while I’ve been on the cardio deck. Hence, Twaining. (By the way, Mark Schaefer, that’s a lot like billboarding.
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I could probably write a number of posts on the little nuggets of wisdom I’m re-discovering, and likely will, but this one in particular struck me as it really relates to a lot of what Seth Godin talks about in all of his marketing books.
“But language is a treacherous thing, a most unsure vehicle, and it can seldom arrange descriptive words in such a way that they will not inflate the facts – by help of the reader’s imagination, which is always ready to take a hand and work for nothing, and do the bulk of it at that.”
He wrote that in 1897. A full 108 years ahead of the publication of All Marketers are Liars. If you haven’t read it, it’s a wonderful book on the ins and outs of story telling in marketing and addresses the very same thing Twain writes about in that sentence. We love stories. Wrap the facts in a descriptive language that allows the consumer to imagine those stories. From there you can start ringing up the sales register.
Maybe Twain should be required reading in marketing and pr classes. I know Godin is starting to be.
