Title - How to make your copy flow/interesting Tags - copywriting structuraltension contrast
In his workshops, Robert Fritz choose a word and repeated it aloud.
“Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello…”
Eventually, he would stop and ask the students how long it took them to get bored.
Then Fritz would add another, contrasting word, and repeat them both.
“Hello, goodbye. Hello, goodbye. Hello, goodbye. Etc., etc.”
Fritz once again asked the students how long it took for them to get bored.
Most of the students reported that their interest was maintained for much longer with the contrasting words than with the single word.
The reason is that contrasting words contained mini tension-resolution systems.
And energy moves from tension to resolution.
So people respond to the energy.
It’s more interesting.
Even Sir Paul McCartnery uses this approach.
One day, Sir Paul was asked about his writing process by his aide, Alistair Taylor.
“Ok, give me a word,” said McCartney.
“Hello,” replied Taylor.
“Goodbye,” said McCartney.
Taylor gave him another word.
“Yes.”
And McCartney replied:
“No.”
On the back of this conversation, McCartney wrote Hello, Goodbye.
Here are some of the contrasts McCartney used in the song:
Yes / No Stop / Go Goodbye / Hello High / Low
These are just the surface level contrasts.
If you study the lyrics - and then the music - you’ll find a abundance of contrast.
For example, one line of the lyrics includes:
Stop / Go, go, go
Stop and go are contrasting.
The number of words are, too.
Stop is used once; go is used three times.
This 1/3 structure is also in constrast to other lines which repeat, stop/go.
These contrasts are like little engines that keep the song moving forward.
They make the song interesting to listen to - despite the small number of lyrics and repetition.
This same energy can be created in writing which is read - rather than heard - by using contrasts between the words, expectations, circumstances, sentence length, and more.