How to write a dynamic text and thus arouse the interest of readers

How many times have you read a text online (but also on paper) and defined it as " flat "?

How many times have you yawned or realized you weren't remembering anything you read?

I think it has happened to everyone sooner or later, because too often we are faced with static texts , which seem firm and carved in the rock, immobile like Oedipus's Sphinx and just as cryptic. To capture the attention and interest of readers you need to write dynamic copy , but what makes it so?

We can divide the characteristics of a dynamic text into two large groups :

• graphics
• narratives .

The graphic dynamism of the text

The first attention is almost always to the visual aspect of the text. The words, even before reading them, we look at them.

(Louise Carrada)

This is a fact, especially online: in order to be able to decode written notions , our eye first scrolls the text completely, frames it graphically and prepares the brain for what it will have to understand, first of all giving it a graphic structure to follow.

The more the structure can be visually memorized, the easier it will be for your reader's mind to receive the correct information and, consequently, to appreciate the value of what you have written for him.

What are the best tools to make an online text graphically dynamic ? Let's see them:

1. The font : choose a Google font, so that it is readable on all devices, favoring simple, clean, legible ones. So avoid handwriting texts or blackboard-type skatches they can be unclear, especially if they are small
2. Bold : signals important information so that by combining all the words in bold the reader can, ideally, reconstruct the meaning of the whole post
3. Italics : use it for uncommon foreign words and for titles of works
4. The quote : the quotes are very useful and to highlight them use the appropriate editor option that allows you to highlight them using the block-quote (it is the quotes button in the text editor of each page and article)
5. Titles and subtitles : these elements are very important to give a short logical sense of the path that you will give to your thought and help immensely in reading. They also detach the text graphically by reading it
6. The paragraphs : go to the beginning. That's all. Paragraphs save you from what I call “The James Joyce Syndrome,” which is killing the reader with pages of words without punctuation.
7. Bulleted lists : if you had listed all the points from 1 to 7 in a single paragraph, you would have already abandoned me, right? The same goes for anyone reading you.

Narrative dynamism: let's have fun and have fun

I love to write , and you? I often asked during editorial meetings or creative writing briefings in the agency: do you enjoy writing? Collaborators always look at me a bit dumbfounded because no one has ever allowed them to believe in one important thing: writing is fun even if you do it for work , even if you talk about submersible pumps or vent valves, and if you manage to have fun writing , so does your reader who consequently will be much more inclined to choose you , your products or your services to solve his problems .

But how can we make our text dynamic by playing on narrative elements ?

Again we use a list to summarize the ideas in a practical and organized way:

1. Find out how the reader speaks : yes, let's go back to talking about listening, getting to know customers and enhancing their language in what you write. Using his own terms you get his attention
2. Use rhetorical figures : in addition to metaphors there are many other possibilities such as alliteration and rhymes (to be used sparingly and ironically), the anaphora which repeats two or more words at the beginning of each sentence, the enumeration, the oxymoron , etc… Here you can read all the figures of speech that our beautiful language offers: Luzzapy .
3. Use cinematic techniques : How captivating is a film that uses flashbacks and sneak peeks? Which opens a scene on a small detail of the overall environment? Or that on the contrary makes you start from space and then accelerate quickly to the precise place where the scene begins? You can reproduce the same effect with words, it just takes a little practice!
4. Take advantage of the mechanism of the fairy tale : identify a hero who must overcome numerous obstacles, placed in his path by an antagonist, with the support of some helpers (divided into small and wise) to achieve a noble goal. We all know fairy tales, just take our themes and tell them with a little magic.

Bottom line: dynamic is not simplistic

There are people who believe that a valuable text should, in essence, be boring, dull, complex and difficult.

I think this is utter idiocy. The best books, and I'm also talking about school textbooks, are the ones that can help you be read, the ones that make you love reading even when talking about things that aren't exactly exciting.

To do this you need to master the techniques we just talked about.

And now a question for you: what helps you remember the content of a text? What fascinates you so much that you are passionate about even the most technical topics? Start from there and you will discover the secret of effective writing.