Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

18Show, Don't Tell

“Don't tell me that the moon is shining,” wrote Russian playwright and short-story writer Anton Chekhov. “Show me the glint of moon on broken glass.”

Show, don't tell is a Content Rules rule, and it's also moonlighting here as a writing rule. Good content—and good writing—doesn't preach or hard-sell. Instead, it shows how your product or service lives in the world, explaining in human terms how it adds value to people's lives, eases troubles, shoulders burdens, and meets needs.

I like how Aaron Orendorff frames the idea of showing, not telling. Think about it as “salvation, not sales. Theology, not transactions,” he writes on his site, IconicContent.com.

“Ask yourself, ‘What hell does my product save people from? And what heaven does it deliver them unto?’” Aaron explains.

The idea is entirely secular, of course. “There are lots of hells and good marketing takes advantage of them all the time,” Aaron says. “There's no-time hell, stressed-out hell, bored hell, out-of-shape hell, lonely hell, overworked hell, no-budget hell, debt hell, bad-hygiene hell, low-CTR [click-through rate] hell, human-relations hell, disorganized hell…you get the idea.”¹

In other words, don't talk about your features, benefits, and shining moons. Tell me—better yet, show me—why they matter to me.

And how do you do that?

Details are what make your words come alive. You'd think the generic and nonspecific might apply broadly—and therefore almost anyone reading the description of a product ...