If You Write It (From the Deep), They Will Want It (Eventually)

‍James Dyson, speaking of his early mentor Jeremy Fry (Rotork ):

“He talked of the need to listen to your customers aiming to improve products wherever necessary, or simply for improvement’s sake. This is not to say we at Dyson ask our customers what they want and then build it. That type of ‘focus group-led’ designing may work in the short term but not for long.” Dyson p. 45

It works in the short term, but not the long term.

If people already know what they want, it is not something innovative.

Dyson’s genius was inventing things people did not yet know they wanted.

This reminds me of my favorite thinkers on writing, the Category Pirates.

They talk about two kinds of content: ordinary content and nonordinary content.

If you are trying to write something that will get attention fast, write ordinary content.

“How to lose weight…”

Followed by the obvious methods everyone already knows.

People will read it, not because they lack information, but because they are substituting reading about losing weight for actually losing weight.

This kind of writing sells, but it flames out almost immediately. Of course it does.

“How to pray…”

Followed by instruction already covered by thousands of writers in the last two thousand years.

“How to save your marriage…”

“How to succeed in business…”

“How to make friends…” (Followed by a modern rewrite of Dale Carnegie.)

But nonordinary content is hard to sell, because people have no idea they need it. It answers the question they did not know they were asking.

It answers the question behind the question they thought they had.

“How to pray” might be the question they type into Google (or ChatGPT!), but the question behind it might be, “Where is God.”

And behind that question might be, “What is wrong with me, what is wrong with the world, and how then shall I live.”

And behind even that question?

Maybe it is simply, “What is the meaning of life and why go on living.”

When you write from the deepest place in you, you are more likely to write nonordinary content. You write from a new perspective.

How do you write from the deepest place?

Pray. Wait until you feel deep. You will feel settled in your soul when you are about to write like this. You will not know everything, but you will be sure of what you know.

In the end, the world doesn’t hunger for more information. It hungers for revelation. Write from the place where revelation lives, from the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:10 says,

“For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.”

The depths of God is where the nonordinary content lives. Plumb the depths and make it known.

Jeff B. Miller

‍