Tension is the spice of life. Think of tension like a rubber band, when it’s taut, everything feels heightened, but, when tension lacks, things fall flat.
Tension makes your stomach clench, your heart race, and your palms sweat. When you write an insight, it needs to have tension. Human nature makes us naturally want to solve for it, to relieve the tension. Just like stretching relieves tension in the body, great Creative work relieves tension from an insight.
Tension-filled insights give Creatives something clear to push against. They are able to immediately start ideating ways that would solve for the tension. Likewise, when tension is lacking, the sense of urgency and inspiration dissipates. It is hard to solve for a problem that doesn’t exist.
For example, pretend you are doing work for a car insurance brand.
A non-tension filled insight may be, “People with car insurance have peace of mind.”
And that would lead to non-inspiring work, like this:
Likewise, a tension filled insight, like this, “People are more afraid of what they don’t know than what they know. Car insurance protects them from unexpected mayhem.”
Could then lead to breakthrough creative work, like this:
By Alex Mason · Thousands of Subscribers
Below are 3 insights. Each written without tension. Your job is to rewrite them with tension.
People love their pets.
People want to eat healthier.
Parents want to spend more time with their kids.
As your rewrite, ask yourself, “is there a clear problem in this insight?” “is the way its written eliciting an emotional response in me?” “can I think of at least 3 creative solutions this insight would inspire?”
🌟Paid subscribers can see my rewrites at the end of this post🌟
Have a question? Submit it below and you may see it answered in a future issue.
“Creativity happens in response to a problem, not a solution.” —Luke Sullivan
Next week, I’ll give you 6 questions to ask yourself to the best insights.
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