Everything Is A Filter

How much of a book do you read before you put it aside and decide it’s not for you.

How much of a TV show do you watch before you go looking for something else?

How much of an article do you read?

How much attention do you give a lecture before you tune out?

Based on who we are, what our interests and personalities are and on a million other things, we make these small, unconscious decisions all the time.

If we test something, we might give it the benefit of the doubt first, but after a little bit of time we want to see if that “thing”, whatever it is, is worth our time investment.

So, in a way, we’re filtering everything. Every information we get passes through a mental filter and is evaluated.

Is this for me or isn’t it?

Do I like this dress or don’t I?

Do I like this character in a show or don’t I?

Do I find this first sentence in a book interesting? Do I go on reading the second one?

The thing is, if too much of what we’re perceiving and filtering lands in the “don’t like” section (or other negative sections), we don’t want it anymore.

It doesn’t seem worth our time.

Remember those boring lectures at university?

A lot of it lands in the “don’t like” section and if we choose to continue or not depends on a lot of factors, including how bad we need this lecture to finish our studies.

But our readers always have a choice. Nobody forces them to go on reading what we’ve written.

So, unconsciously at first, and more consciously over time, every sentence we write will land in one of those filter boxes.

Every sentences gives them new information to decide if they will keep on reading or not.

So our job as creative writers is to make sure that the readers of our target audience get sentence after sentence that they can put at least in the “like” box, if not in the “delighted” box.

Want to learn inspiration techniques to create more sentences for the “positive” boxes?