Like a lot of AI-generated writing, the blog post looked okay at first. It even had some pretty charts to go with it. But despite the perfectly correct sentences, something was missing.

My client wasn’t sure what was wrong with the post but had come to me for help.

Now, AI can be a useful writer’s tool, helping you get started with ideas, pointing you in the right direction for research, and cleaning up rough drafts, for example, by fixing grammatical errors. I use it for these purposes myself.

But AI still can’t tell a compelling story.

That’s because AI struggles to deliver three crucial elements that, so far, at least, only a human can bring to a piece of writing: a hook to draw the reader’s interest, a reason for them to keep reading, and an overall point.

Let’s call these three elements excitement, connection, and perspective.

Excitement

Excitement provides a hook to draw readers in with something personal about another human, a startling fact, a vivid description, or anything else designed to spark curiosity.

AI has a hard time with this because it’s, well, artificial and has no curiosity.

Think of a person you noticed recently on the street, on the subway, or at a gathering, and why. Did something about their outfit stand out? Their hairstyle? Was it something they were holding that piqued your curiosity? Was it the way others around them reacted to their presence?

Compelling writing similarly engages the reader’s curiosity from the onset. It raises a question with the implicit promise to answer it—if only the reader keeps reading. For example, in this article, what was missing from the blog post with perfectly correct sentences?

Connection

Of course, if the question raised at the beginning of an article has no relevance to the reader, or they’re just not interested in the answer, they won’t continue reading. Which is why compelling writing also makes a connection to the reader, answering another question: What’s in it for me?

The answer to that question depends entirely on your intended audience and what’s meaningful to them. Each audience will respond to a different “So What?”

Stories about humans help, because humans are more interested in other humans than bald facts or shiny technologies (well, some of us are intrinsically interested in shiny technologies, but I think we’re in the minority, and even stories about tech are always about people—dreamers, builders, users, etc.)

I wrote this article on the premise that you’re interested in tips for improving the quality of the written content you or your business produces.

Perspective

Related to the “So what?” question is context. We humans are forever in search of meaning, of life, of why our cat keeps licking the walls, of whatever it is we’re doing at the moment. Compelling writing provides at least some of the answer (cats, on the other hand, are cats; it’s best not to ask why).

One way to provide perspective is to weave in relevant facts and proof points to show how the subject of an article fits in with the bigger, global picture. Quotes from experts help here, too, to show that your reader’s peers are dealing with the same challenges.

In this article, the example of my client is there to show you that you are not alone in the at-times frustrating quest to produce more compelling written content.

After wrestling with the AI-generated content and realizing it couldn’t deliver the impact she was after, my client concluded that she didn’t have time to take it to the next level. And those charts: the AI grabbed those from someone else’s website. My client would need to get permission to use them or create her own charts.

Happy, I was able to get my client back on track, starting with an interview to capture some of an expert’s excitement about his subject, foster a human connection with the reader, and provide the perspective that only someone with years of experience could.

Got a content marketing or thought leadership project to discuss? Contact me.