There’s an anecdote involving Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner about writing, in which the latter scoffed at Hemingway’s style as unsophisticated. His words were:
“(Hemingway) has never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary.”
When the Old Man and the Sea author heard this, he responded, “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older, simpler, and better words, and those are the ones that I use.”
Personally, I’ve always identified with Hemingway’s writing style, though I’m cautious not to sound too much like him when I write. That’s already a sin I commit with Borges, but that’s another story.
We could say that Hemingway mastered persuasive storytelling without needing ‘difficult’ words—no trips to the dictionary required.
In the end, what matters is the result. Do people enjoy Faulkner’s stories as well? Absolutely. Both won the Nobel Prize in Literature, after all.
But there’s something deeper here because it relates to persuasion. Storytelling is hands down the most persuasive tool of all, as it can induce a trance-like state in the reader or listener.
Should we be afraid of not being good storytellers just because we don’t know the ten-dollar words? Or, to be more abstract, should we worry about not having all the tools of persuasion?
This is something that has always troubled me, especially when I switched all my content from Spanish to English. I’ve been reading in English for three decades, and yet, I still feel my vocabulary is limited.
What I really need to do is write more often. Like this message I’m writing to you right now. Overthinking always gets in the way, but it shouldn’t. Every time I write to you, I do so with the intention of sharing an idea that could be useful for your journey.
The good news is that I’ve come to realize there will never be a perfect article, a perfect email, or a perfect video. Because one or two weeks later, I can always make something that’s just 0.01 percent better. And from that tiny margin, the term ‘perfection’ loses its meaning. It becomes useless, in fact.
Recently, I resumed writing the Knesix Code—my life’s work, as I’ve mentioned before. The master key to reading human behavior.
What kept me from working on it? Why did I pause?
The answer: the belief that I didn’t have ‘all the tools’ yet.
Spoiler alert: I will never have ‘all the tools’, because the moment I think I have them all, I’m sure I’ll stumble upon a new one a week or two in the future.
Is that a bad thing? Nope! Because it means constantly discovering new things.
I will keep you updated in this endeavor.
Much Love and Bliss,
Jesús.
The Body Language Guy
