Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

by Donald Miller

To understand the power of a story gap is to understand what compels a human brain toward a desire. Even classical music follows this formula. Many classical sonatas can be broken into three sections: exposition, development, and recapitulation. The final section, recapitulation, is simply an altered version of the exposition that brings a sense of resolve. If that doesn’t make sense, try singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” without singing the final note on the word are. It will bother you to no end. We also see this at work in poetry. When our ears hear Lord Byron’s first line “She walks in beauty, like the night,” a story gap has been opened. We are waiting to hear a word that rhymes with night and closes the open gap in our minds. Once we hear “Of cloudless climes and starry skies,” our minds find a bit of resolution. Until the next line, that is. The opening and closing of a story gap is a magnetic force that drives much of human behavior.