Tamsen Webster explains why audiences struggle to understand unclear messages and introduces the Red Thread framework: problem, idea, goal, and change. A Princeton study shows how our brains demand meaning. Use her worksheet to test if your message actually makes sense.
Consider these 3 sentences: Jennifer keeps the milk cold. We called her the skinny singer. I found the box empty. What do those 3 sentences have to do with each other? What's the story? Absolutely nothing. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com, and this is Find the Red Thread. Those sentences came from a random sentence generator. So even though we try to make them into a story, we try to make them make sense, they, they don't. There is no meaning behind it. So researchers use a random sentence test like that to demonstrate what some call a make sense mandate that we have, an absolute need to make things make sense. As soon as we heard about Jennifer, then we were looking for more information about her. So when we heard another sentence about there being a skinny singer, we assumed that was her. And yet, isn't milk terrible for singers? And I found the box empty, which means she's drinking it. So why? And how is she skinny? And is that milk whole milk? Yet remember, they have nothing to do with each other. So what does this mean for us as people who put messages out into the wilderness? Well, it means that the wilderness isn't empty. It means that there isn't just a blank slate that our audiences and our readers are waiting to hear. There's already something there. Think of it like the classic question of whether the glass is half full or half empty. But as physicists will tell us, the glass is always full, just of half air and half water. The same thing is true here when we talk about meaning and making sense. That wilderness, that gap between where someone is and where you want them to be, is already partly full. It's already partly full of the way they make sense, the fact that they have a make sense mandate too. So how do we solve this problem? Well, first we need to remember that the way we make things make sense is universal. We can see the patterns of these patterns. What are those patterns? Those patterns, as a recent study out of Princeton suggests, are those things that drive a story or a narrative forward. Things like a character's motivations or actions. What someone wants, why they want it, and what they'll do as a result. Now, if that sounds a little bit familiar, a little bit like pieces of the Red Thread, you're right. Because you can simplify those concepts, those things that people find meaningful, the things that they need to make sense, as the core elements of the Red Thread. A problem that stands in the way of a goal, an idea that reveals why the problem is such a problem and also reveals a new opportunity. And a change that results. If you're wondering where the goal and action come in, well, the problem stands in the way of the goal and the change is effected by actions. You create actions, you take actions in order to effect the change. So the next time you're putting a message together, remember that the glass isn't half empty or half full. It's always full of your meaning and theirs. When you're trying to put your Red Thread together, try downloading the Red Thread worksheet at findyourredthread.com. And if you need any help, contact me at tamsenwebster.com/contact.
