Writing is the painting of the voice.” – Voltaire
I’ve noticed so many negative book and article titles in recent months. I often wonder if this is for marketing purposes a great majority of the time. If readers are drawn to negative or sensational verbiage, instead of an objective or intriguing slant, why is that? And is the negative title ever truly accurate? In other words, what information is being omitted or minimized that would help to balance a topic by offering a more neutral, more realistic, impression?
“What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on its editorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy, accuracy, accuracy!” –Joseph Pulitzer
Negative book titles seem especially numerous lately. That makes me want to skip right over that book; I’d rather keep looking for something else. I know intuitively that the picture isn’t necessarily “true,” and that a great deal of information has been purposefully disregarded to convey something that may or may not be accurate … in sum. A title doesn’t have to be falsely upbeat, either. But when information is squeezed into a certain package for the sake of drawing in readers who gravitate to a negative mindset, that’s not a solution. That’s a marketing ploy. Immediately, I think credibility. And immediately, I resist and resent the blatant attempt to manipulate my emotions just to sell me something.
“Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other.” –David Hume (7 May 1711 – 25 August 1776)
Granted articles and books require focus. Not every piece of information, nor every thought, can be included when a topic is covered by an author. That takes things in the wrong direction, confusing readers with a litany of ideas that simply detract from a thesis statement. But there is a way to share a focused story, book, or article, and still present a realistic, believable picture.
Not everything about everyone falls into one square box; people are complex, their lives are complex. So unless someone can convince me otherwise, I’ll continue to avoid books and articles that try way too hard via negative titles to pull me in. A narrow way of looking at things isn’t intriguing, and when used as a marketing tool, it’s really distasteful. ~
“It’s all in how you arrange the thing… the careful balance of the design is the motion.” –Andrew Wyeth
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