Use your common senses to communicate more clearly

What's the difference between a concept and a formula?  Between a strategy and a blueprint? Between a hypothetical and an example?

In each of these pairs, the first one is impossible for most people to imagine. They know what the word means, but it is not attached to any sensory representation.  The second one is equally "business-like," but it's something a reader or listener could imagine using their senses. They could see or hear or feel something that would tell them more than the word itself about what you wanted to communicate.
© Can Stock Photo / Konstanttin
Artists regularly turn concepts into images. Good speakers and writers do the same thing: they evoke the senses so that people have something easier to observe and remember than abstractions are. This doesn't mean being choosing more descriptive words: it means imagining what you want to communicate as something you can see, hear and feel and then stripping your language down to match what you are imagining.

Of course, abstractions are great for telling the truth without making it either memorable or emotional. They help people understand that there will be some risks involved in a situation (none of those words turn easily into an image) without engaging them in those risks. If they felt like a decision meant stepping off a cliff, they would have a hard time exploring the benefits that would make the decision worthwhile. When you're jumping off a cliff, you might enjoy the rush, but you don't have a lot of focus left for analysis.

So help people understand what you want them to analyze and remember by using words that allow them to imagine - to make a mental representation using sights and sounds and feelings. When you want to acknowledge something without having it stick, let more abstract language do the work for you.

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