What Can You Write That Will Make a Difference?

Hint: Stories are proven to work better than diatribes

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

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Hi Everyone,

My ghostwriting project has led me to a lot of research this week that I feel compelled to share with you. Here’s why:

I suspect that every one of us is feeling more or less the same anguish as we watch Trump-Musk flush our nation’s moral integrity down their personal golden toilet. And I’ve realized through the notes of Substackers like

Courtney Maum

that this horror is even worse for those who have MAGAkin cheering for every flush. The other day, Courtney posted about the political chasm that divides her from her Trumper parents, and

Katrina Anne Willis

replied: “It was truly killing my soul. I, too, wanted to use my storytelling to help them see and understand, but their eyes were closed so tightly.” This comment arrested me because my research has just revealed some vital points about the kind of storytelling that CAN make a difference.

If you long to help reduce the political polarization, reclaim your own moral balance and integrity, and use your skills as a writer to mend this shattered country, please read and share this post.

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Persuasion 101: Hit them in the heart

I come from a family of haranguers. My mother and brother loved nothing more than to yell at each other in complete agreement against the Enemy of the moment — beginning, in my experience, with Richard Nixon and ending, before my mother’s death, with Trump 1.0. They came to the table every night armed to the eyebrows with political facts, policy details, economic data, headline news, quotes from Walter Cronkite, Warren Buffett, Dan Rather, and Tim Russert. These shouting matches gave me a raging headache and a lifelong allergy to diatribes that does not alas preclude me, especially when drinking, from delivering my own high-pitched harangues. All this noise persuades no one. It would be especially fruitless if we debated people who disagreed with us. But even though we do agree, I remember exactly none of the information these tirades have ever contained.

That may be why I became a writer primarily of stories. Because no one ever shouts a story at me. Stories seduce instead of browbeating. And I tend to remember them.

The power of stories to make information memorable and convincing is not news. The human brain evolved to encode stories into life lessons that also help build and repair social relationships. And this evolution has turbocharged tales as tools for persuasion. Here’s a brief explanation from a 2020 episode of NPR's science podcast Short Wave:

Stories can alter broader attitudes as well, [Melanie Green, a communication professor at the University at Buffalo who studies the power of narrative] says — like our views on relationships, politics or the environment. Messages that feel like commands — even good advice coming from a friend — aren't always received well. If you feel like you're being pushed into a corner, you're more likely to push back. But if someone tells you a story about the time they, too, had to end a painful relationship, for example, the information will likely come across less like a lecture and more like a personal truth.

And then Professor Greene delivered the kicker that matters most here.

If you look at the times somebody's beliefs have been changed, she says, it's often because of a story that '“hits them in the heart."

What this means is that one way to bridge the chasm dividing America today is to tell more stories to our opponents that “hit them in the heart.”

The persuasive power of victimhood

Kurt Gray, author of the new book Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground, believes that the key to “hitting them in the heart” is to tell personal stories of victimhood: When we were suffering. When we had to struggle for our fair share. When we were morally betrayed by those we’d trusted to support us.

It’s essential to note that victimhood can be equally powerful as a force for division as for connection. Victims who are still nursing their wounds tend to be aggrieved and resentful. And MAGA has successfully paved the road to the White House with narratives of aggrieved victims who want nothing more than revenge against the “libs” who disrespect and ignore them— who MAGA stories cast as persecutors. That brand of victimization tale is shared among true believers to stoke moral outrage in solidarity against the Other Side. This outrage is one of the main reasons America is as polarized as it is today.

But stories of victimization can also bridge the divide when they arouse a mutual human emotion, rather than othering the listener. The approach that Gray advocates is meant to guide conversations not within political groups but with acquaintances or audiences who voted the Other way from you. And who are unwilling to listen to arguments or talking points or policy statements or factual data.

Consider this research on attitudes about gun policy. Two groups of university students who supported gun control were asked to listen to the views of pro-gun advocates. With one group, the speakers told personal stories, like using a rifle to scare off an intruder, to explain why they supported gun rights. The other group heard speakers who listed facts, such as the number of home invasions stopped by guns or the millions of times that firearms are used for self protection each year. The students who heard personal stories of victimhood were more likely to respect the speakers and to consider their views rational and genuine. These students also were less inclined to censor or oppose the speakers’ right to advocate on campus.

As Gray explains this storytelling approach:

Sharing personal experiences helps make ideas seem both less harmful and less false… when we see others as victims, we see them as less morally agentic and less capable of taking action (e.g., doing harm) in the future. Thus, learning about the harms our opponents have faced in the past should reduce our beliefs that their ideas are harmful today. Additionally, when people learn about the harmful experiences of their opponents, they see their beliefs as truer (i.e., doubted less).

This does not mean that a single story about how you were, say, fired without cause by DOGE will convince your MAGA uncle to change his party affiliation today. But he’ll likely listen and remember your story, and because it happened directly to you, he’ll have a hard time disbelieving it.

Stories of victimhood challenge the listener to identify: whose side are you on? If the victim is a member of our own group, most of us instinctively root for the victim. And even within polarized families, shared blood can be as thick as MAGA identity. If your Republican uncle hears more personal victimhood stories like yours from other people he knows and cares about, his perspective will eventually shift.

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Apply the lesson of victimhood stories to your writing