If your copy feels a little flat, a little polite, a little like it could have been written by literally anyone, it’s probably not because you’re a bad writer.

It’s because the writing isn’t specific enough.

Most people write in summaries:

• “I was stressed.”
• “It was a great experience.”
• “I was nervous.”
• “We had a nice time.”

These phrases technically communicate meaning, but they don’t actually tell the reader anything about the moment.

They don’t put us in the room. They don’t let us feel it.

Specificity is what makes writing vivid, memorable, and emotionally resonant. It’s not about being poetic. It’s about being accurate. Accurate is what makes writing feel true — and truth is what makes writing compelling.

When you say, “I was nervous,” your reader nods, because they understand the concept.

When you say, “I could literally feel my heartbeat in my ears during the Zoom loading screen,” your reader remembers.

They flash to the last time they felt that. They’re with you now.

Specificity creates recognition. Recognition creates connection. Connection is what makes someone keep reading, keep opening your emails, keep trusting you, and eventually — buy from you. Not because you convinced them, but because they feel like you get them.

And people buy from the people who get them.

Why Specificity Makes You More Relatable

We don’t bond over the Big Important Universal Life Themes. We bond over the oddly specific, slightly embarrassing, deeply human details.

Everyone has been overwhelmed.
But not everyone has eaten a cold quesadilla over the sink because sitting down felt like too much commitment.

Everyone has experienced longing. But not everyone has written and deleted the same text message seventeen times trying to decide whether “lol” makes them seem too eager.

It’s the detail that makes someone say, “Oh my god — I thought only I did that.”

When someone sees their own weirdness reflected back at them, they feel less alone. Less ashamed. More seen.

And a reader who feels seen is a reader who STAYS, keeps reading, and resonates with your content. And, eventually, likes you enough to trust you, and trusts you enough to buy from you.

Why Stories Work Better Than Explanations

A lot of business owners try to persuade using statements:

“This is worth it.”
“This will help you.”
“My approach is effective.”

The problem is that statements land in the thinking part of the brain. Your reader analyzes them, evaluates them, files them away.

Stories bypass that part, and hit the emotional memory center — because they’re how we remember and recognize meaning.

And it’s specificity that makes a story stick. Without detail, a story is just a recap. With detail, a story becomes an experience the reader gets to feel.

You are not trying to tell a story for entertainment; you’re using it as a delivery mechanism for recognition.

Recognition is what moves someone closer to trusting you.

How to Actually ✨ DO ✨ Specificity (Without Writing a Novel)

Here’s the easiest writing rule you will ever learn:

Don’t tell us the feeling. Tell us what was happening when you felt it.

Not the metaphor. Not the lesson. Not the Instagram-caption-sounding analysis.

THE LITERAL SITUATION.

Instead of “I was overwhelmed,” try: “I had 14 tabs open and was reading none of them. Just staring. Letting my brain buffer like dial-up internet.”

Instead of: “we talked for hours,” try: “we kept saying we should hang up and then somehow talked for another forty minutes.”

Instead of: “I was trying to impress him,” try: “I retyped my text three times to strike the tone of ‘chill’ even though I had been thinking about my response all day.”

It’s time we stop using the boring sentences because we heard somewhere “short sentences are better.” No. SPECIFIC sentences are better.

Specific = memorable. Vague = forgettable.

How Storytelling Applies To Selling

When someone is deciding whether or not to buy from you, they are not evaluating your resume. They are evaluating whether you understand their inner world.

They don’t want to hear you say “I help you feel more confident in your marketing” — they want to hear you say “I help you stop needing to ask five people for approval before you publish anything.”

They don’t want to know that “this system makes content planning easier” — they want to know they’ll never have to stare at Canva slack-jawed for an hour wondering where to begin, because they’ll have an easy template to start from every time.

They’ve heard “you’ll stop procrastinating” 100 times” — but they have yet to hear “you’ll stop deciding it’s suddenly very important to reorganize your sock drawer instead of writing your email.”

One version communicates value. The other version makes someone feel understood.

And THAT feeling is what converts.

Want to try it for yourself?!

Take one sentence from something you’ve written — a caption, a newsletter, a page on your site — and rewrite it to include one specific detail. Not five. Not a paragraph. One detail.

Your writing will instantly feel more grounded, more original, and more like a real person is behind it.

Because that’s all specificity is: proof that a real person is here.

And that is always the thing people connect with.

I send a storytelling subscription every month for people who struggle to do this in their newsletters…

WANT IN?!

If you want to stop writing newsletters that read like a corporate memo and start writing the ones people actually reply to — you’ll want my newsletter storytelling content subscription, Swipe File.

I send you FIVE story prompt with examples and angles on the 1st of every month. You turn it into a newsletter in, like, 20 minutes.

It’s fun. It works. It’s only $31. You’ll love it.