The Pulp Fiction Technique for Highly Engaging Presentations
How to use the phenomenon psychologists call the Zeigarnik Effect to grab attention quickly and hold it.
Welcome to the seventh lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.
Watch, read, and let me know what you think!
Open loops aren’t just for Tarantino films. They work in any context where you need to hold attention, including your presentations.
Let me show you how this plays out in real-world communication.
Back during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I came across an article about some less-than-inspiring aspects of the devastating storm.
It began with this:
An Illinois woman mourns her two young daughters, swept to their deaths in Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters. It’s a tragic and terrifying story. It’s also a lie.
Now, any article detailing fraud in the aftermath of Katrina would contain compelling information. But that opening had me riveted, and it got me reading the entirety of a detailed and lengthy piece that I might have otherwise skipped.