Nathan Baugh@nathanbaugh27
One simple trick to improve your writing — The Rule of 3.
Veni. Vidi. __.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of __.
Tall, dark, and __.
Your brain is a pattern-completion machine.
And the number three is the smallest number of elements needed to create a pattern.
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The Rule of Three is a storytelling principle that says people better understand concepts, situations, and ideas in groups of three.
They’re right. The most common storytelling structures are split into threes:
• 3 Act Structure
• Promise, Progress, and Payoff
• The Hero’s Journey – Separation, Initiation, and Return
But why’s it so effective?
Threes let you shape your story.
Any less, there’s no pattern.
Connect two points, you have a line.
Connect three points, you might have a line. Or a squiggle. Or a triangle.
It depends on how you connect them.
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3 techniques to use The Rule of Three today:
1. Tricolon
The repetition of similar words or phrases three times to create a parallel pattern.
Example:
“On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations.”
– Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens
2. Three-part structure
James Clear calls his newsletter "3-2-1."
He organizes his writing into three sections, and it's become a popular way to format newsletters.
3. Hendiatris
A hugely popular technique in speeches and advertising, hendiatris means using three individual words together to convey one idea:
• “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.”
• “Friends, Romans, Countrymen.”
• “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
The Rule of Three may be the most practical rule in all of writing.
Proven by science, effective in practice, and simple to implement.
Pay attention to good writing and you see threes everywhere.
