{"id":45792,"date":"2021-09-04T09:24:12","date_gmt":"2021-09-04T13:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=45792"},"modified":"2021-09-06T10:43:55","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T14:43:55","slug":"create-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/create-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2 Ways to Create Interest: Mystery and Curiosity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How can you keep people’s attention once you have it? How can you create interest so people don’t tune you out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s one thing to grab attention<\/a>. It’s another to keep it. You can create interest in two ways\u2014by presenting a mystery or by generating curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more to learn about these two ways of creating interest and keeping it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Keep Their Attention<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While surprise gets people\u2019s attention and can even hold it for a short time, sometimes you need to keep people\u2019s attention longer in order to convey a complex message. You do this by creating interest in two ways: 1) create a mystery or 2) generate curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create a Mystery<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mysteries create interest and sustain it because people want closure.<\/strong> When intrigued by a puzzle or question, they\u2019ll follow a story to get to a conclusion without knowing exactly how they\u2019ll get there. It can be a painless and memorable way of absorbing a complicated message. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, an Arizona State University professor was searching for ways to engage his students and found a scientific article that used mystery to pull in readers and hold their interest. It began by asking, \u201cWhat are Saturn\u2019s rings made of?\u201d The writer then told a story of numerous theories and investigations that led nowhere, before he presented the surprising answer: dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The professor began using the mystery technique to present concepts in his classes. He introduced a mystery at the beginning of a lecture, but held off on revealing the answer until the end. In one instance, he ran out of time before the bell rang, but his students didn\u2019t want to leave until he provided the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mysteries sustain attention by going beyond the first moment of surprise and leading listeners on a journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generate Curiosity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You can also create interest and hold it by making people curious. According to the \u201cgap theory\u201d of interest, our curiosity is aroused when we encounter a gap in our knowledge<\/strong>. Wanting to know something causes a sort of pain and to relieve it, we need to fill the gap in our knowledge. For example, we\u2019ll sit through a bad movie because not knowing the end would be painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Movies make us want to know what\u2019s going to happen. Similarly, mystery novels raise the question of who did it. We watch sports to find out who will win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To craft a message that holds attention, before telling people the facts, you need to create or exploit a knowledge gap by suggesting there\u2019s something important that they don\u2019t know<\/strong>. Ways to do this include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n