I broke my long-standing rule of not reading the New York Times to bring you the following:
In Povalikhino, a tiny village in the Russian heartland, the incumbent mayor was running for re-election. But there was a problem:
He had no opposition candidate.
According to the NYT article, Russian elections always need an opposition candidate. That’s to make it appear fair, because the ruling party candidate always wins. Well, almost always.
In this case, the political machine went in search of a patsy to run against the mayor. They asked the local butcher, cobbler, and the high school chemistry teacher.
Nobody was willing to get roped in.
Fortunately, Marina Udgodskaya, the janitor at the mayor’s office, finally accepted the role of running against her own boss.
And she won. In a landslide.
Nobody’s quite sure where it all went wrong. But the fact is that the villagers of Povalikhino voted Udgodskaya into office. She now sits behind the mayor’s desk in the office she used to clean. She said her first priority will be to fix the public lighting in the village.
Meanwhile, the old mayor refuses to speak to the media. According to his wife, he never even wanted the job himself. He finds the topic of losing to the cleaning woman painful… and blames his wife. “You got me into this,” Mrs. Former Mayor reported her husband as saying.
I’m not sharing this story with you to illustrate the importance of voting. I’m of the school that voting doesn’t matter (well, unless you’re voting in a village of three hundred people).
Instead, I just thought this was a good story.
It’s got an Act 1, an Act 2, an Act 3. It’s got tension, drama, and surprise.
I bring this up because I often see people telling “stories” in copy that don’t have these basic elements.
“Mayor needs an opposition candidate, but cannot find one. The end.”
“Mayor needs an opposition candidate, gets a local lawyer to run against, and then the mayor wins as usual. The end.”
“Mayor needs an opposition candidate, which is how things go in Russia, for example this other time there was a second election and…”
Those are events, yes. But they are not stories — at least the kind that suck readers in and sell something.
Incidentally, if you want an education in how to write good stories in your copy… you can’t go wrong by reading the New York Times. Not for the facts. But to observe the outrage they evoke in their readers, and for the subtle sales techniques.
Or you can just sign up for my daily email newsletter. It’s not as outrageous as the New York Times. But it can teach you something about sales and storytelling. If you’re willing to take the risk, click here to subscribe.