Watch the video above or read below.

For sale, baby shoes never worn.

Ernest Hemingway.

People love to say this is the best short story ever written. They also love to say that it came from when Hemingway won a bet with his writing buddies about who could write the saddest story using the fewest words.

You sure about that?

We all just accept that history because it sounds better than the truth, which is that versions of the story were around before Hemingway was even born. So if the baby shoes origin story isn’t true, why should we accept its interpretation? People always assume the baby died in that story, but what if it didn’t?

Maybe the baby shoes were too small. Babies grow fast.

Maybe, baby. Maybe, baby. That’s fun to say. Maybe, baby. Maybe, baby shoes are for sale because the seller makes baby shoes. Literally, every new pair of baby shoes at Target could be advertised as “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Maybe the baby shoes were the wrong color. They didn’t match the mom-to-be’s aesthetic, which was a neutral per the baby shower registry, but mother-in-law gifted Barbie pink shoes, and Barbie pink does not go with beige, Judy.

Welcome to Werner Herzog’s new line of children’s clothing. Sad beige clothes for sad beige children.

I found a newer, even shorter, and in my opinion, sadder story.

Now this is tragic.

I’d argue that it’s our modern day for sale baby shoes never worn. I mean, forget about a sad six word story of the past. This is a horrific four word foreshadow of the future.

What did Fred take?

What’s gonna happen to him tonight? Will he survive the trip, or will he think he’s a bird, climb a tree, and try to fly? We don’t know.

This brings me to one of my favorite writing techniques, deny a common truth.

Denying a common truth is a highly effective technique for capturing and holding attention. It surprises us by violating our expectations.

Surprise triggers dopamine release because we’ve been rewarded with new information.

Dopaminogenic neurons fire more intensely when an outcome is better or different than expected which enhances memory formation.

The hippocampus prioritizes encoding that new information because it might be important for future decision making.

Denying a a common truth interrupts a known pattern. When something violates our expectations, it creates a prediction error, a signal that our current model of the world needs an update. This forces us to pay attention and adjust.

Processing counterintuitive concepts requires us to suppress pre-existing beliefs and engages the brain’s inhibitory control mechanisms. This makes us more open to receiving new information which leads to deeper cognitive processing.

Surprise triggers emotional response like excitement, fear, or laughter. This releases a stress hormone similar to adrenaline called norepinephrine, which strengthens our synaptic connections.

This makes emotional memories stickier and more resistant to forgetting.

Emotionally charged events are remembered more vividly than neutral events.

That’s why the technique of denying a common truth is so powerful.

Denying a common truth isn’t about proving it wrong or making people believe the opposite.

It’s about challenging their perspective and opening their minds to a new way of seeing things.

Stand up comedian Bill Burr is a master at this. He thrives on the tension and release of denying common truths. In a recent variety article, he he talked about how he needs that push pull thing to happen with his audience. He doesn’t want an echo chamber.

He describes it as trying to make an over medium egg. There’s an art to it. He also happens to be one of the most successful comics of all time. Most stand up legends became famous because of the common truth that they denied.

People like Patrice O’Neil, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers, Anthony Jeselnik, Louis C. K, Doug Stanhope, etc.

We’re at the age where everybody I know is getting married. People let me ask you a question. Why the hell do people keep getting married?

You know what I mean? Isn’t anybody looking at the stats?

What’s it like? Three out of four marriages go right down the drain now?

People, if you were going skydiving and they told you three out of four parachutes weren’t gonna open, be like, yo, forget it. I’m not going.

I don’t like those odds.

You don’t even have to deny the big common truths. You can also deny the everyday little truths that we’ve all just come to accept without question. Like, you ever see an out of order sign on the escalator and you take the stairs instead? Mitch Hedberg questions that.

I like an escalator, man, because an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs.

Alright.

There would there would never be an “Escalator temporarily out of order” sign. Only an “Escalator temporarily stairs.”

“Sorry for the convenience.”

Let’s get into some ads. So the most recent example I saw of denying a common truth was for the water company liquid death at this year’s Super Bowl.

 

The feminine hygiene brand always ran a highly impactful ad campaign that changed people’s perspectives of the phrase like a girl.

 

Then there’s Avis whose most successful ad campaign was based on denying a common truth.

Then there’s Apple’s game changing think different ad back in 1997 when people thought computers were just for business and not creativity.

Back in the sixties, Volkswagen broke into the American car market by denying a common truth that big cars are better.

The Volkswagen Beetle is an iconic car because of their think small campaign, which challenged everything Americans thought they knew about cars. Denying a common truth is how I became a wizard of ads partner, thanks to a ridiculous Craigslist ad about a little piccolo.

Everyone knows that God’s favorite instrument is the trumpet, but it’s so much more fun to play the devil’s instrument, the piccolo.

All of my most successful ads have denied a common truth. I made it cool to drive a shitty Kia Spectra. I sold a Ford to a Dodge guy by making fun of Dodges.

I moved an old trailer with a dirty title by glorifying its police record. I helped sell a shitbox house by celebrating divorce.

Here’s an example of something I wrote. This client was having trouble selling a trailer that had been heavily smoked in. They couldn’t get the smell out even after deep cleaning. So instead, I leaned into the fact that it had been smoked in. I advertised it for smokers only. I denied the common truth that you shouldn’t smoke indoors, and I turned it into a smoker’s paradise.

And it sold to a nonsmoker because they like the ad. So yeah, try to incorporate denying a common truth into your writing. It gets people’s attention, makes them stick around longer, and your stuff is more memorable. Plus, it’s a way more fun way of looking at the world.

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