Page 185 - Hypnotic Writing - How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only Your Words

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YOUR CONNOTATION IS SHOWING
When I was in junior high school, I recall my English profes- sor telling me about the denotation and connotation of words. Denotations are the dictionary meanings. Connotations are the colloquial meanings. If you didn’t know both, you could con- fuse people.
For example, there are 18 denotations for the word great. (Check your dictionary.)
But the connotation of the same word means much more. Haven’t you used it to mean everything from “I loved it!” to “It was incredible” to “It was better than I thought”?
In fact, the word great is so often used that it’s almost meaning- less. We simply assume anyone who says something was great means they liked it. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot. But they mean something positive. That’s the general acceptance of the word great. That’s the connotation of the word.
Well, stories are the same way.
Stories have a direct meaning—most likely what you are de- scribing or declaring.
But stories also have an indirect meaning—what people con- clude from what you are describing or declaring.
In short, stories have denotations as well as connotations.
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