Of course. Here is an article about using questions and surprising facts to create curiosity.
What If the First Sentence Is the Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Write?
Did you know that the ancient Egyptians used crocodiles as a form of birth control? Or that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the launch of the first iPhone than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza?
If you paused for even a second to consider either of those statements, you’ve just experienced a powerful psychological trigger: curiosity.
In a world saturated with information, where the average attention span is famously (and frighteningly) short, arousing curiosity isn’t just a clever trick—it’s a survival skill. Whether you’re writing an email, giving a presentation, creating a social media post, or simply trying to hold a conversation, the ability to make someone want to know more is your greatest asset.
The most effective way to do this is by strategically creating an “information gap.”
The Science of the Itch: Understanding the Information Gap
The concept was popularized by George Loewenstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His “information gap theory” suggests that curiosity arises when we feel a gap between what we know and what we want to know. This gap feels like a mental itch, a form of mild deprivation that our brain is desperate to resolve.
When you present someone with a question they don’t know the answer to or a fact that contradicts their worldview, you open that gap. You create an unresolved tension. Their brain immediately flags it as something that needs to be figured out, pushing them to seek the information that will scratch the itch.
This is the engine behind every great headline, every compelling story opening, and every unforgettable lesson. Here’s how you can harness it.
Method 1: The Art of the Question
Asking a question is the most direct way to create an information gap. It explicitly invites the audience to participate, shifting them from a passive recipient to an active thinker. But not all questions are created equal.
1. The “What If” or “Did You Know” Question:
This is the classic curiosity-stoker. It’s direct, simple, and immediately challenges the reader’s knowledge base.
- In Marketing: “What if you could get a full night’s sleep in just five hours?”
- In a Presentation: “Did you know that 80% of our company’s revenue comes from a feature most of our team has never used?”
- In Education: “What would happen to Earth if the sun vanished for just one second?”
2. The Implied Question:
This technique is more subtle. You don’t ask a question directly; you state something that begs a question.
- Statement: “Most people are folding their shirts wrong.”
- Implied Question: How am I supposed to fold them?
- Statement: “There’s one common mistake that sabotages 90% of all new startups.”
- Implied Question: What is that mistake?
- Statement: “I stopped answering my emails after 5 p.m., and my productivity skyrocketed.”
- Implied Question: How did that work? Tell me more!
Method 2: The Power of the Surprising Fact
Facts work because they challenge our existing models of the world. When you hear something that doesn’t quite fit, your brain works to reconcile the new information with the old.
The key is to find a fact that is not just obscure, but genuinely surprising, counter-intuitive, or perspective-shifting.
1. The Shocking Statistic:
Numbers lend credibility and can be highly effective at creating a sense of scale or importance.
- “The global fashion industry produces more carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.” (This immediately frames fashion as a major environmental issue.)
- “You have more bacteria cells in and on your body than you have human cells.” (This changes how you think about your own body.)
2. The Counter-Intuitive Truth:
These facts work by upending “common sense” and making people rethink what they thought they knew.
- “A strawberry is not a berry, but a banana is.” (This playfully challenges our basic categories.)
- “The sound a duck’s quack makes doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.” (A simple, fascinating mystery.)
Putting It Into Practice: The Rules of Engagement
Harnessing curiosity is a superpower, but it comes with responsibility. Here’s how to do it right:
- Promise and Deliver: Your question or fact is a promise. You must deliver a satisfying answer or explanation. Using these techniques as pure “clickbait” without a valuable payoff will quickly erode trust.
- Know Your Audience: What’s surprising to a beginner might be common knowledge to an expert. Tailor your hooks to what will genuinely create an information gap for your specific audience.
- Keep it Simple: The hook itself should be easy to understand. The complexity can come in the explanation that follows. If your opening question requires too much mental work, you’ll lose your audience before you’ve even hooked them.
In the end, communication is not just about transmitting information; it’s about making people care about that information. By starting with a question or a surprising fact, you aren’t just sharing what you know. You’re inviting someone on a journey of discovery.
The only remaining question is: what will you ask first?
