Summary: Not every piece of text can—or should—be turned into a story. Some strings of words hold no narrative worth chasing, no arc, no characters, no conflict, and certainly no resolution. And trying to force a story out of something that is just a technical artifact—like a JSON error message—only creates confusion. Today we’ll explain, precisely and plainly, why certain content cannot and should not be reframed as storytelling, and what that teaches us about clarity, communication, and the limits of interpretation.
When Data Speaks, but Says Nothing Personal
Let’s start with the core statement: “The given text does not contain a story that can be extracted and rewritten. The text appears to be a JSON response with an error message related to an insufficient account balance.” This isn't a failure of imagination—it's a boundary of meaning. The content under discussion is not a parable, not a testimonial, not even a dry case study. It’s a structured machine output, shaped to inform, not to inspire. It's a system notification programmed to be predictable.
That raises the question: why does this matter? Why does it need to be said? Because there’s a growing temptation to force storytelling where it doesn’t belong. The push to humanize every data point, dramatize every Click or API ping, blurs the line between interpretation and hallucination. Stretching meaning this way doesn’t build connection—it destroys clarity.
How do you think your reader reacts when you try to make an error code emotional? They tune out. Because they know. It's a cold message. It carries no moral. No redemption. It's an automated warning—you’ve run out of balance.
What Is a Story, Really?
A story is a sequence involving a subject, some form of change, and ideally, tension or transformation. There's expectation. There's surprise. There is movement between what was and what is. None of that exists in a flatly delivered technical error message.
A JSON string like { "error": "Insufficient balance." } is designed for one singular purpose: alerting a user or a system that funds are lacking to complete an operation. That is communication, but it’s not conversation. It's instruction. It's a piece of machine language meant to trigger a specific behavior—usually stopping or correcting something.
So when someone asks, “Can we make a story out of this?”—it’s the wrong question. The better one is: “What context deserves a story, and what demands plain precision?”
What We Lose When We Force Narrative
There’s a marketing impulse at play here: storytelling sells. It’s true. Proven. People remember stories more than statistics. But that only holds water when there’s a living context behind the message. Stretching emotion into a JSON file almost insults the reader’s intelligence. They know it wasn’t written by a person for a person.
There’s a risk in over-narrating everything. You wear out attention. You encourage suspicion. If everything’s a story, then nothing’s urgent. Nothing’s factual. Words stop anchoring people—they just become theater. The narrative approach becomes parody.
There Is Value in Saying “No, This Isn’t a Story.”
And here's where we bring Voss's thinking into it. "No" is not rejection. It’s a boundary. It's clarity. By acknowledging—clearly—that a technical data string has no human story to be extracted, we establish professional credibility. We stop wasting time spinning illusions and start demonstrating that we know where language ends and interpretation begins.
How many times have you seen businesses overreach—over-describe—over-romanticize even the dullest data? That’s a symptom of fear. Fear that the raw truth isn’t enough. But often, it is. Especially in technical environments.
Want to win trust? Show you know the difference between narrative and notation. That’s how you let people feel safe. That’s how you show restraint, clarity, intelligence.
What You Should Do Instead
If you're handed a JSON error like this and you're trying to use it in communication—don’t fake a fable. Use it as a pivot. Use it to open real dialogue. Ask:
- "What causes most account balance errors? Are they design problems, or user learning gaps?"
- "How could this error affect customer trust? Speed? Operations?”
- “What’s the cost, reputational or operational, of recurring error messages like these?”
That gets you to the real story: Not inside the JSON, but around it—why the error happened, who’s affected, what trade-offs are at play, and what it reveals about the system’s design. That’s a real conversation grounded in human consequences—not theatrical embellishment.
Double Down on Clarity, Not Drama
So the next time you're faced with a flat piece of machine output, resist the urge to decorate it with dramatic language. That doesn’t help the user and doesn’t honor the purpose of the content. Instead, use the presence of the data to highlight the system behind it, the behavior patterns it reflects, and the business implications it triggers.
Marketing must lead with clarity. Engineering communicates with logic. Leadership listens for consequences. Trying to inject narrative into every line of code isn’t smart or strategic. It’s sloppy.
Recognize what’s data, what’s dialogue, and what can actually move people. That’s where real persuasion lives.
#TechnicalCommunication #MarketingClarity #DataAccuracy #PlainLanguageMatters #SmartMessaging #ChrisVoss #NoIsPowerful #HumanCenteredMarketing
Featured Image courtesy of Unsplash and Markus Spiske (bMvuh0YQQ68)