So lately I’m writing a fundraising proposal; a manifesto; a series of blog posts; a press release. All at once. One thing.

Spending a lot of time writing, reworking, simplifying—because the funding audience for this proposal is very broad (you may well be in it), but more important because my underlying vision is maybe like five steps removed from anything anybody’s done before. I’ve pitched the thing to about a dozen trusted listeners, and while there’s been loads of enthusiasm and only limited mutual confusion in the end, on average every conversation contains about five missed insights, of the form:

I: See, the whole point of this is X.

They: OK. I think I get it. Sure. But it sounds like you’re just describing a Y.

I: Ummm, no. Y is fine, and great, but this is X. Y’s have a, b, and c. We specifically avoid a and b, and give c away for free. See?

They: Ohhhh! OK! Cool!

[repeat 4 times, replacing X, Y, a, b, c]

So that’s a challenge. You may be able convince somebody to give you a patent or fund your business or fund your grant proposal on the virtue of one X/Y disconnect—that’s your improvement, your competitive edge in entrepreneurial ventures, your key insight in the life of the mind. If you’re looking for a cultural transformation that entails some deeply-held social and cultural norms (aka “want to change the world”) and there are five or more of these little startling jumps… you haven’t got the right metaphor yet.

Don’t worry, I won’t be vague anymore beyond the end of the month, and maybe the end of the week. I’m down to two X/Y pairs now, and I spent a long philosophical time last night stamping that out.

In the life-cycle of a big project, whether it’s a book or a business, a grant or a program, there comes a transition between its existence as cagey vaporware and its crystallization into an autonomous named entity. A kind of project individuation.

My friend Ron is writing a book, and he’s also at this embryonic stage where he’s loathe to show it around. Not so much because it fails to match his vision, but I suspect because the story isn’t clear, yet. He knows his story, as I do mine; what’s wanted is the transformation into something communicative, with relevance to the right subset of listeners.

A pitch’s relevance depends not merely on the words on the page. You don’t inspire the reader to understand the relevance of a thing merely by describing it in a manifesto, or an essay, or even a paean. The challenge of conveying relevance includes connoting all the correct subtexts — the suite of cultural ideas you want to bring to the fore and the avoidance of the implications you want to downplay. Format, presentation, logo, fonts, phrasing, length of sentences, rhetorical style, professionalism in the written or spoken word, graphical style: to every listener or reader these define you as a member of some stereotyped group. Not just the first impression, but every impression conveys meaning.

Sometimes even those confusing disconnects, those X/Y mismatches, can be used effectively in conveying meaning.

One’s goal is not to drop the idea on the table in front of the audience. One’s goal is, or should be, to create in the target’s mind a state of deep understanding. The best stories leave no room for “Why would anybody do that?” or “Why would you do it that way?”, and often don’t even waste time saying it outright. They can make the necessary schema plain with simplicity and grace.

Pitches are not memes. There are no memes. Pitches are engineering projects; the listeners’ minds are the raw material, and the expansion of the author’s vision their goal.