Why stories taste better baked with 4 and 20 blackbirds

PLUS: the kooky things I found on the internet this week.

Thirteen gets a bad rap. Nobody’s really sure why.

All sorts of explanations are offered like the thirteen people at the Last Supper or the thirteen steps to the gallows. Or maybe it was just a lazy screenwriter who stuck the number in a horror flick and cursed it for eternity.

But be honest: don’t you feel something when you hear it? Thirteen. You can almost see the shadow stretch across the table.

That’s the strange magnetism of numbers. They don’t just count things. They carry things.

Seven feels holy. Forty feels trialing. Three feels complete, whole, right.

(Unless you’re in China, then it’s eight. Unless you’re Vegas, then it’s double sevens. Unless you’re Tolkien, then it’s the nine riders of death.)

Our stories are stitched with numbers:

• Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.

• Three blind mice, squeaking into history.

• Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest because sixteen would’ve ruined the rhythm.

Even Disney knew better than to go with a clean hundred Dalmatians. They gave us 101. Lopsided and balanced.

And then there’s Coleridge’s albatross, tailing the ship for precisely nine days. Not ten. Not eight. Nine. Only to be followed exactly nine fathoms deep.

Which brings me to the so-called “Fourteenth Rule.”

There isn’t one. That’s the point. Twelve feels right. Thirteen feels dangerous. But fourteen is the extra chair no one wanted to set at the dinner table. Too round. Too tidy. Too forgettable.

And that is why numbers matter in your writing.

• They hook. Nobody clicks on “Tips on writing,” But “22 Rules for Life” will get a click, click, click.

• They deepen. “A spirit sank nine fathoms” is poetry. “Pretty deep” is not.

• They enchant. “101 Dalmatians” makes you smile. “A bunch of spotted dogs” makes you yawn.

God Himself traffics in numbers. He wove three Persons into the Godhead, spun seven days into creation, wrapped His people into twelve tribes. Why three, seven, twelve? We don’t know. But we feel their pull.

That’s the 14th rule: numbers make no sense and yet, they make all the sense in the world.

Not because numbers are kooky. Because humans are.

There are at least 273 other examples, but I think the point is clear. Why use words for what could be said through numbers?

Use the Fourteenth Rule in your writing.

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MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• The guy who left working at Disney for his faith and what he does now (YouTube)

• My buddy Ed Oyama is killing it with videos on LinkedIn, and it’s because his storytelling is SPOT ON (LinkedIn)

📧 Email

• This is one of the most *underrated* types of lead magnets (LinkedIn)

• People who say “email is dead” don’t understand marketing in 2025 (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• Influencer-created products are taking a sharp downturn (LinkedIn)

• Is KPop Demon Hunters a Christian movie? (YouTube)

👀 ICYMI

• Million-dollar branding can cost .42 cents and still hit (LinkedIn)

• I shared my personal idea database (The Lab Notes)

• How to instantly make your writing less boring (Christain Story Lab)

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Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. If you built something, but are now wearing every hat and still writing your own emails—that’s digital babysitting. Let me ghost your content so you can keep building your business —> VeryGoodGhost(writing) Agency