Summary: Not every chunk of text is a story. Not everything sent over the wire carries meaning for a human being. And when you’re handed a raw JSON error response that simply tells you “insufficient account balance to run query,” you’ve got zero narrative to work with. There’s no plot. No characters. No resolution. Just a piece of machine logic trying to warn you: You’re out of credit. That misunderstanding happens because many creators confuse machine output with human communication. Let’s break this down properly. Why the distinction matters, and how to respond rationally without chasing fairy dust.
The Mistake: Reading a Machine Message as a Human Story
People expect content to have shape—something that can be told, retold, understood emotionally. Stories, emotions, intentions. But when they’re given raw API output filled with syntax, curly braces, and error codes, some make the leap: “This must be a bad story.” That’s like staring at your thermostat and asking why it hasn’t developed a compelling character arc.
What happens here is what Robert Cialdini would flag as a misapplication of Social Proof. Writers read into empty structures, assuming there must be meaning because similar-looking content often carries it. But technical systems aren’t emotional. They don’t shape narrative. They transmit state—conditions, flags, tokens. When reading JSON, you’re not dealing with literature. You’re dealing with logistics. Let’s call things what they are.
The Reality: It’s Not a Story, It’s a Status Update
Let’s clarify what was actually received in this scenario: a JSON response that reports an error state. For example:
{
"error": {
"code": "ERR_BALANCE",
"message": "Insufficient account balance to run query"
}
}
This isn’t content. This isn’t communication in the way marketing or storytelling functions. It’s a system notification. It’s like a red blinking light on your dashboard—no one writes a novel around it. It simply points to a problem: you’re out of juice. In negotiation terms, this is the hard “No” you need. Why? Because a “No” defines boundaries. It triggers reassessment. What’s the next move? That’s the question to work on—not how to make art out of a blinking red light.
Where The Confusion Originates
In a world where interfaces mix human content with machine responses, it’s easy to get lost. You switch between a paragraph of helpful chat text and a JSON object and expect the same rules to apply. But expecting narrative from raw code is like reasoning with a parking meter: it reacts, but it doesn’t care.
Here’s what this boils down to: the confusion of roles. Writers and marketers are paid to build bridges between people. Machines aren’t. Machines deliver outcomes, not opinions. When content creators mistake machine output for a communications piece, they waste time sculpting clay that was never meant to hold form.
What You’re Actually Seeing and What to Do Instead
So here’s what you’re looking at: a structured format built for machines, informing you there’s a financial block on an action. “Insufficient account balance to run query” tells us everything. There’s no room for metaphor because the reality is precise. You’re blocked, and now you need to decide—do you top up, change accounts, or halt the action altogether?
The real communication challenge here isn’t about rewriting the response into a story. It’s about teaching teams what JSON is, what role it plays, and when it matters to humans. That’s a different task entirely. It’s not about rewriting—it’s about reframing: from looking for story to understanding systems thinking.
Strategic Implications for Teams
What’s the cost of this misunderstanding? Time, mostly. Confusion wastes time. Worse, it eats confidence. If someone thinks they’ve missed a clever story, they go on a wild goose chase trying to extract it. This is where Confirmation Bias sneaks in—the belief there’s deeper meaning somewhere—if they just look harder.
Here’s the more useful strategic viewpoint: use this as a teachable moment for your technical and brand teams.
- Train copy teams to recognize technical artifacts like JSON, XML, and system logs on sight.
- Make sure developers use user-friendly error handling in client-facing situations.
- Separate interface-facing content from backend responses.
- And maybe most importantly, use this to align engineering and UX: who should be writing what, where, for whom?
This isn’t sexy. It’s not inspirational. But it’s useful. Clarity is always more profitable than confusion.
Punchline: Knowing What You’re Looking At Changes Everything
When faced with a non-narrative structure like a JSON error message, the smart move isn’t to invent a story. It’s to recognize that this isn’t a card in your storytelling deck. It’s code. It serves a different master—precision, not persuasion. The story here isn’t in the content. It’s in the error itself: You hit a wall. Now what?
That pause—right after the word “insufficient”—that’s where the real dialogue starts. Should you upgrade? Should you shift strategy? Should you renegotiate access or billing? That’s your strategic fork. That’s where emotion, investment, and decision-making step in.
Use that moment. Don’t dress it up. Just act on it.
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Featured Image courtesy of Unsplash and Growtika (FQ3lFA4Zi58)
