The Blog of Author David Allen

Author: D. Allen

Interview with Eva Velasquez – Timing and How She Rescues Her Ex

typewriter by baikahl on sxc.hu

In this fiction interview, I interview a young journalist who faced career suicide by helping a complete stranger rescue her ex-boyfriend. Her story is covered in my new book, and the rough draft is already done!

For the interview I did on her ex-boyfriend, check out this interview on the victim mentality.

…

Tell me about what happened, but don’t give too much away…

I’d love to. Not long ago, I finished my work day at the television station, and discovered that Jordan Mitchfield had broken up with me.

But why?

He cared about me, but didn’t trust anyone. He couldn’t trust anyone. In a way, he thought breaking up with me would help me move on without him. He was protecting me.

So he was trying to protect someone he cared about, but at the same time he was unsure whether he could trust you?

It’s true. But it didn’t work, because I went to visit him in the mental hospital where he was committed.

How did he react to that?

He had a lot of mixed feelings. It was terrifying because I couldn’t direct those feelings where I wanted them to go – all it would do is make him suspicious of me.

You mentioned at one point that a stranger at the hospital helped you. Who was that, and what did they do?

One of the doctors helped Jordan through some risky and experimental therapy sessions. The results all depended on Jordan’s choices, and the doctor guided him through the sessions enough for him to recover.

There’s more to it than that, right?

There was definitely foul play involved. However, the lawyers warned me not to talk too much about that until after the trial.

You were blacklisted after the events that happened with Jordan? How has your career progressed since then?

I have another job lined up, but it’s the type of job I’m not going to announce until my boss does first. It should start near the end of January.

What did you learn from all this experience?

I learned that you can push to get information out of people. Other times, you have to recognize when your desire to know everything needs to be toned down out of respect for the people you love. If you can do that, they will come to you when they are ready. Things don’t happen according you the timing that would be ‘perfect’ for you.

So, for me, being patient, and respecting the boundaries of those you love – those are the biggest lessons.

There you go, patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.

…

Authordavid.com News

I plan on moving my blog to a self-hosted site very soon. It will probably happen next weekend, though the change may take a few weeks. During that time, there may be changes to the layout, design, and a few other things. It’s all part of my diabolical scheme to make this blog one of your favorite places on the web.

If your friends don’t have an internet, tell them to get one, so they can read authordavid.com!

If you find yourself visiting the site in the next few weeks, wondering what’s going on – don’t worry! It’s just a growth spurt.

June 13, 2013
How An Angry Rant May Help You Find Your Motivation and Your Strength

What kind of messed up world do we live in where it’s become socially unacceptable to get upset?

Emotions are like gas prices, there is a cost of getting gas – and a cost of NOT getting gas.
photo by andlynx on sxc.hu

We’ve been taught that it is a sign of weakness to throw a tantrum and express our frustrations. And there are times and places where that’s true. But have we become so proud of our ability to hold it in that we take it too far?

If young men die and children bleed, does shrugging our shoulders at it make us feel cool?

If we’re spied on 24/7, and someone calls it like it is – do we rationalize why they should have kept their head down?

At age 12, I went to middle school for the first time. I was elated to hang out with the same kids I knew from church my whole life. We hung out every weekend, spent the night at each others houses, played Playstation till midnight, and slashed through the woods with sticks pretending they were swords.

But the environment was different at school. The game had changed, and everyone knew it but me. It was there I first discovered that people can be dishonest to themselves in order to please others.

Your weekend friends might not be the same as your school friends.

That’s not to say I was perfect. I was a pretty selfish son of a mother. While I don’t take responsibility for things I never could have known about, I do take full responsibility for learning as much as possible so that I can understand social pressures and relationships.

For about 6 months, I was pretty much an exile. I had one friend from elementary school, and he kept to himself. Thank God for J.R.R. Tolkien, Brian Jacques, and countless other writers whose books kept me alive when I had nothing to look forward to.

In all those stories, there was evil running rampant. It was easy to see who to root for. While real life isn’t always that easy, what happens when we run into a moral grey area? We’ve been taught not to get angry, not to get upset.

At home, I couldn’t even grunt at something without an angry parent warning me ‘Don’t you dare show anger in this house’.

A blogger was born.

Ignoring Emotions Makes You Weak

Anger is a symptom. Happiness is a symptom. Bliss is a symptom. They shouldn’t cause us to react, but emotions are often what causes us to do anything worth doing.

Without curiosity, who would visit other countries?

Without fear of loss. who would work to develop a cure for a terrible disease?

Without happiness, how do we know what to replicate in our lives on a daily basis?

We’ve been taught that emotions are the enemy, when they may be the very thing that allow us to stand up and face real enemies. Managing emotions isn’t the same as denying them. Ignoring a warning sign in your soul doesn’t make you strong.

We live in a world crafted to ignore emotions.

When the boss wants twenty widgets produced an hour, he can’t allow for such foolish things as desperation, giddiness, or shame – so he acts like you’re weak because you see – and feel – that two plus two equals four. Don’t expect him to say he’s sorry, he’s spent so long believing that ‘sorry’ doesn’t exist, that he’s drunk on his own juice box.

Pity him. He’s found great influence with words and wealth, but lost his humanity.

Emotions Can Cut Through the Lies

Just because someone else is more eloquent than us, that doesn’t make them right.

Just because the discussion has been framed for us – so we can’t see outside of the perspectives being taught – that doesn’t mean that we should let ‘experts’ make the tough decisions on our behalf.

Just because there’s nothing ‘they’ can do, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do.

Normally I try to write something really useful – a how to kind of thing. Something that’s really practical, and makes your life better. If you’re still reading this, you may be thinking of your own emotions, and you may be feeling some guilt.

That boss who wants twenty widgets an hour? He may have been permanently imprinted onto your mind. He’s pissed right now, because emotions make things inconsistent, they mess up your schedule, and short-circuit your deadlines. He wants you to get six hours sleep tonight instead of eight, so you can make up for your outburst – your imperfection.

Screw him.

Those imperfections may be the only real reason for doing anything productive at all. They may be the only thing between you and slavery. They may be what causes you to reject the grey area, and turn it white as snow.

June 11, 2013
How to Select a Target Audience For Your Work Without ‘Limiting Yourself’
On Target by LarryLens at sxc.hu

Let’s talk about TV for a moment.

There are lots of shows out there. Since Netflix, most off-air shows are available at the touch of a button (still waiting on The Waltons, Netflix – get on it!).

Even if you screen out all the stuff that came out yesterday, there’s still so much coming out. You’d never be able to watch everything even if you tried. Even if you pulled it off, you’d go into overload and not have enough energy or time to reflect on what you saw.

Now take TV, and add Books, Blogs, Magazines, Music, Education courses. If you’re anything like me, you could major in about 20 different subjects if money and time weren’t an issue.

But money and time ARE an issue.

So you filter it all out. If something doesn’t apply to you and your situation – you’re not going to pay attention to. You don’t have time for anything else.

Yet you are aren’t likely to find anything put together for your exact situation.

As a consumer, you have to take what applies mostly to you, and run with it.

As a producer, you aren’t going to write a self-help book for a young, professional Asian American in west L.A. trying to date a Christian recording studio engineer in his late 30’s. See what I mean? If you wrote that book, and it actually reached that one person, you’ve spent $1000-$3000+ and made back $15.

What’s a producer to do?

How do you create something that a large group of people will buy, enjoy, and share with their friends, without your hard work getting ignored by everyone?

Here are a few things you can look for:
- All people have universal needs, fears, and desires
- All people have underlying motivations for their desires
- All people have social pressures pushing them this way and that
- All people have different experiences, results, and feedback from their actions, and varying levels of awareness about why they are in their current situation
These apply to everyone. Yet they won’t be the same for every person out there.
- The woman who wants to be beautiful in order to get a career as a model will have a different underlining motivation than another woman who just loves running after work.
- An elderly person who desires security want a gun in their home in case an intruder breaks in and attacks them. That same person, if they grew up in a bad neighborhood on the outskirts of town, may instead prefer renting an apartment next door to a police station.
- The high school student, pushed into a medical degree by their parents, will have different motivations than another graduate who reads books on anatomy and physiology for fun.
If you’re writing for the woman who wants to be a model, you will use the type of words she uses. You’ll illustrate what it will look like when she is on the cover of Marie Claire, and how eating green vegetables will make her skin glow.

The student pushed into studying medicine will appreciate guides on how to get through the tough courses with as little effort and time as possible. You’ll talk about how proud their family will be, and show how they can do whatever they really want on the side, while they use their medical career to finance their dream life.

Or you’ll go the other way and write a book that helps him tell his parents to ‘eat their shorts’.

When you know you WHO are writing to, you’ll know
- What you’re main character will look like (even nonfiction books have characters)
- How they talk
- What they dream about
- What they are afraid of
- What questions they will ask on each step of the journey
By then, you may even know what makes them laugh!

By getting specific, the people who you are writing to will feel like you are writing TO them. At the same time, you won’t be vague. You’ll cut through the clutter. And your work will get the attention it so richly deserves.
June 6, 2013
Who Are Your Heroes, Really? A Counter-Intuitive Look at Experts
Pen Mightier than Sword by penywise at sxc.hu

What do we love so much about our favorite nonfiction authors?

If you’re anything like me, you read nonfiction to simplify a complicated part of your life, or enjoy a window into someone else’s experiences.

If a writer can do this really well, they have a wonderful career. Each new book builds upon the audience of happy readers who bought in last time, and the writer becomes more influential.

Yet how far does this escalate? Hero worship can tarnish our own self image if we assume that the people who write successful books are so immeasurably better than us:
- That a productivity author has his act together
- That a business author never fails to make a profit
- That a diet author never enjoys an ice cream every now and then
We buy books because these people have the answers, right? They do, and we don’t , so we buy the books hoping to get the answers, and then we’ll have the answers for ourselves. Authors present themselves this way for a reason, and they must.

Here’s an idea you may not have considered.

Are You Smarter Than An Apostle?

Paul of Tarsus was an influential figure in the Bible. Out of the 27 books in the New Testament, 13 of those books ascribe Paul as the writer.

Who would know more about the Bible, and Christianity, than someone who wrote nearly half of the New Testament?

Yet how did he describe himself?

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst. – I Timothy 1:15 NIV

What? Paul, you’re supposed to have the answers!

How about something more recent?

Leo Babauta is a NYT Bestselling author. He has done a lot of impressive things, yet at one time he had not done any of them. At one point he had no books, was a smoker, and was 65lbs heavier.

Business?

Tim Ferriss wrote the Four Hour Workweek, a guide to automation and reducing your work hours so you can have a balanced life. How did he start out? By working 14 hours a day.

Money Management?

Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad saw how his biological father made poor decisions with money. Robert knew from observation that he needed to make bold, different decisions if he was arrive where he wanted to be.

I wrote books that centered on trust and relationships. Did this happen because I was the bees’ knees at either subject? Far from it. I struggled with these parts of my life so much that I teamed up with a life coach to co-author these books, all to improve my understanding of trust and relationships.

It’s Not Having the Answers that Starts the Journey

Is it possible that many nonfiction authors write books because they didn’t have any good answers when they started their journey?

This means we shouldn’t idolize anyone, least of all nonfiction writers. If an aspect of life was kicking your butt enough, you’d go on a search to correct it. From there, maybe you would write a book too.

Thanks for the Struggle

When any of the authors I cited above release a book, I’ll probably buy it.

Except for Paul of Tarsus – because it’s all Greek to me.

Their struggle may not make it on to the page, but the journey they went through to make their book happen gives me a new appreciation for all nonfiction writing.

I will continue to read nonfiction to gain awareness of where I can improve, and borrow from the years of experience that has been put on paper to help all of us move forward in our own journeys.

Please don’t worship anyone as some great ‘higher than thou’. Nonfiction authors aren’t heroes, but their journey makes them heroic. Just as your journey makes YOU heroic.

Do you have any favorite nonfiction authors? Let me know in the comments…
June 4, 2013
The Real Problem Creatives Have AFTER They’ve Tried and Failed

Negative Emotions Can Make You Very Creative, But…

I’m only happen when it rains. – Garbage (the band)

Rain Texture by ShadowRave at sxc.hu

Negative emotions can be a great source of inspiration. The very first written stories in Greek plays were classified as Comedies and Tragedies. A famous example is when a man becomes king only later to realize that he had killed his own father and married his mother in the process (Oedipus Rex).

For all the good news that is in the Bible, there are also quite a few stories that end in tragedy, like the relationship between John the Baptist and Herod.

Clearly, negative emotions can be a great source of creativity.

Tragedies let us know not to go down a wrong path. They highlight the dangers of a ineffective mindset.

There is a difference, however, between negative emotions and the victim mentality.

It starts with the difference between thinking and dwelling. Thinking is productive – we can create when we are thinking. After the grieving process, we can illustrate how terrible events can benefit our future actions and thoughts.

Dwelling, on the other hand, gets you nowhere. When we start to dwell on negativity, it is easy to move into a victim place. When that happens, our creativity suffers.

The Benefits of A Victim Mentality

What does the victim mentality do? It makes you the center of the universe – a universe you don’t even want to be in.

It takes a great level of intelligence to maintain a thinking process as stupid as this. Because it is such a great undertaking, we take pride in it. It highlights our intellect. Too bad it also highlights our lack of wisdom.

For all our twisting, wringing, stretching, and stuffing, we only contort ourselves.

If you are the center of your universe, it is difficult to write from the perspective of a different person. It is nearly impossible to keep in mind how somebody else will consider your work.

It is seductive. Why? Because we not only make ourselves the center of the universe – we also twist everything around us to show how unrelated events are a direct attack on ourselves.

To preserve our sense of self, we may even stop creating anything meaningful because ‘nobody will care or understand it’.

Creatives Have MAJOR Problems With This

If your job is to create things, and you only succeed when you are brilliant, you are going to face a lot of rejection. Most of it will sound like “Sorry, but this isn’t for us.” OR “Give me a business card and we’ll stay in touch.”

Other times it will be much harsher. Something you thought was smart didn’t connect, and people will tell you so.

It will even be cruel! Critics only get attention when they say controversial things, so you will often hear a critic say something disparaging about you just to get eyeballs, or say you’re old news just because they want to look cool in front of their hipster friends.

So there is this desire for self-preservation – to not do anything that rocks the boat.

Yet most of the rewards go to the risk takers, and most of the people brave or stupid enough to take the plunge won’t get the results they desire the first time, the second time, or even the tenth.

You will not take risks if you are in the victim mentality. As a result, victim thinking gets you nowhere as a creative.

This may be obvious on the surface, but if it cuts your time dwelling in the victim space by even 10%, you’re life will be changed.

Maybe it’s time to get into a different universe.

Has victim thinking ever held you back from doing what you know you need to do? Let me know in the comments below!

May 30, 2013
Operant Conditioning, And The Silver Lining in Our Obsession with the Zombie Apocalypse
Black Swans by unknowme at sxc.hu
Zombies (not pictured)

Zombies have become extremely popular in our culture.

They have been a staple of our entertainment for a long time. Today the trend continues with films like World War Z and shows like The Walking Dead.

It looked so fun that even the U.S. Military wanted in.

Critics hammer this trend, perhaps because ‘any publicity is good publicity’, and they want it to continue. Others hate it because it appears to reflect that we as a culture are obsessed with disease, decay, death, and destruction. I agree, but we’re not going to go into that right now.

The Walking, Living, 28 Days, Dawn-of-the-Shawn-of-the-Legend, Evil Dead

What came out of our obsession with zombies is the self help section that has swelled with useful guides to surviving the zombies.

But zombies do not exist, you say? Not in the literal sense…

True, but zombies represent an idea: the idea that all the systems of human decency, infrastructure, and survival have great flaws. If any of these flaws are exploited, many of us would be in danger. It matters less that this danger comes from a fictitious undead monster, and more that people are now talking about what they should do if the things we rely on every day become unreliable.

Scoff all you want about zombies. They may not be real, but operant conditioning is real. Black swans can occur. And it is worth our time to consider how they would affect our lives.

Operant Conditioning
- You write a headline, and it does really well.
- You buy flowers for your date, and she loves them.
- You ask a question at an appointment, and the ensuing conversation leads to a sale.
What do we do after these things happen?

More of the same.

Why?

If we want the same results on a consistent basis, we’ll keep doing the activities that led to those results.

Most of the time, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s how we get good manners, make friends, and provide for our families.

It’s called operant conditioning – a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior.

And I have a confession to make: when I figure out how to make the most entertaining, moving, and inspirational stories out there, I’ll probably keep doing it.

The Dark Cloud of Operant Conditioning

Whenever you need groceries, you go to the store. Because that’s where the food is.

Imagine: one day you go to the store, and there aren’t any groceries – at any of the stores.

Your life is in immediate danger. In this hypothetical scenario, you may figure something out, even if it takes a few months to find a consistent source of food. When that source is secured, operant conditioning will cause you to make that your new ‘grocery store’. When you need food, you’ll go to that ‘store’ instead, whether that’s a farmers’ market, a neighbors ranch, eating shrubbery in the woods, or growing your own food.

If you bought flowers for your wife every day, expecting an outpouring of love and affection every time, then you are setting a very unrealistic expectation.

Eventually, to get those results, you will have to do something different: A special date night, vacation, taking care of the kids for a night so she can have time to herself, compliments – you’ll do something different to show that you care.

Clearly, operant conditioning, in an activity-to-results scenario, is flawed. At the same time, we have to do what works, or our lives will be a constant state of panic. Life experience has to count for something. We don’t have time to reinvent the wheel every single day with everything.

Operant conditioning isn’t going away.

Systems Will Save Your Life

So, how do we use operant conditioning in a way that makes us less vulnerable to big changes?

We use systems.

Once you find that your spouse’s primary love language is Quality Time, you’ll use a system to find things to do that he’ll like where you can spend time together, instead of just watching a movie once a week.

If you’re really worried about the grocery store conundrum, you’ll have two month’s supply of storable food and maybe a small garden where you can brush up your skills on growing your own food in just a few minutes a day. You can still go to the store, and it’s possible that no problems will ever occur. If something bad does happen, though, you have a system that deals with that sort of thing.

Instead of just making a list-style headline (5 ways to drive your boss crazy) for your blog, you’ll learn about a system that uses proven principles, like the 4-U’s of effective headlines. From there, you can create with very little fear.

In my own writing, I have a system for putting together stories. While it changes a little with each project, the foundation is pretty much the same. I’m now looking for a similar system for Editing and Rewriting.

Operant conditioning is your friend only if you use it on systems, rather than attaching it to specific actions. When you have good systems in place, you are free to repeat whatever works best for you – this time with the confidence that you’ve planned for any unexpected changes.

How have you changed how you live or work to prepare for the unexpected? Let me know in the comments!
May 28, 2013
Interview with Author Jevon Knight – King Larsen, Trinidad, and More

There are a lot of great authors out there with stories to tell, and advice for people who want to write.

For my first in a who-knows-how-many interview series, I’d like to introduce Jevon Knight, an author who first caught my attention on the wordpress community. Jevon is the author of King Larsen, a medieval fantasy novel about a king who abandons the throne for a chance to save the one he loves.

—

Your book is about a king who abandons all for love, yet that decision isn’t all positive. What theme were you trying to get across?

The theme is the consequence of not being able to let go of what we love. As self-aware beings, when we love something, whether alive or material, we get so attached to it that we become emotional and depressed when it’s gone. Not everyone makes positive decisions or logical actions once they reach that point, and some people are never the same again. You can relate to this at funerals, where people mourn in widely different ways.

I remember attending a funeral where the elderly husband actually begged his wife to get up and walk, like if she was just pretending. I figured, what if I had a protagonist who never recovered from that state, and someone told him that his love was actually not dead? I made him a king to show the reader how bad his despair was and how much he was willing to give up to get her back.

But it’s not just about him. In this book, there are several characters who have lost loved ones, and they each deal with it in their own unique way, both negative and positive.

What big challenges did you encounter with your book that you did not anticipate?

This book is based on an era that is long gone, the medieval period of about the 8^th century or so. And while there are several books and movies that cover this time, some things are skewed to satisfy the desires of entertainment. That is why it’s so important to research the world you want to write about, even if it’s not real.

Long after I started my book, I just happened to watch a documentary where it demonstrated that a sword cannot penetrate the metal armour of a soldier, something that you always see in those games and movies we love. A spear, and an arrow from a long bow could do it because of the amount of force, but a human just cannot swing a sword hard and fast enough. Even though my book has many fantasy elements, I still want to keep it realistic by satisfying basic laws.

So, if a weapon as staple as a sword cannot penetrate metal armour, how does a sword-wielding soldier fight?

I did some research and found out that warriors used a fighting style where they would aim for the gaps in armour, like the neck. I had to go back and adjust the writing in my fight scenes to cater for this, and always kept this rule in mind.

You’re from Trinidad and Tobago, yet you write a lot about medieval style kingdoms. Why go in that direction? Does it just come naturally?

I actually grew up on fairy tales and fantasy stories like the Hobbit. I’m much more interested in worlds with vast forest, mountains, and amazing characters. So, while the culture of my country prefers literature, there are still those who are into lore from different parts of the world.

But I do recognize that Trinidad and Tobago has some interesting folklore. I actually plan to write a novel that combines historical tribes with our local folklore, and elements of Carnival. So you might have a Carib tribe that encounters creatures like dwens, lajabliss, blue devils, and a beautiful feathered woman.

Carnival happened a few months ago. Did you flee the island or live it up?

I love Carnival so I prefer to live it up. I like to go all-inclusive fetes, and play our mud mass called Jouvert. It can be expensive though, so I have to select the good ones. After all, there is life, and writing, after Carnival.

Are you working on any big projects outside of novel writing?

No. I pretty much write, go to work, and write some more. I did try a couple of business ventures, but writing seems to be the only thing that I kept at.

What is your next book project about? Any hints?

The next book I plan to write is called One Kingdom. The theme for this one is mentorship and a twisted sense of protection. It’s about two brothers: the older recently became king, the younger swore to protect. There is no jealousy, but the younger despises the king’s concept of peace, and makes several bad decisions in an attempt to make him understand that true peace can only be achieved through total domination.

Prince or Michael Jackson – and why?

Michael Jackson, definitely. So many great songs, like The Girl Is Mine, and you can’t beat the moon walk.

If you could only give one piece of advice to writers wanting to get their stories on paper, what would it be?

Don’t think you have to wait until you have an MSc in Literature, and completed all the creative writing courses the world has to offer to start writing a novel. If you have a story in mind, and you have a dream of getting published, then grab a chair, grab a laptop, and start writing.

Where can people go to find out more about your books and/or buy them?

I’m hoping to have my first novel, King Larsen, published by December 2013. You can go tohttp://jknightsworld.wordpress.com/ and click on the links under My Books to read the about and excerpts from my books.

Describe an awkward event from a past job that you didn’t like?

When I first started working as a computer technician, I was real enthusiastic about getting all my work done. I remember I was given a project to install CD ROM drives in about 40 computers. I did it pretty fast, and one evening I was left with nothing to do but listen to the radio. When the boss called asking for a co-worker, and I told her he was not around, she asked what I was working on. Being the naive new guy, I said, “Well, I’m finished with all my work, so I’m just listening to the radio.” She was so shocked and confused by that answer that she stuttered her following command, which pretty much meant get to work. I never forgot the lesson I learned that day: never rush to finish all your work, always pace yourself. Not exactly something you want to preach to your kids though.

If the president signed a law requiring everyone to buy your book, what passion would you pursue with all that King Larsen money?

I would definitely travel more. I want to visit famous sites, like the Coliseum of Rome, and the Great Wall of China, and go on hikes all over the world.

May 23, 2013
Anchoring – The Pitfalls and Profits of Describing Your Products by Referencing Others.
metal confusion 1 by shho at sxc.hu
Connecting is easy, but does it cause more problems than it solves?

This is all opinion here, so maybe it will help. If not, tell me I’m wrong…

There is a popular admonition in advertising: If you cannot describe a product without referencing another product, your idea isn’t going to work.

Referencing another product is something I like to call Anchoring.

If what you’re trying to promote isn’t much different from what’s out there, perhaps it’s a product creation problem and not a marketing problem?

Sometimes though, cannot make that choice. You’re an advisor, copywriter, or account executive hired by someone else who hasn’t gone through the product generation process with your level of clarity. If your product is just like another, more popular product, it’s going to be hard to promote it in a unique way.

[polldaddy poll=7119602]

So you have to find an answer and can’t tell them to choose something different. If that’s the case, is it a bad thing to reference another product? Is it a sin 100% of the time?

Let’s go to the movies…

It’s like this, but with [Unique Twist]

Movie lovers do this constantly.
- What is Avatar? Pocahontas in space.
- The Last Samurai? Pocahontas in Japan.
- Dances With Wolves? Pocahontas, but with Sioux Natives instead of Algonquians.
Some of these examples are spot on, some only contain a few major plot links. Oddly enough, I love all three of those movies, but dislike Pocahontas (not the person, though she always cheated me at Bridge).

You’re opening yourself up to a great risk with movies by presenting them like this.

The Real Risk in Anchoring your Idea to Another Idea

Where is the risk? Whether or not the development executive or audience member LIKES the referenced product.

If a development executive lost 50 million dollars marketing Pocahontas, and you were trying to get Avatar made, Avatar would not get funding if you pitched it as Pocahontas, but with a larger production budget.

If you promoted it as The Last Samurai – in space, and an audience member loved The Last Samurai, and science fiction, then he’ll see the movie.

This risk is removed if you know beforehand if your target audience likes similar ideas and products. If they do, you can take advantage of that mojo. Especially if the product is not a physical thing, but an experience.

Experience-based products and services can benefit a lot by anchoring.
- Lotion makes your skin feel like silk.
- Vacationing in the French Riviera is reserved for only the most noble of royal families (and we welcome you and your sweet tourist money).
- Pierogies are as decadent as a fine alfredo pasta, but with potatoes and cream added in.
Other Foreseeable Risks

Homogenous Market Products – Products that exist solely for practical reasons, are best presented without referencing a competitor that the target audience already uses. Now you’re trying to convince them to switch, and that’s not easy – why make it harder by reminding them of what they already use?

The Different / Dependable Conundrum – If you rely on something, and have for a long time, why take a chance on something new?

Is this helpful? I wanna know! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
May 21, 2013
Why Theme Still Matters, Even In Escapist Entertainment
brocade by michaelaw at sxc.hu

Pictures are for entertainment; messages should be delivered by Western Union – Samuel Goldwyn (of MGM)

If you’re writing a sermon, shame on you if there isn’t some sort of takeaway.

If your ads need to sell product, the theme should communicate that your product solves a deep-rooted need within.

Writing for entertainment is different. Novels, Videogames, and Movies are all escapist mediums. With those, we want to be entertained, to ‘get away’ from our present situations.

When that’s your objective, the idea that we might have to do something lates makes it more difficult to relax.

In this case, theme needs to be almost invisible. But that doesn’t make it less important. If anything, it makes theme more crucial.

Theme Helps Answer Most of Your Pre-First Draft Questions

Without theme, it’s difficult to make the key decisions necessary to shape your story.
- Which characters are the best ones to tell the story?
- Why would a city be a better setting than an isolated island?
- Would a funeral be a better place for a family fight than a graduation party?
- What should your conflict be about?
I kind of knew what my theme was about when I started writing my current book: The search for truth is difficult, and takes multiple attempts, but it is worth it in the end.

Theme needs to be communicated by the characters actions. Doing so only with words will turn people off.

In real life, we have enough people telling us one thing, while doing another – that doesn’t resonate with us.

How Theme Guided My Decisions

The search for truth is difficult, and takes multiple attempts, but it is worth it in the end.

With this theme in mind, I knew that one character had to go through this journey. Difficult, disempowering lies needed to grab hold of my main character.

Then, the opposite:

There had to be another character who NEVER did this soul searching, but seemed to have control of everything and everyone. Eventually, the main character needed to surpass this unmoving dinosaur – forever set in their ways.

There also had to be other characters who either weren’t aware or thought the search was a waste of time.

Is my theme the same as what it will be when the whole thing is finished? Mostly.

Over time, I will refine it. That’s a big part of writing and rewriting.

For me, not knowing your theme until your finished is like using a scalpel to turn a kangaroo into Miss Universe – there will be a lot of deep cuts, and there’s a high chance it won’t work.

You can still communicate your message – and Tell A Great Story

If you don’t want people’s lives to be different, you don’t really have anything to say. There’s nothing to talk about.

Even if your story makes no change whatsoever, the thought that it could may give you the juice needed to follow through with your project to the end.

Not every writer does it this way – it’s only how I do it.

A few writers, after many false starts and hundreds of revisions, can make a good story without knowing their theme at the beginning. Even then, they likely refined their craft and subconsciously had an idea of it anyway.

Is it obvious to you when someone is trying to communicate a theme in a story? Has it ever made you love a story more? Less? Let me know in the comments…
May 17, 2013
How to Forge High-Impact Ideas – And Why T-Rex Is the Master of PR

Hey buddy…Next time someone offers you an asteroid…Say no.
photo by mayize at sxc.hu

Before I get into this post, there’s something you should know: I just got a profile on Goodreads – the social network for readers. Want to know what I’m reading, and share some great book finds of your own? Connect with me on Goodreads. Every time someone does, I do a moonwalk in my kitchen. Now to the good stuff…

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I’m going to tell you how to make a high impact idea that will spread by word of mouth. But first, you’ll have to be patient and listen to me talk about dinosaurs…

T-Rex is not the scariest dinosaur around.

Here are at least 4 that are bigger and badder.

So why didn’t Spinosaurus make it into our nightmares?

When Jurassic Park came out, my parents didn’t let me watch it. My uncle discovered this, and on my next visit to his home, promptly bought the VHS and popped it in.

There was one scene in Jurassic Park that I never forgot – and most of you are probably thinking of it now.

For those with conservative parents and no uncle, I present that moment to you here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsGjh6ul7mE]

That pulse in the water signals the footsteps of an oncoming T-Rex.

In our daily lives, we don’t see T-Rex, but we deal with glasses of water all the time. Say you watched Jurassic Park last week, and are having breakfast with friends at a restaurant. An angry patron stomps by and you see the pulse of the water in your glass. Part of you is thinking about that T-Rex moment. If you point to the glass and mention it, everyone who saw that movie will know what you’re talking about.

The Much Needed Tremor Moment in Your Message

Most ads don’t have a Tremor Moment.

Most screenplays and films don’t have a Tremor Moment.

But to be effective in word-of-mouth advertising, they might need one.

Emotional Imagery

So how do you make a T-Rex moment? By studying how ideas spread and utilizing those same principles into your message.

In Made To Stick (affiliate link), Chip and Dan Heath talk about the spread of ideas. Part of their methodology focuses on using sensory images that create an emotional response.

What will instill a strong emotion? Positive or negative, it is the strength of the emotion that makes it impactful.

Triggers

Next, what will trigger the memory of what they saw in your message? The water glass triggered the fear and terror of a prehistoric predator. It also cemented T-Rex’s place as the coolest dinosaur around, even though she didn’t have the physical characteristics worthy of the title.

From Milton Erickson back in the 50’s up to today with Stanford professors, psychotherapy and psychology has long known and used triggers. It is also used in sales. One expert in the subject has his own fan page among marketers.

Some triggers work better than others. Ideally, these triggers should be shaped to match the situation. If you want someone talking about your idea to others, it’s best if an individual is triggered while around others, while being aware of the trigger. Obviously positive attention to your idea is better if you’re selling something, while negative attention is better if you’re trying to dissuade someone from doing something.

It is possible to go too far. Some of the stop smoking ads have been so exaggerated in their imagery that they spread as ideas, but they are so removed from the average person’s experience that they discount it.

If you want to see the battlefield around you – with all parties vying for your dollar, your vote, your life – pay attention to the triggers. If you want to win the battle, keep in mind that your cause must have an image associated with it that instills great emotion, yet also passes through our filters of confirmation bias, denial, normalcy, and all sorts of internal defense mechanisms.

Association

What do you want the trigger to cause a person to do (or not do)? Chip and Dan Heath mention simplicity as a key part of a spreadable idea. If an action is simple, people are more likely to do it.

What do you do when you see the flash? says the turtle.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW4s7TETtJA]

If you’re in the blast radius of an atomic bomb, this advice is nearly useless. It does, however, provide an action that nearly anyone can do. Maybe it increases your chance of survival by one hundredth of one percent. Maybe.

More useful: Tornado warnings that tell you to seek shelter in a secure, underground cellar.

Implementation:

Trying to get to the gym? How about a picture of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers next to your bathroom mirror, with a note underneath telling you to go to the gym so you won’t end up looking like Mike Myers in a fatsuit? Put this next to your front door as well, where your gym clothes are already laid out in front of the door, and you may even get better results.

Emotion reaction: Disgust.

Trigger: Mirror or Front Door (I should be going somewhere)

Associated Action: Put on some gym clothes and work out.

You can take charge of changing your own life, or influencing others by using these powerful principles.

If you’re telling a story, following these rules will create an environment where people talk about your film, or your novel.

Any big ads or story scenes that made a big impact on you? I’d like to know because your feedback matters! Comment below.

May 14, 2013