Monday Musings: Talk to the Hand

Never ask your left-brain to draw because he doesn’t know how and he doesn’t care either. Try putting your hand out in front of you and drawing what you see.

Left-brain idea of a hand

If you let your left-brain take the job, he’ll (my left-brain is a he of course) draw a hand, not this hand, but a caricature of hand, like the nasty drawing above. Your left-brain will think it lovely because it satisfies his criteria for a hand. He’s good at classifying things but he certainly can’t draw.

Hand Holding a Pipe -- modified contour drawing

If you want to draw a hand, ask your right-brain (I call my right-brain my dragon) to draw what he sees, not a hand holding a pipe, just ask him to trace the outlines of everything he sees. Tell him to take his time and he will, as his eyes trace the details, your hand guides your pencil and an image of a particular hand holding a particular pipe emerges on the paper.

This will drive your left-brain nuts. He has no patience for what he considers unnecessary nonsense and will tell you on no uncertain terms to quit wasting time and get on with it. He’s rude and might jump up and down screaming “talk to the hand” in your virtual ear. Simply smile and ignore him, thinking to yourself that you are the one who is really talking to the hand. He’ll get bored, give up and leave you alone. It simply takes patience and a bit of practice.

Jade Plant -- modified contour drawing

Creativity finds itself in the particular, in the details. Here’s another modified contour drawing that my dragon and I made during the summer of 1994. I put a jade plant in front of us and asked him to draw what he saw.

Creative writing faces the same dilemma. Your left-brain loves to generalize and put everything into neat abstract categories; your right-brain loves the details. Your left-brain wants yes or no answers; your inner dragon loves to imagine the particular, the specific. Here’s an example from my short story “An Emerald Ring” where Elizabeth tells us how she feels about her Aunt Nellie.

Elizabeth could have said “Aunt Nellie was a grouchy old woman” and that’s certainly true but not terribly creative, something your left-brain might say. This is what I wrote instead:

“Grim faced old Aunt Nellie lay there in the coffin, lips so tight it’s a wonder her face didn’t break. Aunt Nellie’s lips barely moved when she talked and if she ever smiled, I never saw her do it. Maybe she smiled in secret, in front of her mirror just for practice.”

When you show your reader, you engage her imagination, letting her draw her own conclusions about Aunt Nellie and how Elizabeth feels about her.

How do you convince your left-brain inner critic to stay out of the way when writing? You give yourself permission to write shitty first drafts knowing that, like a film photographer, you will develop the images later when you edit and re-write, when you welcome the helping hand of your valuable inner critic. When you are writing creatively, your job is to capture the images without editing or censoring.

If you missed the first parts of the series and would like to read them, here are the links:

Monday Musings: An Emerald Ring, the Story

Monday Musings: An Emerald Ring, the Story II

Monday Musings: An Emerald Ring, the Story III

And here’s the link where you can download the full text of An Emerald Ring with my compliments.

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How Story-telling Can Turn Prospects Into Customers

The most successful sales letter in advertising history begins with a story. This single letter mailed for over 20 years and generated an estimated $2 billion in subscription revenue for the Wall Street Journal. It’s hard to argue with a good story. Story-telling bypasses critical thinking, flies under the customer’s radar, and triggers an emotional response that reduces or eliminates sales resistance. Story-telling engages customers dynamically and moves them from problem to solution, helps them discover your product or diffuses their skepticism.

The Journal letter opens with the story of two men returning for their college reunion after 25 years. These two men were very much alike. They were personable, above average students and happily married with three children. Both went to work for the same company. “But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was it’s president.”

The letter writer wonders what makes such a difference in a person’s life. He says it’s knowledge and what people do with what they know. He goes on to tell about the Wall Street Journal, that the whole purpose of the Journal is to “give its readers knowledge – knowledge they can use in business.”

People responded to this letter because of the story, because of the dream and the life changing power of knowledge. The story used the contrast between two men, but the same technique can work by showing how a person moves from a problem to a solution. The product may be the hero in the story, but people buy the life changing dream.

When Porter Stansberry launched his breakthrough investment newsletter, he used a powerful story to introduce people to the then new Internet. His headline was brilliant. “There’s a New Railroad Across America And it’s making some people very rich…” He invited readers to imagine themselves in top hat and tails. He painted a picture of a railroad magnate, riding the rails in his private car in the 1850s. He talked about the incredible riches for those who were smart enough to invest in railroads in their infancy as they exploded across the continent.

Porter used the story of the romance and riches of the great age of the railroads and revealed the single, simple secret of wealth. It worked. Readers were ready when he talked about how his newsletter could show them how to tap into the wealth of the Internet. Porter turned the unfamiliar into the familiar. People subscribed to his letter in droves and made him millions. They responded to the story and bought wealth and lifestyle.

Story diffuses and often eliminates skepticism. Why should people believe you? Of course you’ll tell them all about your wonderful product. Testimonials, the compact stories of satisfied customers can turn skeptics into buyers. Testimonials are powerful and give you instant credibility. Without credibility, you’re doomed. Who would you believe, you the seller or the customer who tells how your widget increased his Internet sales by 57% the first time he put it into action?

Story-telling doesn’t just engage customers, it grabs them by the emotions. You can’t sell people, but story can persuade them to buy. People don’t buy products, they see how their lives will be changed and buy the dream. Your story puts them into that dream and converts prospects into customers.

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Monday Musings: An Emerald Ring, the Story

Stories have been a fascination all my life. When I was a kid I read constantly. Story time, when the teacher would read to us, was my favorite part of the school day. I enjoy good stories, read nearly every day and can’t imagine life without books.

There would be times when I thought to myself. “I wish I could write stories.” I never did. I’d think I didn’t know how, was afraid to try, didn’t have the time or some other excuse. A few years ago I made up my mind that I was going to write creative fiction. Maybe I’d start tomorrow, the day after or next week. I’d tell myself “John, you can do this, you can write stories.”

Well, I finally did it. Two weeks ago (give or take a day) I kicked my butt, hunkered down and wrote the first draft of a short story titled “An Emerald Ring.” Nine drafts later, the story is finished and here’s the opening paragraph:

“Aunt Nellie never missed a chance to be the center of attention even if she had to drop dead in the middle of dinner to get it. What had been an ordinary Sunday dinner suddenly became Aunt Nellie’s last supper when, fork halfway to her mouth, the old girl fell over stone cold dead, face down in her mashed potatoes.”

Have I tempted you? Not to worry, you can download the complete story, An Emerald Ring (right click on the link and save to your system) with my compliments.  After you’ve read the story, please stop by and leave your comments.

I offer the story as a pdf file and recommend you download to your computer and print it out for a professionally typeset four page copy. Open the file with your pdf reader (probably Adobe reader) and select print. Of course you can read the story on screen if you like.

“An Emerald Ring” isn’t the end of the story, simply a stop on my journey as a creative writer. I’ll be working on my next story as soon as I figure out what that story will be. Maybe I’ll discover what that is as I write. And I plan to write a series for The Aware Writer describing my journey as I wrote “An Emerald Ring.” Enjoy and do come back and comment.

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