Write to Done

The Headline Breath Test

Do long headlines work? Or are short headlines better?

The answer doesn’t lie in length. It lies in the ability to say the headline aloud in one breath. Let’s assume you sit down and write an absolute stunner of a headline, your next job is to read it back aloud.

Can you read it?

Ok then say this headline aloud: HOW To Recognise Six Difficult Telltale Signs Of Disinterest And Lack Of Motivation In Your Student And Customer.

Ran out of breath, didn’t you? And even if you didn’t quite run out of breath, you’ll still struggle to recall the contents of that headline. And the reason why you need to read the headline aloud, is because that’s what the customer is doing anyway. And if you can’t say it one in breath, you can’t hear it in one breath.

And as a result the headline message gets garbled.

So let’s look at some of the most enduring headlines ever…

1) How to make friends and influence people.

2) Do you make these mistakes in English?

3) They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play…

Ooh, that last one was a mouthful, wasn’t it?

No matter how you try, it’s hard to say: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play…” in one breath. So what’s going on here? How come this headline works when it clearly fails the breath test?

It’s called punctuation

If you have a long headline, all you have to do is punctuate. How you punctuate it is totally up to you. You can use brackets. Or an em dash. Or a comma.

So the same headline can read like this:

They laughed when I sat down at the piano (But when I started to play…)

They laughed when I sat down at the piano—but when I started to play…

They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I started to play…

And a good reason for the existence of punctuation is to have pauses. When you have that pause in-built into your headline, a reader can read it as if it were two sentences. So even though it looks like one big sentence, it’s really two.

There are lots of things that can cause a perfectly good headline to become perfectly useless. And instead of debating long and hard about the length of headlines, just do the breath test. If it fails, add some punctuation. If it still fails, dump the headline and start again. ;)

About the author
Sean D’Souza is a writer, marketing guru and expert on sales psychology. To read more articles by Sean, and get a very useful free report on “Why Headlines Fail”, go to PsychoTactics.com

Categories: Blogging, Copywriting - Tags: Blogwriting Tips, Copywriting

Slip-Sliding: How To Get Customers To Read Every Word Of Your Copy

A guest post By Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics.com

Do you know how you flip one page of a novel, not expecting to read the book, and before you know it, whooops away you go, and then you’re reading, and reading, and reading…and may I add…reading.

Copywriting isn’t much different. If you write copy that slip-slides, then your audience will read it to the end.

So let’s analyse a piece of copy that slip-slides

Here’s the copy as it went out in the email and after you read it, you’ll see the analysis below.

Start of Copy

=========================
You are receiving this email, because you subscribed to the Website Triggers Series (where you got the 3 Trigger Audios). If you wish to unsubscribe, you can do so by going to the bottom of this email and removing yourself from this list. Of course, you’d miss the free gift worth $50 that I’ll be giving you in the next email, if you do so). So hang in there a while. It’s worth the wait.

Do weddings make you cry?
Well, they sure make some people cry.

Because for one day of wearing that fancy gown, walking down the aisle, and throwing the bouquet, a couple has to go through months and months of planning.

Of course, that’s not what you’ll see
When you show up at the reception, you’ll see an almost flawless and well-choreographed party. What you won’t see, is all the background stuff that went to minimise all of that chaos.

Nobody would believe in the ‘instant-wedding reception’
But if you listen to Internet ‘gurus’ everywhere, you’ll hear how they made squillions of dollars in one week. And how they can do the same for you.

Yeah, right.

For a simple wedding, you’ll need to learn about etiquette, have checklists, have reasonably detailed wedding plans, have honeymoon plans and God knows what else.

It’s the same with a website. The reason why your website isn’t drawing customers by the hundreds and isn’t able to make as much profits as you think it should, is because you’re missing the background information.

Information such as:
-The precise strategy involved in attraction, conversion and consumption. The biggest mistakes are made when you mix up these three factors. Learn how to segregate them and take customers through a sequential selling system. (Yes, system).

- The way to set up an auto responder system and link all of your messages, so that once it’s set up, your customer automatically gets personalised messages. This is not just another set of auto responders. It’s a sophisticated, yet simple way of getting customers to buy your products/services.

-The exact system that we use at Psychotactics. What we do in the background. How we create sales without any Google ads, strategic alliances, joint ventures or affiliates. And how you can too (if you choose). That alone should save you a bundle!

And you’ll get bonuses worth over $5200
Some of the bonuses are:
1) How to Create A Viral Campaign worth $500
2) Website Strategy Template worth $1500
3) Special Strategic Accounting Session worth $500
4) Client Data Segregation Tutorial worth $100
5) Website Strategy Critique by me (Worth $3000)

Can you really afford to miss this information?

Find out how the course is really affordable, and has installments, so you don’t have to pay everything upfront.

Warm regards,
Sean

P.S. There are only 5 seats left. Don’t wait till too long, or you’ll miss out. There’s also a homestudy version, if you’re interested. :)

P.P.S. Remember this event has a ‘Lawn Mower Guarantee’ which means you can take all the materials and run your lawn mower over them, and you’ll still get your money back. So you have nothing to lose. If you don’t like it, you get your entire tuition fee back. So there’s nothing to lose.

P.P.S. There’s a homestudy version of this course too, so if you can’t make it, you can still get the homestudy version, by clickingon the link above. The homestudy will bring at least 70%-80% of the intensity of the course into your home–yes the live course is always better, but if you can’t attend, this is the best next choice.

End of Copy
=========================

So now for the analysis:

1) Notice how the first paragraph incentives the customer to stay on the list? You can use this tactic from time to time, but not all the time. And of course, you have to deliver the goods you promise.

2) Notice how the analogy did most of the selling? You didn’t actually realise it was a sales letter till somewhere in between. But hey, you were sliding down a very fast slope. And it was impossible to back up. If your copy uses the power of analogies, it can get customers reading and sliding from the analogy to sales copy, without even realising what’s happening.

3) Notice how logic was used to explain the concept that was about to reveal itself. The concept was about the ‘instant website and instant riches’ formula. But the analogy was about instant receptions, and how they don’t exist. When you accepted the idea that an instant wedding couldn’t exist (or is hard to pull off), it was easier to accept the idea that website success was hard to pull off without background strategy and knowledge.

But I didn’t have to convince you. When you bought into the first part of the email, you bought into the second. Cool, huh?

4) Notice the connectors that enable you to segue?
Look at these two sentences carefully. There’s a connection that makes the leap at this point. And it’s done seamlessly and simply. “For a simple wedding, you’ll need to learn about etiquette, have checklists, have reasonably detailed wedding plans, have honeymoon plans and God knows what else.

It’s the same with a website. The reason why your website isn’t drawing customers by the hundreds and isn’t able to make as much profits as you think it should, is because you’re missing the background information.”

The line before explained the background information required, and then jumped to a ‘website’. But the leap wasn’t jarring at all, because the analogy softened the leap.

5) Notice how the bonuses added up?

6) Notice how the objections were killed.

7) Notice how the urgency was created?

8) And the guarantee, ensuring that anyone on the fence would decide to give it a go.

9) And the downsell to the homestudy version?

To think that we ended up with website strategy…

And started with weddings…

Hmmmm…if you want your customers to slip-slide their way into the copy, it’s best to start with an analogy. Then link back to the actual topic.

Slip-sliding away…that’s what you can do with your copy. And now, you have a template! So go ahead and write some slip-sliding copy right away.

Sean D’Souza is a writer, marketing guru and expert on sales psychology. Read more by Sean on Psychotactics.com

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Categories: Copywriting - Tags: article wiriting, Copywriting

4 Ways To Hack Into Your Mind And Become Infinitely More Creative

A Guest post by Ollin Morales of Courage 2 Create

What if I told you that the biggest threat to your writing is not your lack of passion, your lack of creativity, or your lack of skill?

What if I told you that the biggest threat to your writing is… your mind?

That’s right. Your mind is the biggest obstacle standing between you and all the work you are trying to accomplish.

Our mind is often the one that needs the most convincing that our writing is worthwhile. This is because our mind is hard-wired to protect us from any possible danger. You see, in order to protect us, our mind initially perceives anything it encounters as a threat—including your writing.

If this sounds strange, and kind of primitive, as if your mind is trying to protect you from a tiger hiding behind a tree in a jungle—then you’re absolutely right.

Your mind is still pretty primordial. So, your job as a writer is to hack into this primordial, hunter-gatherer mind, and update its software so that your mind works for you.

Here are just 4 ways to hack your mind so that you can become infinitely more creative:

1. Bypass Your Mind

Think of your mind as the bouncer at the popular new club in town. Think of “the club” as the writing that you need to get “into.”

The bouncer, your mind, is not going to let you in to the club because first it needs to check to see if you’re on the VIP list. He needs to pat you down. He needs to ask you pointed questions, see who you’re with, etc.

In the meantime, the bouncer is delaying you from entering the club. In the end, he may even decide to not let you in the club for some arbitrary reason.

But remember: you’re not just anybody. You own this place. You don’t need to go through any stinkin’ bouncer. Please. You’re like Robert De Niro in the movie Casino: you’re the boss and you can just walk right in the place if you want to.

So, the next time you visit “the club” (your writing) just walk right past the bouncer and straight through the door. If the bouncer (your mind) tries to stop you, just give ‘em an ol’ De Niro stare down and say:

“Hey, you talking to me? You talking to me? There’s nobody else here so you must be talking to me.”

The bouncer will have no choice but to back down from intimidation.

What I am trying to say, in so many words, is that the more you let your mind think about writing, the more you will stop yourself from actually writing.

So stop thinking about when to write, how to write, why to write, where to write, who to write for, what to write for—and just write. Just write.

Get rid of all the thinking. Wipe your mind clean. Take a deep breath, and just go for it.

2. Trick Your Mind

For instance:

Say you’re worried about paying your bills, but you have to write a freelance article in order to pay those bills. But worrying about paying your bills is stopping you from writing that article you need to write in order to pay those bills. (What a vicious cycle, isn’t it?)

What you need to do, then, is promise your mind that you will continue to worry about paying your bills AFTER you write a brief outline of that freelance article you’re working on.

Then, start that outline. Usually, by the time you start the outline, you’ll be so immersed in your work that, before you know it, you’ll be finished with the project, and you’ll have forgotten all about how you promised your mind that you would get back to worrying.

3. Lower Your Mind’s Expectations

If you think your writing has to please millions of people, in two seconds flat, then your expectations are way too high for your own writing.

You see, your mind doesn’t like to gamble. It absolutely HATES taking risks. It’s constantly looking for the safe and secure route out of a tough situation.

If your mind sees that you’re making a big bet, then, it will immediately advise you against it—it may even try to thwart you from accomplishing the monumental task you’ve set up for yourself.

So, don’t make that big bet. Make a small one, instead.

I’ve noticed the mind doesn’t take notice of small bets. It usually lets small bets slide right underneath its nose.

Why?

Because your mind knows that if you win big after placing a small bet, than it’s great. But if you lose after placing a small bet, it’s not so bad either.

So instead of having big expectations for your writing, lower your expectations

dramatically.

Set out to make the worst blog post, freelance article, or novel you have ever written.

Then, see how easy the writing gets done.

4. Recalibrate Your Mind

Let’s say you’re a blogger and you want to increase your blog subscriber number.

Your mind makes an assessment of this goal and starts to tell you that for every guest post you write, it should have a return of—let’s say—50 subscribers for it to be worth your while.

If you don’t receive that 50-subscriber return for every blog post you write, then your mind promises to make it hard for you to write anymore blog posts—because it sees that it’s not in your direct benefit to keep writing those blog posts.

For your mind, writing a guest post is only worth it if you get 50 subscribers for every guest post written. Otherwise, your mind sees the effort as too risky, or waste of time.

So, let’s say you write five guest posts, and the first four of those guest posts earn you a total of 0 new subscribers. This is where your mind begins to tell you to give up because it seems clear that each guest post is only worth 0 subscribers—not 50.

But you ignore your mind and don’t give up. Because you don’t give up, you find that the fifth guest post finally earns you a total of 50 new blog subscribers.

It turns out that your mind was wrong all along.

How could your mind have been so wrong?

Well, it was wrong because it was seeing the whole situation wrong, that’s why.

If after every 5 guest posts you receive a total amount of 50 new subscribers, then that means that each guest post was, in fact, worth 10 subscribers—not 0. You just weren’t able to see the return on your investment until after you wrote a total of 5 guest posts.

Basically, the return on your initial investment does not appear until much much later. This is something your mind has trouble understanding, and it’s your job to help your mind understand it.

Good Luck, Mind Hackers!

Remember that the biggest obstacle to becoming a more productive writer is your mind. So, don’t let your mind run amok without proper parental supervision: hack into your mind so that your mind works for you.

How do you hack your mind in order to get more creative work done? Please share you thoughts with us in the comments below!

Ollin Morales is a writer. His blog, Courage 2 Create, chronicles his journey as he writes his first novel. His blog offers writing advice as well as strategies to deal with life’s tough challenges. His blog was named one of The Top Ten Blogs for Writers by WriteToDone two years in a row (2011, 2012).

Categories: Creativity

How to Create a Story Structure to Die for

A guest post by PJ Reece of PjReece.ca

Prose is architecture, not interior decorating.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

A story works because of its architecture. By “works” I mean it stands up. It holds together. It’s true. Structure provides a framework for meaning.

I wish I’d known that when I started writing.

Twenty years ago, nothing stood between me and my Hollywood career except actors Jack Lemmon and Eva Marie Saint. My screenplay had beaten its way through 4000+ scripts to become a finalist in a prestigious L.A. screenwriting competition.

Then, one of the judges—Jack or Eva—killed it. My ending sucked.

The verdict sent me back to my writing hut. I was desperate to know why I failed. After writing ten more screenplays and three novels, it dawned on me. I discovered why fiction flops. And more importantly, I learned how fiction works.
Here’s what I learned:

A conventional story is actually Two Stories.
In the gap between the two lies the Heart of the Story.

That’s structure, that’s architecture. And one more thing:

In that dark heart of the story, the hero will experience a death.

If Hemingway said so, would you believe me?

“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death. And he is no true story teller who would keep that from you.”

Desire destroys the protagonist.

Stories depict heroes striving but failing. And failure is just the start of a hero’s demise. In good stories, protagonists suffer clear through to emptiness and despair. The best heroes—the ones with staying power—are driven to a loss of faith in themselves.

Protagonists will lose faith in who they are.

Why would anyone want to read anything so depressing? Hemingway asked the same question:

“Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?”

Except that Hem was being facetious. The Old Man and the Sea won him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Hemingway was saying that failure and disappointment are integral to fiction. As they are in life.

Failure and Story Structure

I discovered that loss and disenchantment are central to a good story:

Story One comprises all the action leading to the hero’s disillusionment.
Story Two consists of everything on the other side of his waking up.
Between the failure and redemption lies the dark night known as the Story Heart.

How simple is that!

His super-simple story overview isn’t an invention. It’s an observation. I studied fiction to see how the best stories work. Then I drew some conclusions. About, for instance…

Character and Story Structure

A character doesn’t wander through the plot. The protagonist is the plot. The protagonist is inseparable from what he or she wants. Story One concerns the character’s desire for something. Because of this desire, she is an accident (story) waiting to happen. For example:

The Oscar-winner, “The Artist”

A silent movie star watches in dismay as talking pictures become all the rage. George Valentin finds himself with no job, no girl, no more adoring fans. He takes up the bottle and slips into oblivion. Most protagonists would straightaway fall into the dark heart of the story and wake-up to the facts of life.

But not George.

Our hero continues to believe in yesteryear, which lays himself open to more punishment. The screenwriter pushes George to rage and all the way to self-loathing. His beliefs are literally killing him. It looks like George might actually commit suicide.

That’s a story!

In a conventional story, this is the time for the protagonist to release his grip on his way of seeing the world. When forced by fate to surrender, a character sinks into the Heart of the Story. Here, he glimpses his higher nature. Welcome to Story Two.

Once again, here’s story structure to die for:

Story One—the chain of events that brings a hero to his knees.
Heart of the Story—death of the old belief system accompanied by insights into one’s higher nature.
Story Two—the far side of the crisis, where the hero demonstrates a new worldview.

Structure—who needs it?

Does every writer need a story theory to guide them? No. William Shakespeare, for example. Or Haruki Murakami. But then I suspect that they are geniuses.

Do the rest of us need laws of fiction to write by? No. A story will take shape on its own. Structure will eventually have its way. After enough rewrites, critiques, editors (and how many years?) we’ll wind up with a story that looks like a conventional story should.

A story works because of its architecture.

Story structure ensures that our heroes suffer enough to discover the truth about themselves. That truth may lie at the heart of why readers read. And why writers write!

(That’s another idea I’m working on.)

Good stories may prove to be more than just “food for thought”. Truth, even in fiction, may be real nourishment. Perhaps that’s why Hemingway once said:

“All good books have one thing in common—they are truer than if they had really happened.”

A story seeks structure in order to arrive at the truth.

That’s the art of fiction.

What are your thoughts on story structure? How do you get a bird’s-eye view of your story? Or maybe you’ve got more great quotes from the masters about “what makes a good story”. Please share them in the “comments”.

PJ Reece has been a full-time writer for twenty years. He has just released a free eBook called, “Story Structure to Die for”. You can download your copy here.

Categories: Art of Writing, Fiction

How Much Should You Write Every Day?

A Guest Post by Ali Luke of Aliventures.com

Ask a dozen different writers “How much do you write each day?” and you’ll get a dozen different answers.

Some will only work at weekends. Some will consider 500 words a great day; others won’t be satisfied with anything less than 3,000 words. Some won’t worry about their wordcount at all: they’ll write for a set period of time instead.

All too often, I see writers getting stressed-out by trying to hit some arbitrary word count. If you follow Stephen King’s advice in On Writing, you’ll be aiming for 1,000 words per day; if you’re a fan of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, you’ll be doing your three morning pages (around 750 words) before you even attempt your other writing.

You might find that 1,000 words or 750 words works for you. Heck, you might find that you’re most comfortable when you’re producing 3,000 words each day – or 3,000 words each week. But if you’re not yet in the habit of writing on a regular basis, 1,000 words may well be too much.

There’s no set formula for how much you should write every day.

(And you don’t even have to write on a daily basis: writers are allowed to take days off.)

What you need to figure out is how much you should write every day, or every week, in order to make consistent progress and feel good about your writing.

To start with, you need to think about how you work as a writer.

Understand Your Writing Process

Personally, I write fast. I like to get words down on the page, and I’m happy to go back and tear out huge great chunks if they don’t work. (I cut my novel Lycopolis from 135,000 words to 85,000 – and that was after several radically different drafts.)

But other writers are more meticulous, and you could well be one of them. If you want to get every page right before moving on, you’re not going to produce thousands of words every day. A great day for you might be two pages (500 words) – but those will be pages that are as good as you can make them.

Some writers thrive on routine. They’re steady and consistent, producing 1,000 words every day without fail. Others thrive on adrenaline. They’ll write nothing for days or weeks, then blaze through 5,000 words in a day.

How do you prefer to write? What might make a good starting goal (daily or weekly) for you?

Build Your Writing Muscles

When you follow an exercise regime, you’ll gradually be able to lift heavier weights and run longer distances. Your writing ability is a bit like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it’ll become.

Right now, a realistic goal for you could be writing 500 words each day. In six months time, those 500 words might have become 1,000. In a few years, you could be producing 2,000 words that you’re happy with, every single day.

But … if you lift weights that are too heavy for you, or try to run too far, you’ll injure yourself – and if you push yourself to write far too much, you’ll risk exhaustion and burnout.

There’s no point in writing 1,000 words a day for two weeks if you end up so frazzled and stressed that you never finish what you started. Take your time to build up to your ideal writing target.

If you’ve been sticking to the same daily or weekly target for a while, step it up a notch. Instead of writing 500 words, write 600. Instead of writing 1,000 words, write 1,200. Don’t try to increase too far, too fast, though.

Should You Write Daily?

I touched on this earlier, but I think it’s such an important point that it’s worth coming back to.

You don’t have to write every day.

Some writers like to, and if it works for you, that’s fantastic – stick with it! But if you find yourself constantly struggling to write, or producing joyless, lackluster words, then try changing your routine around. Give yourself a weekly word target instead of a daily one.

There are no rules about how often you should write or how much you should write. What’s important is that you establish a strong writing routine that works for you, so that you feel happy and confident about your progress, and so you can gradually increase your output until you’re writing as much as you want to.

How much do you write every day (or week)? If you want to write more, what’s holding you back? Share your thoughts, ideas, and struggles in the comments…

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach, and loves everything to do with words – especially blogging. If you’d like to make great progress with your writing, check out her post on Nine Writing Milestones to Celebrate (and Aim For).