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Accidental Genius

Telling the Same Story Differently

A few years ago, Matt Madden wrote and illustrated a book of cartoons called, “99 Ways to Tell a Story.” In it, he tells a single story 99 times – in 99 different ways.

The single story is itself uneventful. A man, working on his laptop, gets up and heads towards the kitchen. A voice at the top of the stairs calls out, “What time is it?” The man glances at his wristwatch and says “It’s 1:15.” He opens the refrigerator and scowls, because he’s forgotten what he was looking for. End of story.

Madden first tells it as a monologue. He then tells it from the man’s point of view. He also tells it as a how-to, a flashback, a comedy, a calligram, a public service announcement, a political cartoon, in silhouette, in close-ups, from the refrigerator’s point of view, as if it were overheard in a bar, and as a homage to Marvel illustrator Jack Kirby, among other inventive ways.

Any story can be told from dozens of angles, in countless styles. Each angle and style reveals something previously hidden. It’s an important principle to remember, and doesn’t only apply to cartoons or even fiction. The idea of differing angles and styles is something to think about for your business communications.

Two weeks ago, Kristen Frantz from Berrett-Koehler Publishers asked me to make a video about the forthcoming edition of my book, “Accidental Genius.” The reason: Berrett-Koehler uses a prominent outside sales rep group, Ingram Publisher Services, to sell its books to bookstores, and Kristen thought it would be good if at sales conference the group saw how committed to selling the book I am.

I never before made a video. The result was too long, even though I had left out some important information. I’d have to reshoot it. The thing puzzling me, though, was this:

How could I make a shorter video while giving my audience more information?

Kristen and I came up with a simple strategy. I divided all my information into talking points. Some of those talking points seemed like they should come from my mouth: the book’s main idea, the philosophy behind it, the story of my eighteen years as a bookseller and my understanding of what a crucial job the sales rep has in the selling of a book. Those I filmed, and are in the video below.

Other points, like who’s in my network and how I plan on supporting the book, were important, but didn’t seem like they needed to come directly from me. Kristen, we decided, would talk about those points live at the conference.

Our solution wasn’t a complicated one, but it did the trick. We took a video with too much information, and made it more palatable by breaking its points into recorded and live moments. An optical illusion of sorts.

Take a look. Perhaps my video or performance skills aren’t what they should be yet, but the idea is still valid: Don’t think you’re stuck with one or two ways of delivering information to your audience. Try a different angle. Graft together uncommon styles. You may be surprised at the result.

By the way, near the end of the video you’ll hear me say, “I told you I’m a magician,” and then I perform a small trick. Unfortunately, I had edited out an earlier part of the video where I discussed my background as a magician and professional illusion inventor. Kristen told me not to sweat it. She’d add that to her talking points during the live session.

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Using Internal Documents to Win Business

When the original edition of “Accidental Genius” hit the market ten years ago, one of the first readers to contact me was Andy Orrock.

Andy told me he would get his best ideas during his daily run. Unfortunately, when he’d return home to write them down he’d be disappointed. “It’s as if a filter got between me and what I wanted to say,” he said. His writing sounded stiff and artificial, and it was hurting his career. The business plans he’d send investors went unread.

Using the “Accidental Genius” freewriting technique, as well as other associated techniques, Andy learned to trust the natural ways his mind used to develop and express thoughts. Slowly, his written ideas started matching the honesty of those in his head.

Andy, however, has pushed the concept of honest expression further than most.

He is now the chief operating officer at a Dallas technology company. There, the salespeople don’t try winning business by sending prospects glossy marketing materials. Everyone knows those are fake. Instead, the salespeople send prospects internal documents — written by Andy — that have been repurposed for public use.

Here’s how it works.

At the start of a client project, Andy writes a detail-rich requirements document that spells out the client’s problem and the steps needed to crack it. The document serves as an internal blueprint around which his firm’s development team can plan their systems and programming work. When the project is finished, the document gets filed.

Now, when a prospect calls and wants to better understand the capabilities of Andy’s firm, Andy digs through the files and finds the requirements document that most resembles the prospect’s situation, crosses out and disguises sensitive information, such as developer and server names, and emails them this “redacted document” as proof that his company knows what it’s doing and has solved this kind of problem before.

Says Andy: “Our documents show prospects 90% of the answer, and  demonstrate that we have a mastery of the details. For the first time, prospects feel like they’ve reached a firm that understands what they’re facing.”

The candor of his writing and approach has become a potent sales-conversion tool for his firm.

My question for you, then, is this: What assets do you have that can supplement or replace your marketing materials, so prospects can get an unadorned view of how you think and solve problems?

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Writing and the Functional Hero

In the book, “Which Lie Did I Tell?,” William Goldman writes about his younger days as an awful writer. He was so bad, in fact, that in college he was one of three editors of the school literary magazine, and even then he couldn’t get a single story into his own magazine.

Things changed when he read a short story collection by “Rich Man, Poor Man” author, Irwin Shaw. Goldman thought Shaw’s tales were among the best he’d ever read. More importantly, they were told with such ease that Goldman said to himself: “I could do that.”

Shaw’s writing helped make Goldman into a professional writer. Years later, Goldman would write the novels and screenplays for “The Princess Bride,” “Marathon Man,” and “Magic,” as well as the screenplays for “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men.”

Heroes come in different styles. We have heroes who do near-impossible things, like win a batting title, forge a peace agreement, or walk on the moon.

Then we have another type of hero: one whose works seem wondrous but doable. They give us a model to follow. Call them functional heroes. Irwin Shaw provided a functional hero for William Goldman.

When I have to write something ambitious, I often call on one of my functional heroes for assistance. I read their work over and over, so I can dope out their methodologies and pick up their cadences.

For the first edition of “Accidental Genius,” my hero and role-model was Nicholson Baker. In particular, I idolized the self-conscious, self-deprecating honesty he showed in his book about John Updike, “U & I,” and tried to introduce that into my work. For the second edition of “Accidental Genius,” I called upon the aforementioned Goldman to serve as my muse. His long chatty sentences and focus on story inspired me to loosen up as I told my tales about liberating the mind through freestyle writing.

The funny thing about my use of Baker and Goldman as guides? Neither edition of “Accidental Genius” sounds anything like the work of those two gentlemen. It was enough for me, though, to hear them as I wrote.

How about you? Who are some of your functional heroes? Who are your muses?

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You Have Twenty Books in You

Whether you are planning a book, or are in the midst of writing one, I have some advice that could be a life saver. That is:

Don’t look at this current book as the only one you’ll ever write. If you do, it’ll mess with your head.

How so?

If you’re convinced this is your only book, you’ll stuff it with everything you know – and it’ll grow unwieldy. You’ll try making it perfect – and it’ll end up dull. You’ll want it to be a permanent monument to your very existence – and it’ll turn into an embarrassment.

Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. The harder a writer presses, the more their work suffers.

When I’m coaching a would-be book writer, I put things in perspective. I tell them: “You have twenty books in you. This is merely one of twenty. Treat it that way.”

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If the book you’re working on is only a twentieth of your eventual output, that’ll change your approach. Your writing will become focused, your words will flow more easily, and most importantly you’ll be willing to take chances, because your entire life isn’t resting on this one throw of the dice. 

Now, you can take my word that you have twenty books in you, or you could give yourself a dose of proof.

Suppose, for instance, you’re a strategy consultant. What books might you write?

You could write a general book on strategy, but you could also write a dozen separate books on strategy’s subcomponents, such as market selection and business unit strategy.

You could write books for different audiences, such as strategy creation for the CEO and strategy creation for a team.

You could write books on capturing different markets, like winning business in newly industrialized countries and winning business with members of Generation Z.

You could write books in different formats, such as a primer, a field guide, a workbook, a 30-day guide to building a strategy, a six-month diary on execution, a 365-day guide of strategy wisdom.

And those are just for starters.

Since we’re looking ahead, you’ll be learning methodologies that don’t exist yet, and you can write about those. You’ll be having experiences you haven’t had yet, and you can write about those.

What’s more, you can write books that are outside the realm of your current business, or that intersect with it indirectly.

If I gave you a couple of hours, your list likely wouldn’t be twenty books long. It would be double or even quadruple that number.

Of course, listing books and completing them are two wildly different matters. Still, taking a stab at this exercise will show that you have a lifetime’s worth of information and expertise to write about — and when you write one book, you build the capacity to write the next.

I have two questions for you, then:

  1. What are your twenty books?
  2. Which one will you work on today?

 

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Writing a Sticky Title

Let’s begin with a quiz. Below you’ll find a list of book titles. All are genuine titles from published books – except for one. See if you can spot that lone non-book-title.

1. “Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership”

2. “Curious George and the Pizza”

3. “Soon I Will be Invincible”

4. “The Confident Leader”

5. “Virtual Learning”

6. “Sixty Stories”

7. “Apathy”

8. “The internet isn’t that big a deal. Neither is the PC. Abandon all technology and live in the woods for a week and see if it’s your laptop you miss most. In fact, the technologies most important to us are the older ones – the car and telephone, electricity and concrete, textiles and agriculture, to name just a few. The popular perception of modern technology is out of step with reality. We overestimate the importance of new and exciting inventions, and we underestimate those we’ve grown up with.”

Think you know the answer? We’ll get back to the quiz in a moment, and see if you’re right.

Two Methods of Titling a Book

As a book-writing coach for businesspeople, I’m often asked about how to come up with a sticky title. I have a bag of titling tricks, but here are two of my favorites:

Sticky Trick 1. If the writer has written a book draft or proposal, I ask that they print it out, and underline all the interesting ideas and turns-of-phrase they see. We then comb through their work and make up dozens of titles based on every promising phrase they’ve highlighted.

The advantage of this approach: The titles we create are  based on the writer’s organic material. That is, rather than focusing everything on the book’s generic idea (for instance, how to be more productive), we can look for how the writer makes their point  in distinctive ways (how to be more productive by being “unreasonable”).

Distinct ideas and phrases are what’s going to make the book stand out in the marketplace when it’s published, so why not start titling it from there?

Sticky Trick 2. The writer and I visit bricks-and-mortar and online bookshops, and we see which book titles catch our attention. Those attention-grabbers act as thought starters, and inspire us to come up with fresh titles.

This method harkens back to the quiz I asked you to take. You looked at eight choices and picked the one that wasn’t a published book title. The answer, of course, is choice 8 (“The internet isn’t that big a deal . . . ,“ which is from Bob Seidensticker’s excellent book, “Futurehype: The Myths of Technology Change”).

I’m certain you selected the correct answer, but how did you know it was correct?

Obviously, book titles follow certain rules of thumb. Perhaps you’ve never articulated these rules, but you know many of them inherently. They’re a part of you.

You know, for instance, that a title must be short. While choice 8 was a powerful piece of prose and encapsulated the main idea of Bob’s book, it violated the brevity titling rule.  Therefore, it couldn’t have been the title. (A number of books have had lengthy titles for novelty’s sake. The longest title on record, which celebrates the career of “Harry Potter” actor Daniel Radcliffe, is 4,805 characters.)

What are some other rules for titling a book? Again, an easy way of reminding yourself of rules you already know, or of finding new ones, is by studying existing books and extracting the concepts they use.

Look, for example, at my book, “Accidental Genius.” The title was inspired by a quote from Samuel Johnson. One rule, then, might be, “Title your book using a full or condensed quote.” A second rule could be, “Put together two conflicting words (like ‘Accidental’ and ‘Genius’) that intriguingly point to your book’s main premise.”

Tweetable Titles

Roger C. Parker, a smart and prolific writer who has penned 38 books, has collected dozens of titling rules, and has published them in a book called “#Book Title Tweet.”

The work’s central premise: for a title to be effective, it’s got to be able to “communicate at a glance.” The discipline of training yourself to write Twitter-friendly titles, then, is a useful one. Roger’s book, in fact, dispenses its wisdom in approximately 140 tweet-sized chunks, including:

  • “[P]osition your topic by making it obvious whom you are not writing for, e.g., ‘Design for Non-Designers.’”
  • “Target your title to a specific circumstance, e.g., ‘How to Sell When Nobody’s Buying.”
  • “Position your book by projecting an ‘attitude,’ – ‘Mad Scam: Kick-Ass Advertising Without the Madison Avenue Price Tag.”
  • “Issue an engaging command and explain it, e.g., ‘Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.”
  • “Ask a question while stressing your unique qualifications, e.g., ‘What Can a Dentist Teach You about Business, Life, & Success?’”

Besides titling tactics, Roger shares bite-sized research and survey tips, and cautions.

At 130-odd pages, “#Book Title Tweet” is a speedy read, the information in it is first-rate, and the importance of its concept is undeniable.

After all, without a strong title, it doesn’t matter how good your content is — no one will read your book, white paper, or article, click on your video, or attend your event.

You owe it to yourself and your work, then, to devise titles that stick in the mind or prompt a click.


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Creating Content the Frankenstein Way

I was in the library doing research on Viktor Frankl — the concentration camp survivor who went on to write one of the world’s most influential books, “Man’s Search for Meaning” — when I punched his name into the automated inventory system. The titles of  his books appeared on the screen . . . along with a suggestion by the computer. It read:

“Searching for: Viktor Frankl. Did you mean: Victor Frankenstein?”

I was so pleased by the machine’s out-of-left-field suggestion, that I thought of calling over a few random library patrons for a look. Instead, a better idea came to me.

Since one of the principles of freewriting (and improv) is “using what you’re given,” I decided to employ “Frankenstein” as serendipity. That is, rather than devoting the day’s research to Frankl, I wondered if I could derive any creativity principles worth sharing by researching the famed horror story.

Thanks to Susan Tyler Hitchcock’s fascinating volume, “Frankenstein: A Cultural History,” by day’s end I’d found dozens of such principles. In particular, the tale of how the novel came to be written is rife with ideas that would be helpful to any content creator.

How “Frankenstein” Came to Be Written

In 1816, Lord Byron, his traveling companion, John William Polidori, Percy Shelley, and Shelley’s soon-to-be wife, Mary Godwin (later, “Mary Shelley”), were all staying near Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

The four spent much of their time debating controversial issues concerning life and death, particularly in the realm of science. Among other things, they likely discussed Joseph Priestley’s experiments with vegetables and mold, Luigi Galvani’s work with “animal magnetism,” and Luigi Aldini’s exhibitions using electricity to animate dead frogs, oxen heads, and the body and features of an executed killer.

The group also talked  literature. One book they’d brought along was a badly-written story collection about the supernatural, “Phantasmagoriana.”

“After listening to a few of these tales,” writes Hitchcock, “Byron challenged his companions. Any one of them could do better.” An impromptu contest was arranged, Each member of the group would write a ghost story. The result?

Shelley, who’d soon be recognized as a great poet, apparently never wrote a word of his yarn.

Byron, who was already a rising star in the literary sky, wrote a two thousand word piece about two men in a cemetery, and stopped before it was finished.

Polidori, Byron’s traveling companion who had more of a background in medicine than he did as a writer, wrote two stories; the second of which, “Vampyre,” became a sensation in Europe and later helped inspire Bram Stoker to pen “Dracula.”

Mary Godwin, whose parents were renowned authors but who, like Polidori, was not yet considered a writer, struggled for days in coming up with an idea. She was blocked.

Godwin Heeds an Image

One night, as she lay in bed with eyes closed but unable to sleep, a scene appeared in her mind. She saw, in her own words, a “pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together,” which she soon recognized as a “hideous phantasm of a man stretched out.” Then, “on the working of some powerful engine,” the phantasm showed “signs of life.”

Godwin was so unnerved by the image that she opened her eyes and looked around her darkened room as a means of distracting herself. When that didn’t work, she decided to think about a plot for her ghost story. “O! if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!,” she later wrote.

The answer to her ghost story problem suddenly hit her. Hitchcock writes: “Soon the two thoughts merged into one: her waking dream was her ghost story.” Months later, the first version of her novel was completed.

The Takeaways

Some of the lessons I take away from this story, and that might be of benefit to you, include the following:

1. You needn’t be a noted expert to write something that shakes up and sticks with an audience. Lord Byron and Percy Shelley are considered poets of the highest stripe, yet few read their work today. The characters and influences from Mary Godwin’s and John William Polidori’s work, however, continue to fascinate us.

2. When it comes to creating, arrange for a little friendly competition. Godwin did indeed write “Frankenstein” and Polidori’s effort inspired “Dracula,” but the unsung hero of the affair is Byron. Without his good-natured challenge it’s unlikely that either writer would have written a supernatural tale – then or ever. Said differently: Had Byron not been playful and competitive, the world may never have heard of “Frankenstein” or “Dracula.”

3. Learn from other fields. “Frankenstein” is a work of fiction, yet Godwin wrote it by combining the ideas she and her companions were discussing from the fields of science and philosophy. She didn’t limit her interests to poems and novels. She let the whole world in.

4. Pay attention to images. Godwin didn’t know why the “hideous phantasm” image appeared to her, and although she tried to forget it, she quickly learned the power of paying attention to such a vivid and unexplained flash of insight.

Our minds aren’t neatly ordered, and important ideas at times bubble to the surface in ways that are seemingly illogical and non-verbal.

If you want to write deeply about a topic, I can’t give you better advice than to do fast, exploratory writing about the scenes and snapshots that drift through your mind as you consider it.

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