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The Power of a Writing Prompt

If you’ve done any freewriting before, you may have heard the term “prompt.” A prompt is a common freewriting exercise. Instead of beginning a session with whatever appears in your mind, you begin with a predetermined phrase (called a prompt) that guides the direction of your writing.

How would using a prompt work?

If you were about to loosen up with a ten-minute freewrite and wanted a prompt, I might say, “Complete the following sentence: ‘The best part of my workday is . . . ’

You’d answer that question, at least initially. You could stay on it for the entire ten minutes, or you move to another subject minutes or even seconds after beginning. Your choice.

The number of prompts you could use are endless. You can come up with them on your own. A few more examples:

“Yesterday I saw a curious thing . . . “

“If I didn’t have to work I’d . . . “

“I threw a stone and it landed . . . “

Now, I’ve used prompts many times, but have never considered them part of my regular repertoire. After speaking with Robyn Steely, though, I have a new admiration for the technique.

Steely is the executive director of a non-profit organization, “Write Around Portland,” which works with social service agencies to build community. According to its website, the organization runs no-cost writing workshops for “people living with HIV/AIDS, veterans, survivors of domestic violence, adults and youth in addiction recovery, low income seniors, people in prison, homeless youth and others who may not have access to writing in community because of income, isolation or other barriers.”

The central principle driving Write Around Portland’s workshops is freewriting.

Participants sit in a circle with pad and pen, and a facilitator begins the session by offering up two prompts, such as “The thing about you and me . . . “ and “The night smelled like . . . .”

Each participant chooses one prompt to kindle their writing. Later, they share what they’ve produced and offer feedback to other writers. In giving feedback, participants keep their comments on the parts of the writing that are strong.

Steely says prompts don’t hem thinking in, they open it up. Given the same prompt, one participant might write about what they eat for breakfast while another might write about a battle they fought in during a war.

Prompts, then, can help people approach material that they may not have thought to write about. They can give a small push in an unexpected direction.

When I asked Steely about what makes for a superior prompt, she gave the following advice: “Make your prompts short and open-ended. For instance, ‘After the storm . . . ’ is a good one. It’s only a few words, and it could be about a childhood rainstorm, a thunderstorm, a fight, or it could have nothing to do at all with storms.”

As a short exercise, why not try a writing prompt now? Choose one of these two, and do a ten-minute freewrite that starts with it:

“The project I’m proudest of is . . .” or “This sounds inconsequential, but . . . “

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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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Do You Take the Credit You Deserve?

I teach consultants how to write case studies. As part of that work, I ask that they describe the results of their projects. Here’s where many consultants hesitate. Why?

One group can’t talk, because they’re under non-disclosure agreements.

A second group doesn’t know the results. They do their piece, and don’t check back to see how the project as a whole progressed.

Then, there’s a third group.

The consultants in this group know the results of their work, but they don’t want to talk about them for a simple reason:

They think that to claim even partial credit for a project’s success means that they needed to be its main player. In other words, if they didn’t create the project, set its strategy, and handle its implementation, they pull back on parading their role. They feel they had to do it all.

Here’s what they’re missing, and what I’d like you to always remember:

You can be an important player on a project without having complete control over its outcome. Your contribution can still be crucial, even when you’re surrounded by a team of crucial contributors.

Talking about this idea reminds me of one consultant I worked with. For an hour I asked him to talk about the results of his projects. He hemmed and hawed. I kept pushing. Finally, when he saw I wouldn’t back down he told me something crazy:

A major technology company had hired him, because their product development team was stuck. The team’s direction had grown fuzzy. Teammates were fighting each other.

Through a few group sessions, this consultant helped the team right itself. They clarified their roles, came to agreements, set goals, and got moving again.

Months later, the team came up with a new product. I won’t name this product, but believe me, you know it. 75% of you reading this post own it. Time Magazine called it one of the three most innovative products of the year. The product has made the company billions of dollars, helped its stock price soar, and brought it wild market share .

Yet this consultant didn’t want to speak about it.

He said, “I didn’t invent, design, manufacture, or market the product. I didn’t have any direct hand in it. My client did all that.”

“Yes,” I said, “but without your contribution none of that may have happened. Or, if it did happen, it might have taken longer and cost the client a ton of money in lost sales.”

How, then, would you ethically handle such a situation? How do you take credit for your contribution, without grabbing too much of the limelight?

Here’s what I suggest: When writing about your own success stories, once you’ve explained your involvement in a project and are ready to talk about results, say the following:

“Due in part to my efforts, here’s what happened . . . “

Then, talk about revenues raised, costs cut, buzz created, and all the other results the organization enjoyed.

By using the phrase, “Due in part to my efforts” you’re letting listeners know that you’re not claiming credit for the whole initiative. You’re just rightfully taking credit for a piece of the whole. It’s a communications technique — and business philosophy — that you, your clients, and your prospects will appreciate.

Do You Take the Credit You Deserve? Read More »

What's the Big Idea?

Here’s a technique for clear communication that I teach writers. I first read about it in Edward Bailey’s “Plain English Approach to Business Writing.”

If you’re writing an email or an essay or whatever, and you have an opinion to express, a recommendation to make, or a request of the reader, put it right up front and use the rest of the piece to explain it. Why?

Readers want to know how a piece of writing relates to them. If you don’t tell them right away — in the first paragraph or two or three — they’ll scan what you’ve written to find it. Make sense?

If I sent you an email that began, “How are you? I was in Manhattan the other day, eating at a Mexican place in the theater district, and I saw a friend I hadn’t seen in twenty years. His name is Jake, and he’s a lawyer. So we started talking about old times, and something he said triggered a memory from when we were in high school . . .,” you’d probably grow antsy.

If I kept my narrative going, you’d start skipping and looking for how this story relates to you. When you found how it related to you, you’d relax (“Ah, Mark found a potential client for me, and wants to set up a meeting”).

Often, writers are scared to say what they need to say up front, because they think the reader will make an instant judgment, and then won’t read the justification that follows. Really, though, if the writer doesn’t tell the reader how a piece relates to them right off, the reader will skip the writer’s carefully forged prose anyway, until they found what’s being asked of them.

In my writing, I use this “put what you have to say up front” technique much of the time. Sometimes, though, I forget to start my draft with it and, instead, add it later. An example: when I wrote my “Fascination Factor” proposal for Change This.

I was reading over what I thought to be the finished proposal when I realized it wasn’t working. Too much build up. I hadn’t gotten to “the big idea” quickly enough. Readers would have to wade through 250 words before they knew what my manifesto would teach them. Rather than rewriting the whole thing, I added this paragraph to the beginning:

“My proposed manifesto, ‘The Fascination Factor,’ teaches businesspeople how to write books and other thought leadership pieces that are uniquely their own and of considerable value to readers.”

Boom! Once people understood what it was they were about to read and how it could help them, then they could settle down and see if the rest of the proposal substantiated or detracted from my claim.

Don’t think you need to begin all your communications with your main point. No need to be robotic.

But put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Look over your last piece of writing, and ask yourself, “Where do I make my main point? Where does the reader learn why he or she is reading what I wrote?” If you didn’t get to your big idea in the first few paragraphs, think about how the piece might change if you did.

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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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“That’s a post”

The other day I was on the phone with my friend and colleague, Nettie Hartsock, discussing our backgrounds as writers, when I mentioned an assignment I’d worked on that hadn’t turned out as planned.

Fifteen years earlier, a newspaper editor asked me to interview beauty-queen-and-singing-star Vanessa Williams. Although I wasn’t a fan of Williams’ Top 40 style of music, I consented. To prepare for the interview, I researched her music and career for a week. Unfortunately, the singer had a scheduling conflict and cancelled. Suddenly, I was stuck with a somewhat in depth knowledge of Williams’ work, and nowhere to use it.

Nettie laughed. She too had put in days on writing projects that had gotten the axe through no fault of her own. She said, “You should write up that story as a post.”

Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that.

A couple of months before my Nettie conversation, I was being toured through The National Press Club in Washington, DC by another friend and colleague, Sam Horn. I was to give a speech there about freewriting and problem-solving to Sam’s group, and she thought I’d enjoy knowing the club’s history.

As we wandered through the barroom, I broke away and ran to a framed sketch, hanging on the wall, of Dick Tracy. It wasn’t just any Tracy sketch. It was drawn especially for, and autographed to, The National Press Club by the character’s creator, Chester Gould. I told Sam:

“I can’t believe it. I’m inches away from the real Dick Tracy. I mean, Chester Gould drew this cartoon with his own hands.

“Seeing this takes me back to the late ‘60s when I was, like, six years old. My dad was alive, and Sunday morning’s he’d buy the New York Daily News, and it was divided into sections, and must have been a foot thick.

“I’d grab the comics section, it was in full color, and there on the cover, every week, was Gould’s Dick Tracy strip. I read it, kind of, but not really. I was more interested in playing with it.

“I’d spread the pages across the floor, take a hunk of Silly Putty, flatten it into a pancake, and smash it onto Dick Tracy’s face. When I peeled back the putty, a duplicate of his face would be stuck to it.

“I’d pull the putty wide, and Tracy’s face would expand. Then, I’d squish it into a ball, and his face would bunch up like a walnut. That Silly Putty was my seventy-nine cent version of Photoshop.”

When I finally wound down, Sam said to me: “Mark, that’s a post. Readers want to learn good, solid information they can use, but they also want to learn about the writer. You should write up that story.”

The idea hadn’t dawned on me.

Because of Nettie’s encouragement, the Vanessa Williams story appeared as my previous post. Thanks to Sam’s counsel, you’ve read the Dick Tracy anecdote here.

If you know a content creator, consider lending a hand by pointing out intriguing ideas and stories of theirs as they mention them. The immediacy of your remarks can be of  help.

If you yourself are a content creator, consider asking colleagues to do the same for you. If they think something you’ve said might interest a wider audience, suggest that they point it out.

We, of course, need to be the final judge as to what we create. Still, at times we get locked into our own theories as to what constitutes a useful and entertaining post or video. Getting a fresh perspective can shed light on an idea that we might have otherwise overlooked.

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