[Writerpreneur] Keeping Readers Reading
ONCE YOU'VE GOT THEM READING - keep them there. Because once they quit, they're unlikely to pick up anything you write after that. Forever.
The first hurdle for authors - once you’ve got them reading - is to keep them reading through to the end. And readers want to be immersed in what you are telling them, not bored. The majority of the stuff out there gets boring sooner or later - and so become just more text to doomscroll past.
Once you find how a writer writes, then you can predict how they’ll treat you as a reader. And you drop writers that don’t keep you engaged. After all, Life is already too short.
There was a single course which radically shortened the learning curve of writers - from one to two decades down to a year or so. Under his tutelage, they were getting their stories and articles approved in magazines within a few months - and then making a professional living as a freelance writer within a few years.
This was the original Professional Writing Course of Walter S. Campbell at Oklahoma University.
When studying Eugene Schwartz’ masterwork “Breakthrough Advertising”, Schwartz referenced me to Campbell. This then wound me up making a thorough study of Campbell’s four out-of-print textbooks from around 9 decades ago.
This study, along with those of his instructors at that time, showed this one principle to be their core: Keep ‘Em Reading.
All because this one author obviously made a big change in Eugene Schwartz. It taught him something no one else had ever put together.
Campbell is talking about reporting and not copy writing, but the structural principles are the same. He says that even in the most factual reporting, no sentence can be effective if it contains only the facts alone. It must also contain emotion, evaluation, impact – if those facts are to be given meaning and importance to the reader.
The same is true for every sentence you write of copy. That sentence should contain not only promise ... not only image, not only logic – but as much of all three as possible.
Weave together your promise, your logic, your emotion, your image. Pack your sentences full of every one of them. Make them blend into each other, till its almost impossible to pull out the individual threads of the rich pattern of conviction and desire you're weaving.
What Schwartz narrowed down into one device – interweaving - Campbell had as four principles that measure the effectiveness of any non-fiction piece, of any type of non-fiction prose.
Time is the enemy of a writer. Or any compatriot in war. Because things keep going – and going. Reading is following one word with the next. And the success of any writer is getting the reader to continue on, to somehow keep that reader going through the text.
Campbell's first principle: KEEP 'EM READING.
How to do this is in putting both their heart and head to work. People read with both. Readers like thing gushy and stirring their emotional side, bt they also like to be interested and stimulated intellectually. Too much of either gets boring. So getting a balance of these two is required – in every sentence. Each must have a feeling or emotion paired with a fact or idea. So the next principle: A FACT AND A FEELING IN EVERY SENTENCE.
Of course, this then asks: which is first? Sometimes it's more effective to lead with a punch to the gut, in other times, you want the mind to be intrigued. Which is better or more effective will depend on the context or purpose of that line. The writer tries them both ways, then chooses the one that creates the best effect on that reader.
His third principle: FACT FIRST OR FEELING FIRST: WHICH WILL BE BETTER?
The most effective writing, that presents both elements in a split-second of time, In general, facts and feelings will be most effective if they alternate. So through a paragraph, you'll keep either facts first or feelings first. Continuity then gives the fourth principle: LET FACTS AND FEELINGS ALTERNATE THOUGHOUT A GIVEN SEQUENCE.
After that, you can take into account how words can be strong or mild, and how they can be factual in some uses and emotional in another. The phrase, “War is hell,” puts the word “hell” as emotional. But in the phrase, “Hell is murky,” “hell” is a fact. Authors are faced with constant choices.
Continuity – keeping the reader enthralled and involved, sentence after sentence – will give you the judgment of which word to use when. Plus plenty of practice.
Copywriters have the luxury and necessity of crafting each sentence so that it adds to the earlier one in impacting the reader with the chosen effect. They can use several optional phrasings to keep the continuity. Much as poets will struggle over their lines, not just to rhyme and keep rhythm, but also to stir the mind and heart of the reader over and over.
This is where Schwartz got his concept for the technical device of interweaving. And once you know the underlying theory, then your prose becomes more effective on the reader.
Again, start practicing this and soon this skill will be commonplace, and then nearly instinctual. Per Campbell:
“There is nothing abstruse or mysterious about these rules when put in practice. Any writer who can distinguish a phrase or word expressing an idea or a fact from a phrase or word expressing a feeling or an emotion can readily tell whether or not he has both of these in his sentence. He can make sure by trying his sentence both ways if necessary to see which will serve his purpose better whether he should put the fact first and the feeling after, or vice versa.
“Thus the author need not merely "dream up" his composition and hope for the best. He may apply sure principles and test it out, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph, until he achieves the best result possible.”
Here we have a thematic device, different from phrasing devices. You'll see both types coming up below, as we delve more into devices from the selected authors above.
We have one overall pattern to fit our words into, one you've already seen and should be well-familiar with...
THE OVERALL PATTERN ALL HUMANS WANT TO READ
Every story, every written work has a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning transports you into the middle, where all the elements are composed to wind you up at a satisfactory ending.
You've already seen this model above. You have the headline, which gets attention. It makes you want to read the first line or paragraph, which then gets you really interested.
This is the beginning. So you continue on through the middle, where the mechanisms are introduced and explained, the case is made. Examples are shown. Guarantees are given. Hooks keep you reading – until you then are motivated to do whatever is asked of you so that product can make its way into your hands.
This we do because the story presents itself in just the way we want it. The way we are wired to want it. Look through the history of written, visual, and audio storytelling. Always a good beginning, an entrancing middle, and a decent ending that satisfies.
The overall pattern, as Campbell laid out:
1. getting the attention of the reader
2. assuring the reader that what you have to say concerns him
3. telling, or rather showing, the reader the points which you have to make
4. leaving him with something—an idea, a program, an attitude— which will satisfy him that he has not wasted his time in reading your piece.
One of his University students couched this in a succinct mnemonic:
(1) HEY!
(2) YOU!
(3) SEE?
(4) SO!
Getting attention and engaging interest is in the HEY! And the YOU! – this is the beginning.
The middle (SEE?) might be put into two parts:
a) would be stating the problem and building interest higher.
b) is where you solve the problem for the reader and get down to cases in an interesting and logical manner. The cases you resent flow one into the next. They introduce and explain the mechanisms built into your produce. All to keep leading the reader on.
Finally, you present the SO! This is the Call to Action.
And now you have the underlying pattern behind all copywriting, the one we always expect to find, the one approach that makes sense and explains things to us. Just like it always has.
Pick up those books by authors who routinely keep you riveted. It’s just as true for fiction as non-fiction (and copywriting).
From now on, as you read or view or listen, you'll start seeing this pattern everywhere. In fact, you won’t be able to un-see it. Every time some author leaves you bored, you’ll be able to go back and dissect where they failed to keep your interest. And then write your own next work even better.
Writers are there to create a chosen effect on the reader.
Join us on this study of how to learn from perennial-selling classic authors.
Wednesdays.
This excerpt is from “Copywriting for Authors” — one of the Writerpreneur Series. You can get your digital copy from that link.
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