Writing Inrochester

The Hero’s Journey (Monomyth) is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the hundreds of Hollywood movies we have deconstructed (see URL below) are based on this 188 stage template.

Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.

[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].

THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY

THE HERO’S JOURNEY:

a) Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

b) Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

c) Gives you a tangible process for building and releasing dissonance (establishing and achieving catharses, of which there are usually four).

d) Gives you a universal structural template upon which you can superimpose your situational story. This is why stories such as Alien (1979), Gladiator (2000), Midnight Cowboy (1969), American Beauty (1999), The Graduate (1967) and many others (all deconstructed at the URL below) appear to be different but are all constructed, almost sequence by sequence, in the same way.

and more…

*****Hero’s Journey: Push to the First Threshold*****

The detective hero is visited by good cop bad cop (the most senior) and, having learnt of the link between the hero and the deceased, confront him with it. The good cop realises the link is spurious while bad cop promises to pursue it until it leads to the hero’s jailing. This motivates the hero to solve the crime. In The Maltese Falcon (1939), Tom and Dundy visit Spade.

Learn more…

WRITE THAT SCREENPLAY!

The Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and other story structure templates can be found at clickok.co.uk/ clickok.co.uk/

The Managing Creativity and Innovation MBA dissertation, DIY creativity Audit, Powerpoint presentation and Good Idea generator software can be found at managing-creativity.com/ managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made, the author’s name is retained and the link to our site URL remains active.

You have a non-fiction book in mind. You know it’s going to be great and it’ll help a lot of people. But you also have mountains and mountains of material–so much good information! So much excellent research! How do you organize it all to create a powerful book? Here are the basic building blocks of a non-fiction book. Keep these in mind and you won′t get overwhelmed by your material.

1.) Think About Your Reader

When you think about your reader you’re thinking two things: “What does the reader get out of my book?” and “What kind of relationship do I want to establish with the reader?” One of your duties as an author is to offer your reader something of value which could even change their life for the better. Ideally you’ll make it clear what this value is when you title the book. It’s pretty clear, for instance, what you’ll get when you pick up Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. This could also provide the structure for your chapters. If you’re teaching how to improve your golf stroke in 10 steps, you could include a chapter on each step. You don’t have to make it more complicated than that.

As for your relationship with your reader, what do you want it to be? Will it be a teacher/student relationship? Peer-to-peer? A storytelling relationship? If you’re writing a biography, you may want to be a storyteller and have your reader be a listener. Will your voice be friendly and homely? Or authoritative and formal? The point is that you’re always asking yourself “To whom and I speaking and how do I want to be heard?” What choices will best suit your audience?

2.) What’s Your Theory?

Theory is how the writer is proposing to make his ideas play themselves out. It’s how it all works. In Anthony Robbins’ book, “Awaken the Giant Within”, he’s making the point that you are in control of your decisions and you can really tap into your human potential. Well, how do you do that? His theory of how you do that is to become aware that you are in control of everything that happens within you. You are in control of your emotions, of making choices, of creating what he calls “neuro associations” that will draw you towards a positive behavior or help you move away from a negative behavior. That’s his theory.

I’m assuming if you have already decided to write a non-fiction book that you have a plan that you’re presenting to the world. Non-fiction books are often the result of what you do in your everyday life you may notice that things could work better if people did things in a different way. Maybe your how-to just makes more sense, or it fits your readers better than someone else’s theory. That’s why it’s important for you to have your own ideas. It truly is about what you’re bringing to the book, how much you’re putting yourself into it, because that’s what brings energy and vitality to the work and makes a lasting impression on the world.

3.) What Stories Will You Tell?

Stories are a crucial ingredient in non-fiction books. They are what will help bring your points home to the reader and make them real. Most writers use anecdotes from their professional lives. Life coaches use stories from clients, real estate brokers use stories from people they′ve worked with. Stories help the reader see that 1) other people have dealt with the same problems and 2) the writer has direct experience and knows how to bring about a successful solution.

When you use stories you’re also using an ages-old technique–it’s even used in the Bible, where stories (or parables) are told to educate the reader on complex concepts. I think our brains still respond positively to this technique. Stories can be a softer way of taking medicine–that spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down!

4.) What’s Your Call to Action?

When you craft a call to action for your reader, you are designing a way of telling them, “Here’s what you do now that you have this information, here’s how you make it work.” Let’s use a weight loss book as an example. Maybe the theory is about overeating. If you were writing this book, you might want to include calls to action throughout the book giving the reader different strategies about how to avoid overeating. You′ll include how not to overeat in restaurants, how to avoid overeating at bedtime, how to avoid overeating while traveling or at buffets, whatever.

In some books the author will present questions and exercises. That’s part of a call to action because it makes the reader stop and absorb what they’ve just learned and even to design their own action plans based on their own unique circumstances. In our example above, you might challenge the reader to choose two alternative things they could do instead of overeating.

What’s Next?

Now you have to write the book! Keep this structure in mind and you’ll be well on your way to creating a powerful book that will inform, educate and–in the best of all possible worlds–change the way we live for the better.

© 2006 Sophfronia Scott

Author and Writing Coach Sophfronia Scott is “The Book Sistah” TM. Get her FREE REPORT, “The 5 Big Mistakes Most Writers Make When Trying to Get Published” and her FREE online writing and book publishing tips at

Now, there is one circumstance where you do not want to do this as quickly as possible, and that is if you already have a ranked site, and you are just looking to get a little bit higher in the rankings. There is always the danger that if you already have 50 links and you get 50 more in just a few days, that the search engines could flag your site for spamming to get links, and penalize you by dropping your rankings for awhile. I have seen it happen a couple of times – not often, and not for long. But if you already have a bunch of links, just submit to a few article directories per week, so that you don’t build your links up too fast.

Of course, if you have no ranking at all – then you really have nothing to lose by getting a lot of links fast.

There is one more thing you need to be aware of when your purpose is to gain as many links as possible as quickly as possible: you do not want the anchor text on all the inbound links to be exactly the same. If it is, the search engines may assume you paid some company to get your link on a bunch of web sites – and they don’t like that. The search engines like to see ‘natural’ linking – linking that occurs naturally over the course of time. Of course, if you want to get a lot of links fast, you are going to be doing some things, like submitting a lot of articles, which is not necessarily ‘natural’ in its execution, although it is certainly widespread and one of the better techniques for getting links to your web site.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here:

A friend and I were discussing writing drama. Being amateur writers we couldn’t agree on what drama actually was. She considered it action and I proposed it was a mere conflict. We debated for a few hours before we agreed to have lunch at a local restaurant. As we ate I observed many other patrons in the restaurant. I began wondering what drama meant to each of them. What were they facing in their lives? What type of life did each led? Could they be characters in a story?

As my mind wandered so did my eyes. Sitting in the far corner of the restaurant was a young woman. She was seated by the window and was sitting all alone. Occasionally, I would see her look down at her watch. It was obvious that her luncheon companion was late. The wheels in my head started turning. Why was her companion late? Did something happen? Then it occurred to me drama was unfolding right in front of me. It wasn’t action or something that a quick glimpse would tell. Drama was in her thoughts, her fears, and it could be seen in her eyes. My friend disagreed. She felt drama had to be more active.

Getting into the car I was thinking about writing a story about the woman in the restaurant. A story about the worry, the fear and anxiety she was going through as her thoughts played out in her mind. I was so engulfed in my own thoughts that I pulled my vehicle right out in front of an oncoming car. DRAMA! In those few split seconds a million things raced through my head. I felt as if my heart had stopped and I believe I held my breath. Those few seconds with the vision of the car, the sound of the screeching tires and the anticipation of impact was a very dramatic moment. It was a quick moment of drama for us as it was for the other driver. Luckily, there was no impact and we all drove off safely.

Not only was drama present inside the restaurant, but outside as well. Drama is everywhere. It’s not only action; it’s so much more. My friend didn’t feel like debating the topic at the moment but later told me that the action is what caused the drama. In that situation I can agree with her, but I still think drama is much more. I think drama can exist in thoughts or emotions, and it’s up to the author to bring this drama to light.

Writers weren’t born best selling authors. So how does an author write drama? Draw from experience. Practice is the key. Write what you know.

Elaine Lemons is an author on a site for
Writing.Com/ Creative Writing ( Writing.Com/ Writing.Com/ ). Visit her portfolio at writing.com/authors/octobe� writing.com/authors/octobe�

Most of you do not realise exactly how creative you are, and cannot write two words one after the other, but when among a group friends or family you can talk for hours…

Well, writing articles is simply that—talking to your friends on paper. You don’t have to worry about spelling and bad grammar, initially at least. It is far more important to get the words down exactly as you think of them.

Here are 7 reasons why you should write an article, today!

1. You are all experts at something—if you are not sure about your favourite topic, ask your spouse or partner because they will know! You all have a subject or two that enthuses you to the extent that you have been involved with it for some time, and if not an expert on the topic, you do have some definite opinions about it.

2. It may be something that annoys you, which can result in some great articles that may interest a lot of readers. It is also a good way of letting off steam—far better than kicking the cat across the room every time you get annoyed.

3. Once you start the writing process, you may find that there is a lot to say about your particular subject. You can write a series of articles with related topics that you may publish in an eBook.

4. You can distribute your articles to your mailing list, submit them to major article directories, or publish them on your Website. Some authors charge a fee for access to their articles, which can contain valuable information.

5. Your articles may be rich in popular keywords and this can attract vast numbers of visitors to your Website. Your author resource box, which is at the end of articles that are published elsewhere, can also drive qualified traffic to your Website. Search Engines like Google love popular keywords!

6. When your Website publishes a wide selection of good articles that you pack with valuable, interesting, and topical information, you will find that other ‘higher-ranking’ Websites may link back to you. This pushes up your rankings with the Search Engines.

7. An article that has ‘hot’ information or topics that make it viral—one that is rapidly distributed throughout the Internet—provides the author with tremendous traffic, advertising, and publicity. All of which can increase your net income!

Stop reading this article right now, and open your word processor and start writing. Don’t stop to think, just let the words flow as fast as you can type them. It does not matter that you write mostly rubbish at first, because that is normal. What you will find is that once you start on your own ‘hot′ topic, they words will flow more fluently and your first article is born.

Well, actually, before its birth as a published article, you must edit and re-write it a number of times until it becomes a professional article. You can even ’sleep on it’ for a few days, and when you come back to it you will often find many areas of improvement.

Brian Hunt
PowerBusinessPublishing.com/ PowerBusinessPublishing.com/

The author of this article is Brian Hunt, who has been writing, publishing, and marketing books and articles on business and leisure related subjects for the past seven years. He is a highly successful person with a broad depth of sales and marketing experience in various fields gained over many years in business. In addition to his publishing business, Brian works as a consultant for selected clients wishing to expand their marketing presence online.

FORWARD

The 188 stage Hero’s Journey (Monomyth) is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the hundreds of Hollywood movies we have deconstructed (see URL below) are based on this 188 stage template.

Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.

[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].

THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY

THE 188 STAGE HERO′S JOURNEY:

a) Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

b) Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

c) Gives you a tangible process for building and releasing dissonance (establishing and achieving catharses, of which there are usually four).

d) Tells you what to write. For example, at a certain stage of the story, the focus should be on the Call to Adventure and the micro elements within.

ABRIDGED TIPS, EXCERPTS AND EXAMPLES:

(simply go to screenplay-structure.com/ or story-structure.org/ for full details)

*****Pulled In to the Inner Cave*****

Just as resistance to the Inner Cave is normal, so is the overcoming of it (a pull or push in). In Brokeback Mountain (2005), Jack tells Ennis to “…get in here [ the tent]…”

*****Meeting the Oracle*****

Post the Road of Trials, the Hero must journey toward an Expansion of Consciousness, which is represented by a tangible (the Sword). It is the Oracle that guides them towards this tangible. In Bonnie and Clyde (1967), they’re losing oil - they gotta swipe another car and that will lead them to kidnap the owners of that car.

Learn more…

WRITE THAT SCREENPLAY!

The Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and other story structure templates can be found at monomyth.info/ monomyth.info/

188 stages of the Hero’s Journey can also be reached from heros-journey.info/ heros-journey.info/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made, the author’s name is retained and the link to our site URL remains active.

I went to school to be a teacher. In fact, I have a B.S. in Education, not journalism.

Due to the hours and holidays, teaching is traditionally thought to be the best work for a mother who wants to keep one foot in the mommy-door and one foot in the career-door. This thought, paired with my love for children and learning, led me to life inside the schoolhouse doors.

Soon though, writing, not teaching, became my real “full time job,” and it’s been years since I set foot behind a teacher’s podium.

There are times I miss teaching and regret I haven’t used my diploma more, but who am I kidding? — freelance writing has to be the best situation for a stay-at-home mother: I get paid, I do something I love, and I don’t leave the kids. What’s more? I can stay in my pajamas all morning!

Sometimes people ask if the lack of structure and absence of a physical “office” bother me and make it hard to concentrate. Sure, I get sidetracked watching a great episode of Rolie Polie Olie with my son every now and then, and I take long, leisurely breaks to chat on the phone or go to lunch, but this isn’t because I “work at home,” it’s because I’m an artist.

I only write when inspired and when it “feels right.” Even if I sat behind a desk all day, I’d still piddle around and get distracted — it’s my nature to jump from project-to-project, then zero-in on a particular piece when the mood strikes me. This is the artist in me. Just as a painter cannot be told, “Paint, now!” a writer cannot sit in front of a blank screen and expect great things to flow.

My best pieces, in fact, are written while I do such things as stand in line at the grocery store and wait at a red light, or during a commercial break from Oprah.

As I’m sure any artist can relate, I usually get a “feeling” when I have a great story brewing in my mind. This is, I think, the blessing and curse of creativity, because sometimes that “feeling” comes in the middle of a dinner party or at two o’clock in the morning and I have to race to find paper and jot my thoughts down. My husband has grown accustomed to me running in the door, heading straight to the computer and yelling as I go, “Can’t talk….got a story on my mind….need to get it on paper!”

So, while I love this profession for its adaptability with the children and being a mother, sometimes the unpredictable nature of my creativity poses a few problems. For instance, if inspiration causes me to stay up until 3 a.m. writing a great column, I’m little use to my high-energy children a few hours later when they get up at the crack-of-dawn.

Yes, I have the luxury of lounging in my pajamas and not going to an “office,” but I struggle with the spontaneous nature of this business and the chaotic schedule it sometimes poses for my children and me.

I guess though, even if things were different and my life was more structured, I′d still be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl…that’s just the life of an artist.

About The Author

You may reprint the above column on your website so long as the following is included the URL address is actively hyperlinked back

THIS MUST BE INCLUDED: Copyright 2004 Sarah Smiley SarahSmiley.com” target=”_new SarahSmiley.com - Sarah Smiley’s syndicated column Shore Duty appears weekly in newspapers across the country.

mailto:sarah@sarahsmiley.com sarah@sarahsmiley.com

PPC advertising and article marketing – how do they compare, and is one better than another?

Well, to start off I should probably explain the basic premise of each.

PPC advertising basically involves buying sponsored search engine listings via a PPC company like google, overture, miva, or others. You pay so much for your ad to appear as a sponsored listing in search engine results.

Article marketing, on the other hand, involves writing optimized articles, including text anchor links back to your web site, and submitting them to the big article directories online, who often have the ability to get your properly optimized article on to the top ten page in a search engine listing.

So what are the pros and cons of each? Well, on price: PPC costs money, and article marketing costs time. So if you are just getting started online and money is an issue, but you have a lot of time, article marketing is probably a better choice. But if you have been online for awhile and are making $20,000 per month, then you might be better off to spend $5000 per month on PPC.

Well, what about response? OK, article marketing is usually a little slower to get you responses, and there is usually not a huge amount of traffic per article, whereas with PPC you can dial it up about as high as you want, from the very first day, depending on how much money you want to spend and how many keywords you are willing to pay for. On the other hand, and article – market generated visitor is probably of 10 or maybe even 20 times higher worth in terms of how much they will ever buy from you – it tends to be a much higher quality lead.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here:

Following are 22 rules you can use to write headlines that will reach out and force the prospect to read your advertisement:

1. Your headline must offer something that your target market wants very badly.

2. Your headline must include something of self-interest to the reader.

3. If your product is new or improved, say so in the headline.

4. Do not just invoke curiosity in your headline, you must also include something of interest to the reader.

5. Avoid negativity in your headline. Always turn the negative into a positive statement.

6. Your headline should suggest a quick and easy way to achieve the benefit(s) stated.

7. Your headline should be believable.

8. Determine what would make you buy your product, and then try to incorporate that idea into your headline.

9. Avoid making your headline so short that you don’t get the main point across.

10. Avoid clever headlines that make the reader think “how clever.” Cleverness rarely gets people to read your ad or spend money.

11. Avoid headlines that sound dead, or like they should be at the bottom of a statue like “To Serve Humanity Better…”

12. Suggest in your headline that your copy contains useful and valuable information.

13. Use your headline to reach out and grab the reader’s attention.

14. Avoid curiosity headlines unless you also include interesting statements.

15. Avoid hard-to-grasp headlines that require the reader to think about what you are saying.

16. NEVER run an ad without a headline! You must give people a reason to read your ad.

17. NEVER run just one headline. Always test several different ones and then run with the one that pulls the best!

18. NEVER trust your own reaction to your headlines. Instead, get the reaction of someone else.

19. If you emphasize a word in your headline, make sure that word means something and is important.

20. Remember that large-type words act as a stopper. They get people to stop and pay attention, so choose the best words that will get the most attention.

21. Don’t let an artist or layout person decide which headline words to emphasize. An artist thinks in terms of color contrasts and tones, not in terms of making money! Take a look at other successful headlines and incorporate some of their ideas into your own ads.

22. Avoid writing an ad that attracts the wrong people. Make sure your headline attracts the people that are most interested in what you have to offer.

If you will follow these 22 guidelines for writing your headline copy, you will be more likely to have a successful headline and a successful ad! Take some time right now and look back over these guidelines. Then, try to write your own headlines. When you have a few that you think are wonderful, run them by a friend. If that friend asks to see the rest of your copy, you know you have written a true killer headline!

Frank Tocco teaches people with no experience how to market anything online and offers
a FREE course that shows you step-by-step how you can make money online.
shoѤdreams.ws shoѤdreams.ws

Many business professionals do not know what to do or feel less than satisfied because they do not know how to structure their teleseminars. Once you know the structure to leading a teleconference call in an effective and engaging way, you will know how to create a consistent experience that will have participants wanting to come back for more.

Here is an acronym to help remember the structural pieces to move through any learning-based teleconference call, whether you call it a teleclass, teleworkshop, teleforum, teleseminar or teleprogram. The acronym is G.O.D.I.G. and stands for Greet, Overview, Debrief, Iteractive content and Gms.

Greeting occurs in the first 3 minutes and requires a delicate balance between interacting with incoming participants and engaging in a long conversation with one person. The teleleader has two priorities during the greet section welcome participants and listen for technical issues that require attention.

Step two is the Overview section of the teleconference call, which includes formally welcoming people, creating context for the call, introducing the structure, and the focus or topic. This section sets the expectation for what will be covered and what participants can expect to take away from the call. For example, an overview I might say is, %𜧑CWelcome to our telecall series on how to Lead Highly Engaging Teleseminars. Today we%�ll be covering the 5-step fool-proof structure to leading a teleseminar, so you feel confident when leading your own learning-based conference calls.%𜧑D This section only takes a few minutes yet it sets a clear tone and intent for the session.

The third step is to Debrief any fieldwork (if it is an ongoing series of teleclasses) or address any Pre-work you%u2019ve sent participants before the call. Fieldwork gets people involved, and when people feel involved, they are more likely to gain from and enjoy the experience. You may have as little or as much fieldwork as you think your participants will engage with. You may include visuals pdf files with photos, or Powerpoint files. Debriefing and pre-work gets people thinking and being prepared to participate.

Debriefing and pre-work can take 10 minutes or more in a one-hour teleclass. People are already engaged and you can seamlessly move into the largest section of a one-hour telecall which is the Interactive Content.

The worst thing that can happen is a call where the teleleader lectures at you for the full hour. There are many ways to have interactive participation take place; creating games, sharing experiences, doing real-time surveys, and discussing case studies that allow people to explore a subject. You may conduct realplays where people bring real-life situations and are coached on the call. And you may use metaphors and visual language to make the learning more interesting. In a one hour telecall, the interactive content takes between 30 and 40 minutes.

The last step of a learning-based telecall is where you find out from participants what they learned. The Gems that made an impact, and what actions they are committed to taking. Take 5 %u2013 10 minutes to hear what is important for people to do after the call. The teleleader can also assign fieldwork if it would be of benefit to participants.

Having a structure gives you confidence that you know what you are doing and where you are going next in the call. Having a structure to your calls, you will set yourself apart as a professional facilitator in the teleconference environment.

Carly Anderson is an expert on communicating via teleconference calls using teleclasses and teleseminars. She is the author of Teleseminar Leading Secrets. For a free 7-part audio/written ecourse visit teleseminarleadingsecrets.com teleseminarleadingsecrets.com.