Title: Graduate Lecture – How Advertising Gurus Can Inform Poetry and Prose
Project instructions:
50 minute graduate lecture
Use advertising maxims and demonstrate how they apply to the literary creative writing discipline
Talking points, Literary Quotes, A couple of prints ads and a commercial for comparative purposes.
Business books – you find and cite others:
-Hershell Gordon Lewis, On the Art of Writing Copy and Alistair Crompton’s
– Anthony Simonds-Gooding’s, The Copywriter’s Bible are the business book sources.
(I have these two books at home and can scan ads in either)
Literary Reference: Charles Baxter, Burning Down the House
Authors and Poets who began their careers in advertising (state who they worked for, any major achievements in advertising, how they made the leap to literature) One maxim from a famous advertising writer compared with a corresponding quote from 2-3 poets/writers. talking points
Must use – because I have read extensively these authors and have books on hand
Kristin Hunter Lattany, novelist
Patricia Smith, poet
Eudora Alice Welty, novelist
Draw from these and fell free to add others
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Salman Rushdie
Dashiell Hammett
Peter Mayle
Dorothy Sayers
Don DeLillo
Joseph Heller
Helen Gurley Brown
End the lecture with a 5-10 minute exercise. Consider using the Predicament Method Principle (use an existing ad as a jumping point): students write a character predicament and then lead leads the character out of the predicament as follows:
a. Create a credible situation
b. Put your target individual into that predicament, either by unmistakable association or by hard use of the word “you”
c. Demonstrate whatever you’re selling as the solution to the predicament
d. Restate circumstance with a happy conclusion
e. Have the central character in the predicament state satisfaction
Here are some maxims to consider – there are many more – chose what is most potent for the lecture
1. We have moved from an industrial to a communication society. Effective writers need to understand the bond between psychology of communication.
a. Form or substance? Art or Science? Importance of Form – Know the rules before you break them
b. Roget’s Complaint (which is: with all the specific descriptive words available, the writer who regards neutral, non-impact words such as needs [as a noun], quality, features, and value as creative should agree to work for no pay);
c. Clarity commandment – specificity
for example I use one word sentences or sentences without verbs or traditional structure all the time in advertising. Many authors also do this. EE Cummings does it in poetry – not sure what he did in addition to literary career
2. Motivators
a. Five Great Motivators
i. Fear
ii. Exclusivity
iii. Guilt
iv. Greed
v. Need for approval
b. Soft Motivators
i. Convenience
ii. Pleasure
c. Another one (maybe)
i. Ego gratification (praise from others, being in style, emulating/recognition, attracting an admirer or lover, lifestyle congruest with lifestyles viewed as superior
3. Emotional Response
a. “You first” Rule – tell reader, listener, or viewer what’s in it for him, not for you
b. Emotion is a mandate
i. Active not passive voice
c. Psychology
i. Presentation of facts – example about numbers
ii. Tense selection
iii. In your face message
* Annoyance copy depends on synchronization with attitude of message recipient
** Shock diminution rule: shock diminishes in exact ration to repetition
4. Good writing is lean writing
a. Comb copy for clichés, schlock words, redundancies
5. There are a lot comparative maxims in ad writing but I am not sure how to apply them to literature
a. Specifics outpull generalities
b.
6. How to control seller/sellee relationship – could apply to author/reader relationship
a.tell the reader / viewer / listener what to do – we refer to this as a call to action in advertising, but i think it applies in literature – what to feel but by showing instead of spelling it out – Show they how to feel or respond to the copy / situation / character
b. in advertising it is advised to stay out of the conditional replace can with will
c. take acceptance for granted – i think this is really important with sci fi or magical realism
d. cleverness for the sake of cleverness may well be a liability not an asset – a negative example in literature might work here
7. Control the play – make sure the copy doesn’t lapse into could, would, should – An “if…” clause makes an action conditional: a”when…” clause makes it unconditional. for example: “if you decide to contribute, we’ll be able to” vs “Your contribution makes it possible to…”
a. remove qualifiers
b. close loopholes
8. The Peripheral Pussyfooting Weakener Rule – this maxim must be included – see p. 140 of Lewis
9. headline writing – compare to chapter headings
10. Advice from TV commerial writing
a. consider storyboarding a scene like television writers – helps with moving action and visual description
b. spokesperson selection – too distinct or too void – compare to narrator
c. use touchstones to transfer emotion to reader
d. even if the ending isn’t happy – make the viewer believe it is possible – lovely payoff
e. solve a problem – important in fiction – character needs denounment – realize something – resolution
Exercise. Can be this one or another Predicament Method Principle – readers visualize themselves in a predicament and then lead copy leads them out
a. Create a credible situation
b. Put your target individual into that predicament, either by unmistable assn or by hard use of the word you
c. Demonstrate whatever you’re selling as the solution to the predicament
d. Restate circumstance with a happy conclusion
e. Have the central character in the predicament state satisfaction
Patricia Smith
Alternate titles: Kristin Elaine Eggleston; Kristin Elaine Hunter Lattany
Kristin Hunter Lattany, in full Kristin Elaine Hunter Lattany, née Kristin Elaine Eggleston (born September 12, 1931, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died November 14, 2008, Magnolia, New Jersey), American novelist who examined black life and race relations in the United States in both children’s stories and works for adults.
Lattany began writing for The Pittsburgh Courier, an important African American newspaper, when she was 14 and continued until the year after she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She married writer Joseph Hunter in 1952 (divorced 1962). After briefly working as a teacher, she became an advertising copywriter. During that time, she won a national television contest in 1955 with her script Minority of One, about school integration; fearing controversy, the network rewrote the story to show a French-speaking immigrant entering an all-white school.
Sherwood Anderson – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Anderson
Wikipedia
Partly as a result of these misfortunes, young Sherwood became adept at …. There the author stayed until 1906, selling ads and writing advertising
Douglas Adams – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams
Wikipedia
Adams is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,
James Patterson former ad executive — Patterson ran J. Walter Thompson’s North American …
Make a big statement with few words
At the 2008 IAPI Advertising Effectiveness Award ceremony, Rushdie said:
One of the great things about advertising is you have to say a lot in very little. You have to try to make a very big statement in very few words or very few images and you haven’t much time. All of that is, I feel, very, very useful.
I write like a job. I sit down in the morning and I do it. I don’t miss deadlines. I do feel that a lot of the professional craft of writing is something I learnt from those years in advertising and I’ll always be grateful for it.
Eudora Welty – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_Welty
Wikipedia
Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American author of short stories and … She studied advertising at Columbia University at the suggestion of her father. … Three years later, she left her job to become a full-time writer. .
Dashiell Hammett – Detnovel.com
www.detnovel.com/Hammett.html
Dashiell Hammett, detective novelists. … 11 He earned money as a book reviewer and advertising copy-writer, an area in which he also wrote for specialized journals. … This is when “Cap” Shaw took over Black Mask and came to visit the …
Peter Mayle
His first job in 1957 was as a trainee at Shell Oil, based in their London office. It was there that he discovered that he was more interested in advertising than oil and he wrote to David Ogilvy, the head of the advertising agency that had the Shell account at that time, asking for a job. Ogilvy offered him a job as a junior account executive but Mayle’s interest was more on the creative side of the business and he subsequently became a copywriter in 1961 based in their New York office. In due course another agency, Papert Koenig, Lois, poached him from Ogilvy and sent him back to London to head up the creative team in their UK office, where one of his colleagues was Alan Parker. When the US parent hit trouble in the mid-60’s he and a colleague bought the London operation. They developed the business with accounts that included Watneys, Olivetti and Sony and after 5 years, they were bought by BBDO, one of the top American agencies. He then commuted between the US and the UK as their creative director. By 1974 he’d had enough of advertising and transatlantic commuting and quit the business to write full-time.
http://www.theawl.com/2011/08/six-authors-who-were-copywriters-first
For many writers struggling for publication, advertising has proven a useful field (it does pay, after all): F. Scott Fitzgerald, Salman Rushdie, Dorothy Sayers, Don DeLillo, Joseph Heller and Helen Gurley Brown all worked as copywriters early in their careers—some with more success than others. Rushdie came up with “Naughty. But nice” cream cakes for Ogilvy
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