Writing

Said is dead

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If you’ve ever dabbled in writing, especially in fiction, you might have heard someone say “Said is dead” before.

Now, in case you haven’t, all you have to know is that it refers to dialogue attribution. Think of something like the following:

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“What time is the store closing?” said Bob.
“Normally around 8 pm,” said the bartender, pouring Bob’s seventh whiskey of the evening, “although, sometimes they stay open past 10 pm for special occasions.”
“That’s just perfect,” said Bob. “knowing my luck there’ll be some random special occasion just today, for no apparent reason whatsoever, forcing me to remain here in this god-forsaken town of a dump and wait until the store’s all empty.”
“But, you know,” Bob said, “if it wasn’t for you here, I might have had to wait all that time entirely sober. So I’m sure glad you’re still here, buddy.”
“Thanks.” said the bartender.

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You may (or may not) have noticed all the abundance of “said” used in the above text. Truth is, that’s how writing has almost always been done. And it worked.

In fact, most people don’t even notice the amount of times “said” is being written. So nothing to worry about, right?

Except, because people can’t stand doing the same thing over and over again, especially from a writing perspective where it becomes painstakingly obvious, they have to reinvent the wheel and switch it up all the time.

That might lead to something like this:

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“What time is the store closing?” Bob cried out.
“Normally around 8 pm,” groaned the bartender, pouring Bob’s seventh whiskey of the evening, “although, sometimes they stay open past 11 pm for special occasions.”
“That’s just perfect,” bellowed Bob. “knowing my luck there’ll be some random special occasion just today, for no apparent reason whatsoever, forcing me to remain here in this god-forsaken town of a dump and wait until the store’s all empty.”
“But, you know,” Bob smirked drunkenly, “if it wasn’t for you here, I might have had to wait all that time entirely sober. So I’m sure glad you’re still here, buddy.”
“Thanks.” groaned the bartender again.

===

Hopefully you realize how terrible this is.

Yet, I can guarantee you, this happens… A LOT. Especially with new self-published authors who think they’re the second coming of Shakespeare.

How many times have you heard someone “smirk drunkenly”?

Now, that’s not to say the first text with all the saids scattered in it couldn’t be improved (it can). But by using attribution such as “he replied”, “he added”, “he asked”, “he explained”.

But anyway, enough about that—you probably didn’t sign up to this list to get lectured about dialogue attribution.

The point I’m trying to make is that people will gladly choose an objectively worse option over a better and long-established one, simply because they crave something new.

And so it goes when people decide to put all their trust in social media and say some absurd lines such as, “email is dead”.

It’s not.

It never was. And it likely never will be.

So until then, I highly suggest you practice and hone your email writing skills for the entire medium is a longstanding and objectively better, safer, and even more forgiving, option.

And on that note, check out Email Valhalla right here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/


This email talks about simple and effective writing

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Everyone talks about simple, clear, and effective writing.

Yet so many people, including those who preach the way of simplicity, hardly ever write ‘simply’.

Why is that?

Well, for one, I’m guessing, many people have this image of ‘A writer’ as someone capable of writing this elaborate, literary, almost heaven-like, prose that shall be remembered for decades, if not centuries.

Just look at one of the most prominent figures in English literature, even to those who don’t know anything about literature at all, Shakespeare. Nobody ever said, “Oh I just love how simple, clear, and effective Shakespeare’s writing is!”

It’s almost always the beautiful poetry-like prose that gets quoted, remembered, and revered in everyday circles.

Or at least, that’s what most people think…

After all, we still highly revere and remember the writing of Ernest Hemingway who wrote simple prose, almost too simple on some occasions. Just look at this little gem:

“He came to the river. The river was there.”

Now, isn’t that just wonderful?

I don’t know about you, but I love that type of writing. People often overcomplicate literature and its prose. See, most people couldn’t care less about the literary merits, the outstanding poetic prose, or even the grammatical correctness of a novel. Instead all they care about is being told an entertaining story, something that will fascinate them for hours in a way that almost makes them forget they’re reading a story, all while they’re passing time on their way to work, on a flight, in the waiting room at the dentist, or even when just for winding down at the end of the day while getting ready to go to sleep.

Good writing, fiction or non-fiction alike, engages people.

That’s all it has to do.

And more often than not, simple and effective writing is the way to go about it.

Speaking of using simple writing to engage and entertain people. Check out Email Valhalla to learn all about it. Chances are, you’ll get paid for it as well.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/


What’s the worst that could happen?

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Many moons ago I went for leisurely stroll of about 30 km.

At one point, in a forest, Google Maps told me to turn right, over the bridge to cross the river and continue walking in the same direction.

Except…

There wasn’t a bridge in sight.

I went back and forth a few times, thinking I must have passed it somewhere and it might be hidden in between some bushes.

But no luck.

The river, however, was small enough for me to consider just jumping over it. It was a big enough river to make it a challenging jump, but the ground where I was walking was also a bit higher than the ground on the other side, so I had some luck there.

After an embarrassingly short time of thinking, I decided to just go for it and jump. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

Anyway.

I got ready, took a step back to get myself a running start, and went for it.

The good news?

I made it over the river, all in one piece, and without getting wet.

The bad news?

I now found myself a foot deep in what turned out to be a wet and barely solid underground of mud (which wasn’t clear just by looking at it). So much so that I lost my shoe right after I jumped and tried to continue walking.

So there I was, happy that I made it and didn’t get wet, yet my feet, shoes, and bottom of my trousers were covered in mud.

Now, I’m not trying to dissuade you from jumping over rivers—I’d happily do it again. But this experience did bring up a good point…

No matter how much you prepare, or how well you plan everything out, there will always be stuff you didn’t (or couldn’t) account for that’ll mess up your plan and alter the course you’ll have to take.

Luckily, as I’ve heard the great Matt Furey say “Nothing bad ever happens to a writer”.

And that’s why I highly recommend you to check out Email Valhalla so you can learn how to write better emails that’ll get you paid ( so nothing bad will ever happen to you).

Click here for more information about Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Make writing sales pages fun again

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It’s that time of the year again.

Today, during a tutoring call with a client, I mentioned how much fun I was having writing a new sales page—especially coming up with the headline.

I explained to him my process of coming up with attention-grabbing AND entertaining headlines.

Namely, I write an entire list of different headlines in rapid succession, not caring about the quality of any of them. In fact, I only have one goal during this process: to write the most absurd, often unhinged and unorthodox as can be, having as much fun as I can have, trying to jam in a bunch of wordplay, making outrageous statements, being an absolute lunatic, and doing whatever else I can possibly think of without any mental restrictions whatsoever.

Next, I let them simmer for a day or two before I come back to look at them again with a fresh mind.

Then, and only then, do I pick the best variations and decide the winner—and the final headline that will end up on the live sales page.

I do this because, as every good writer ought to know, if you have fun writing it, others will have fun reading it.

It also has to grab the attention of the right audience, no doubt about that. But that takes care of itself if you do the necessary research.

As for the headline in question, the one I wrote today and told the client of mine (and the one I’m quite proud of if I do say so myself)?

You’ll find it soon enough

In the meantime, check out Email Valhalla right here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/


Reading recommendations just for you

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It’s no secret I love to read.

If anything, I might mention my reading habits too often. Perhaps even at the expense of making more sales because instead of yapping about what I’m reading (or how I’m reading) all the time, I could instead mention other cool facts, interesting stories, and controversial opinions which would undoubtedly lead to more sales.

But I don’t.

See, most people would greatly benefit from developing a better reading habit (not to be confused with those “you have to read at least 52 books a yaer!!!” type people).

As it stands, I’m a writer.

Sure some purists out there might object and say I'm “not a real writer”. Yet the fact remains, I press keys on my keyboard, which makes words appear on my screen (often quite a lot of them), which I then publish on the internet for many others to read. And this process is getting me paid.

So yes. I’ll call myself a writer.

And, as most people intuitively realize, there are two major “practices” writers do to become better at their craft (and yes, you have to do both).

First is to write frequently and write a lot.

Second is to read frequently and read a lot.

The more types of writing you read, the better. Good writing, bad writing, literary writing, junk writing, persuasive writing, pop culture writing, technical writing, and every other type of writing you can imagine.

A simple method to start reading is to read whatever interests you most.

That’s an extremely underrated (and weirdly effective) method to go about reading.

But in case you still don’t know where to start, no worries—I got you.

Because as of today I’ve created a recommended reading list on my website where I post what I’m currently reading, as well as every book I’ve read so far that I found either extremely enjoyable or insanely valuable (mostly both).

It’s not a big list by any means. (Not yet, at least)

But it’s enough to get some people started and give some honest recommendations.

Anyway.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/reading-list/


Don’t make this same mistake I made

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Here’s an embarrassing fact about me:

I’ve always thought myself well-versed in everything technology-related. After all, I’ve gone through 6 years of a digitally focused university program (lots of information systems, systems architecture, and even AI stuff before it was cool).

And yet, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to get my WordPress post tags and categories to look the way I wanted them to when I tried some months ago.

So I gave up on tagging and categorizing my emails (which I post to my blog whenever I send them out). Something that I was ok with back then, but recently got reminded of just how much of a waste that was. All those posts, ideas, and valuable pieces of content, just sitting there, not categorized, no reasonable way for anyone to look them up, and least of all no efficient way to repackage them or reuse them in any way, shape, or form.

Very much an enormous case of what Dan Kennedy called “unused capacity”.

I simply couldn’t keep on wasting all that content like it was nothing. And so, yesterday, gave it another go. And what do you know? I finally figured it out. I almost did so by accident and it was so unbelievably easy I can’t help but feel like my whole life and everything I thought of my ability was a lie.

Anyway.

Long story short, to make use of this I now have to tag and categorize every single email I’ve ever written—manually that is. I’ve looked for a way to automate this somehow. And while there are a few solutions to doing this, none of those do it in a way I like and would want to keep doing in the future.

(Yes I can be extremely stubborn in those situations)

So what am I left with?

A long list—604 to be precise—of emails and valuable pieces of content I have to re-read and manually sort into categories and tag them with keywords I find valuable.

Moral of the story?

If you have an idea you know is important, valuable, and will pay off in the future, don’t procrastinate (or give up altogether) on implementing it. You’re only giving yourself more work in the future when you finally get to it.

Now, this example might not mean much to you.

But another application for this lesson, which I have been doing from the very beginning, is to note down, categorize, and link important topics, people, places, animals, plants, or historic events in my world-building when it comes to fiction writing.

I’ve been doing so with a neat little tool called Obsidian.

It’s like creating your personal Wikipedia inside of a text editor, allowing you to highlight keywords, create separate notes for them, and go from note to note just by clicking on them (among many other extremely useful options I almost can’t live without when it comes to creative writing).

I don’t get paid a single cent to promote Obsidian.

This is a pure and honest recommendation for anyone still looking around for a place to call their home when it comes to writing software.

And while it might be a bit confusing to get it running and set up how you like, there are many great guides and tutorials—including from fellow published authors—about how to easily and efficiently use Obsidian.

Enough yapping.

Here’s the link: https://obsidian.md/


The piece of writing advice that changed George Lucas’ life

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One of my favorite biographies I’ve read so far is George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones.

There’s a tremendous amount of useful insights and life lessons (as well as high being a highly entertaining read).

For example.

As a young, fresh, recently graduated filmmaker, George Lucas had the golden opportunity to “protegé” under Francis Ford Coppola—famous for films such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now—who was eager to take Lucas under his wing.

The two seemed to connect excellently.

Sure, they had their fair share of drama across the years, but George Lucas wouldn’t be the same—and we probably wouldn’t have gotten the Star Wars that exists today—if it weren’t for the support and teachings of Coppola.

One of Coppola’s teachings, which had an immense influence on Lucas—he often stated he had to be chained to his desk to get any work of writing done at all, and that still wouldn’t be without blood, sweat, and tears, if that tells you anything—went as follows:

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“Don’t ever read what you’ve written. Try to get it done in a week or two, then go back and fix it… you just keep fixing it.”

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Now if that ain’t the truth.

And it’s the same for every type of writing. Whether it’s film scripts, novels, biographies, non-fiction business books, sales letters, email sequences, entire promotions, paid advertisements, and whatever else you can imagine.

It’s all the same.

You start writing it. You try to get it done as fast as possible—no re-reading allowed. And only once you’re done with the entire first draft do you go back to the beginning and start fixing the damn thing.

After all, it’s only after god-knows-how-many revisions that the project starts to resemble a finished product.

Just look at the early drafts of Star Wars.

Some of the scenes are hardly recognizable or non-existent to begin with.

Anyway.

I’ve learned a lot—and still do every time I pick it up again—from Jones’ biography George Lucas.

More.

I’d recommend everyone in business, especially in creative fields, to check out the book for themselves.

Simply the way George Lucas approached his projects, and why he made the decisions he did, is worth its weight in gold.

But enough rambling.

Check out the book here and see for yourself: https://alexvandromme.com/lucas


How not to lose all motivation when writing

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I came across the following Reddit post:

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“Here´s the thing. I´ve been trying to write for a while now. I love writing. I love to create places and characters and outlines. I´ve had a story in my mind for years and I have it all outlined and planned. But when I have to sit down and actully write it I lose all motivation, inspiration and fun. I dont know. Am I doing something wrong? Does this happen to you as well? Could use some advice.”

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My answer: you don’t "love writing”.

You love ideating stories and thinking about writing.

The solution?

Learn how to actually love the writing process. With that I mean the entire process. Ideating, first drafting, experimenting, going back to clean up your mess of a first draft, writing a second, and a third draft, editing everything, making sure the timeline fits and there are no plot holes, fixing the dialogue, and ultimately getting your writing ready to be published (or posted).

Every one of these can be further divided into their own steps—if you’d like to play the complex game that is.

Or you can look at the source of everything, that is, enjoyment as a whole, and why we, as people, find one thing more fun and enjoyable than another.

Hint: there are only two ingredients to a “fun activity” no matter what it is, who it’s for, or how to do it.

Playing chess, writing a book, going skydiving, painting, poetry, playing a video game,… it doesn’t matter. Every single one of these shares the same two foundational ingredients to what makes something fun.

If those two ingredients are present the activity becomes fun. If they’re missing from the activity (including those mentioned above) you’ll no longer enjoy it.

The trick lies in knowing you can artificially implement these ingredients into everything you do, essentially turning everything into something fun and enjoyable.

As to what these ingredients are, and how to apply them to learning to love the writing process, no matter what kind of writing you do, how long you’ve already been writing, or who/what you’re writing for (business or professional, fiction, non-fiction, or persuasive) and especially if you want to learn how you can write more than you do now, better than you do now, and faster than you do now (so you’ll also earn more money than you do now) then I’ll have to refer you to my little gem of a book titled:

“The Art of Loving to Write“.

It’s an incredibly short, yet powerful, read (and so inexpensive everyone can afford it).

No matter who you are or what market you’re in. If you do any type of writing in your life (professional or personal), I can guarantee this book can and will be useful to you—so useful in fact that you’re likely to see immediate improvements the same day after you finish reading the book.

Which, good news, the book is short enough for you to finish it in one sitting if that’s what you like

Here’s the link to get your hands on The Art of Loving to Write: https://alexvandromme.com/loving


How to always keep your audience engaged

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Here’s a valuable persuasive writing tip (or any kind of writing for that matter) I learned from a screenwriter somewhere (can’t remember who or where I learned it from):

“Plot and character are the two main ingredients to keep the audience engaged.”

Or in other words, at any point in time, if you want to keep the attention of your viewer (or reader more likely), you either need to be advancing the plot one way or another, or you need to be developing the characters.

Fail to do either of those and you’ll end up losing the attention you fought so very hard to get.

One of the best examples I know of to see this in action is the 1987 film Lethal Weapon starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

It’s a one hour and 49 minutes long masterpiece perfectly giving the audience 15 minutes of plot (lots of action, attention-grabbing scenes, discoveries, and plot twists) followed by 10 minutes of character development (more mundane, day-to-day stuff, conversations, relationship forming, getting to know the various people) only to jump straight into non-stop action and plot-developing cinema and rinse and repeat.

At no point does either one become too much, or too little, and at no point does the film lose the attention of the audience by failing to do either.

A powerful lesson to bring into your own writing—especially when it comes to persuasive writing.

There’s many ways to go about doing so.

If you’d like to get a taste of a few of them, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


George Lucas bled on the page every time he had to write

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As a young lad and still widely unknown director, George Lucas didn’t have the luxury of hiring screenwriters—or any other writer, for that matter.

So he had to go and write everything himself.

Which turned out to be an absolute nightmare for him. In fact, the writing has always been a disaster for him. From the first time he ever tried to write a screenplay up until the last and most recent word he ever wrote down.

He even mentioned as much himself by once having said in an interview, “I can be chained to my desk and I still can’t write it.”

This obviously didn’t make his life any easier.

But, there was hope.

In fact, one of his early friends and mentors was Francis Ford Coppola himself. At one point Lucas and Coppola were touring around, driving to all sorts of locations, filming together for Coppola’s latest project at that time.

At the same time, however, Lucas was working on writing the script of what would become THX 1138.

He wasn’t making any progress at all.

Rewriting scene after scene, never getting any proper ideas, always getting stuck on certain parts, and just never seeming to have the creativity or even the motivation to create a good, well-written, thought-out, and coherent script.

That’s until Coppola gave him the following piece of advice (referring to writing the first draft): “

Don’t ever read what you’ve written. Try to get it done in a week or two, then go back and fix it.. you just keep fixing it.”

This meant, just picking up his pen, writing everything that came to mind, never looking back, never making adjustments, just keep on going, keep on writing, and whatever comes out of out, comes out of it.

Only after you have created a first draft, that’s when you’re allowed to go back and start improving or changing things you’ve written.

That said.

The same principle applies to everything else that needs creating.

For example, that new digital product you’d like to create.

Honestly, I’ve seen countless of people trying to create a product only to spend months, sometimes years on the product, only to create a sub-par deliverable that could’ve been made in a few weeks (if they even finish it in the first place).

The worst part?

It could’ve been easily avoided by having (and following) a proper framework that guides you on how to easily ideate, create, and launch a digital product in 21 days or less.

A framework like I teach in Product Creation Made Easy for example.

In fact, I’ve dedicated one whole module to this exact issue (and the solution to actually getting more work done in less time when it comes to creating your product).

If you’d like to learn more about it, then check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/product