“All books are either dreams or swords, you can cut, or you can drug, with words.” – Amy Lowell, Born Feb. 9, 1874.
If you're just using words to describe shit or explain shit, you're wasting them.
Words can stab. Use yours hit the reader's tenders organs. Make them bleed. Reopen old wounds. Carve new ones.
Words can drug. Use yours to relieve the pain of these stab wounds and give them a buzz that gets them hooked.
That's the one-two punch that makes persuasive writing effective. Arouse and agitate their pain and discomfort and ennui. Then offer relief for that discomfort and worry you just caused.
It's so simple, but so effective. But simple doesn't mean easy – and that's why you need to dedicate decades to mastering this art and science of…
Ha ha, just fucking with you.
Children can do this.
Idiots, too.
It's only smart people that struggle with it, because they simply can't believe that it could be this easy…
You don't have to be a genius or an artist to make your words dangerous and/or narcotic like the quotation says. You just have to follow a few simple rules.
Care. Be confident. Let them off the hook for failures. But don’t be afraid to warn them of the doom just over the horizon that will rise with the sun tomorrow.
Your words have power. Yes YOU. Yes, YOUR words.
If you don’t believe it yet, I DO. You will learn it. You will wield it.
Don't keep the knife in your pocket. Take it out and flash it.
Cut someone.
Deeply.
Don't make your words watery.
Make them whiskey. And let the prospects you want to coerce drink deeply to make the pain of their cuts less biting.
Then sell them stitches and antiseptic.