Over the years, I’ve learned two extremely valuable “truisms” about writing.
These truisms apply directly to fiction.
But, I would argue, any kind of content creation.
To describe the first truism, I have no choice but to tell you about the 1990 movie “Ment At Work” starring Charlie Sheen. If you’ve never seen it, here is a quote about the movie that sums it up best:
“…it was dumb enough to relax into, and just smart enough to quote to your friends. This wasn’t high art, but some of us treasured it. It was time well wasted.”
Which brings me to the truism:
Even though Men At Work has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the genre, themes, or plot (a bunch of Easter eggs aside…), that movie was one of the biggest inspirations for my Enoch Wars novels. In fact, when my novels’ publisher Greg Perry was editing Zombie Cop in 2014, I remember asking him if I should keep the “Men At Work” Easter eggs in.
“Will anyone notice or care?” I asked.
He said keep them.
The reason?
Because the handful of people who get them will treasure the stories even more.
It wasn’t until 5 years later when I learned from Vance Morris that Disney literally takes the exact same approach in their parks & restaurants – with constant stories told in art, Easter eggs hidden, symbols 90%+ of visitors will never care about but that excites the 10% who do all the more as a result.
I do this in emails and business books all the time due to this.
It makes writing more fun for me.
But it also makes the reading Experience more fun for the few who pick up on it.
As for the second – and I argue more important – truism?
It was a bit of fiction writing wisdom Greg also said to me while he was editing book 6 (Hell’s Frankenstein) in my Enoch Wars series. For context, let’s just say that particular book crosses some “lines” that, now that I have a son (I wrote it 4 years before Willis was born), I’m not sure I’d have so-flippantly written.
But even then, I asked Greg:
“That thing that _____ does to those kids…maybe I should take it out or at least tone it down…?”
He said:
“NO! Let monsters be monsters.”
And so it was..
There are many marketing/copywriting applications to this.
In fact, it’s one of the most powerful selling “techniques” I’ve ever used.
And in future emails, I’ll discuss this more.
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Ben Settle
