Charles Dickens was a famous 19th century author known for his serial novels. He would publish chapters individually in newspapers to keep readers engaged and coming back for more. This "cliffhanger" technique involved ending chapters with a suspenseful moment to make readers want to know what happens next. The presentation argues this is an effective marketing strategy for bloggers, suggesting they write posts that introduce an idea but leave some suspense at the end to encourage readers to return. It provides an example of using this technique to discuss getting dumped by a boyfriend. The presentation concludes by offering copywriting services to help marketers tell compelling stories using techniques from great writers like Dickens.

1. Presented by the…
“What You Can Learn From The Great Writers” Series
Why does
my hair look
like Princess
Lea’s?
What You Can Learn from Charles
Dickens
And How It Can Make You A Better
Marketer

2. Who Was Charles Dickens?
10 kids? Yikes.
That’s a lot of
college tuition. I
better get on it!
He was a guy with a big family who needed
to make a few extra bucks and decided to
do it by writing big stories.

3. One of his most famous novels
is called…

4. That story opens with the
lines…
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was
the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the
epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the
season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we ha
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were
all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the
other way--in short, the period was so far like the present
period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its
being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative
degree of comparison only.”

5. Wow!
Old man Dickens
definitely covered all
his bases with that
opening!
Concepts to cover in opening
paragraph of Great Brit Novel :
Wisdom/Foolishness
Belief/Disbelief
Light/Darkness
Hope/Despair
Heaven/Hell
The novels’s 45 chapter

6. Most of us only remember, “It was
the best of times it was the worst of
times..”
Wait, what was
that first line from
A Tale of Two
Cities? Dang it! I
shoulda read the
book….

7. This sentiment sums up the business climate you
likely find yourself operating in on any given day.
But wherever you are…
…in the depths of a recession or at the top of a bull
market, you have to tell your story so that your
business gets seen and heard.

8. How can you do that?

9. Take a page from Chuck…
(or rather from Chuck’s
book on what you can
learn from him about
selling…)
(or rather from my Powerpoint
on what you can learn from
me learning from Charles
Dickens about selling. Oh
well, you get the message,
right?)
Page and I
met on an
online dating
site. I wonder
if my mother
will like him?

10. Dickens was famous for writing serial
stories, much the same way we write
blog posts today.
I know I should be
writing the next
installment, but I can’t
help wondering what in
the dickens has gotten
into Don Draper?????

11. Why are you
so concerned
about that
damned
cliffhanger
when my nose
is so big?????
He understood the concept
of the “cliffhanger.” A
cliffhanger is defined by
Wikipedia as, “a main
character in a
precarious or difficult
dilemma, or confronted
with a shocking
revelation at the end of
an episode of serialized
fiction.”

12. Kind of like this…

13. How does a cliffhanger work?
A cliffhanger is a way of writing something so
that the reader is engaged enough to come
back and read more. They want to know
what happens next.
Here’s a cliffhanger from the second chapter of
Dickens’ Great Expectations. Although Pip has
escaped a brutal convict, he returns with food and
a file, afraid that if he refuses, he and his family will
be killed.
Pssst…you probably didn’t know that in 1841, fans waiting for the next
installment of Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, rioted on the
New York docks shouting, “Is Nell dead? Is Nell dead?”

14. From Charles Dickens’
novel, Great Expectations
“There was a door in the
kitchen, communicating with
the forge: I unlocked and
unbolted the door and got a
file from Joe’s tools. Then I
put the fastenings as I had
found them, opened the door
at which I had entered when
I ran home last night, shut it,
and ran for the misty
marshes.”
That is not going to end well for poor Pip. Or maybe it is…

15. What does all this have to do with
your content?
You can use Dickens’
cliffhanger method
in your blog posts
by introducing an
idea or a concept,
writing about it in
an engaging way
but…

16. …leaving just enough
for the
next post to cover.
Here’s an example from,
Hey, isn’t that
shameless self-promotion?
Hey wait a
minute,
Isn’t that
shameless
self-promotion?
How dare
you?????
“How I Got Dumped And Met Joe DiMaggio”
“I finally found a job, moved into a studio and started meeting
people through work and writing classes I took at Berkeley. I
even found a boyfriend who seemed nice enough, until he
dumped me one afternoon in a sneaky, spineless way—
walking out of the Hard Rock Café when I was in the Ladies,
scribbling a grammatically incorrect kiss off on a napkin,
leaving me stunned and stuck with the check. I hadn’t even
brought my purse.” Maggie Harryman

17. The Bottom Line…
Using the cliffhanger
device will keep your
readers coming back
for more (paying
them can help, too).
It’s pretty much that
simple.
(From Oliver Twist, another
great Dickens’ novel).

18. But if you’re super successful (and good looking and
smart and really, really popular) you probably don’t
have time to create cliffhanger blog posts that get read
and shared…
…or any other piece of high-quality content to create visibility
for your business.
That’s where I come in.
I’ll create compelling content that incorporates everything
I’ve learned over the years about storytelling.
Contact me TODAY at 707-799-2282 or
www.maggieharrymancopywriting.com and let’s get busy
telling your story.

19. Coming Soon…
Another slide deck from the…
“What You Can Learn From The Great
Writers” Series

20. Image Attributions
Slide 1: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Dickens_Gurney_head.jpg
Slide 2: http://christmascarolindoha.wikispaces.com/file/view/New2.jpg/47706305/New2.jpg
Slide 3: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Tales_serial.jpg
Slide 8: http://skiffleboom.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/battleship-potemkin-odessa-8.jpg
Slide 9: http://www.tips-tricks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Book-Caring.jpg
Slide 11: https://wiki.uiowa.edu/download/attachments/49485750/charles-dickens-caricature.
jpg?api=v2
Slide 12: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_k3G4RMNSVTE/TH7Q-IbqYCI/
AAAAAAAAAWc/4Mti2FfnjyY/s1600/Movie-PerilsOfPauline-RRTracks-01.jpg
Slide 14: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/fraser/2.jpg
Slide 16:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qpE5hNwi618/TRQkbqQJNvI/AAAAAAAAMbE/5ejlCFgETH8/s1600/dicke
ns2.jpg
Slide 17: http://lifeasahuman.com/files/2012/08/olivertwist.jpg