Content marketers can learn a lot from studying fiction writers very closely. This presentation looks at several giants of fiction and some of the lessons they shared during their careers.

1. 12 Content Marketing Secrets
from the Giants of Fiction

2. 1. “Every
story has a
beginning,
muddle, and
end.”
@edeckers

3. @edeckers

4. 2. Conflict
Sells
“Every character
should want
something, even
if it is only a
glass of water.”
@edeckers

5. “Plot is people. Human
emotions and desires
founded on the realities
of life, working at cross
purposes, getting hotter
and fiercer as they strike
against each other until
finally there’s an
explosion—that’s Plot.”
@edeckers

6. 3. Your
English
teacher is
not a writer.
Elmore Leonard

7. If proper usage gets in the way,
it may have to go.
I can’t allow what we learned
in English composition
to disrupt
the sound and rhythm
of the narrative.
@edeckers

8. Never use jargon
words like
reconceptualize,
demassification,
attitudinally,
judgmentally.
They are
hallmarks of a
pretentious ass.@edeckers

9. John Dryden@edeckers

10. Robert
Lowth@edeckers

11. “For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.”
4. Omit things we know

12. “If a writer of prose knows enough
about what he is writing about,
he may omit things that he knows. . .
A writer who omits things because
he does not know them only makes
hollow places in his writing. ”
@edeckers

13. “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to
only one-eighth of it being above water.”

14. “The dignity of movement of an iceberg
is due to only one-eighth of (the iceberg)
being above (the) water(’s surface),
(and the other seven-eighths of it being
below the water’s surface).”
“The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to
only one-eighth of it being above water.”

15. @edeckers
5. Use metaphors
and similes.

16. Similes are like pencils
Metaphors are pens

17. Men's words are bullets, that
their enemies take up and
make use of against them.
— George Savile, Maxims of State
Life is like a box of chocolates.
— Forrest Gump
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18. @edeckers

19. And the impending squint of first light
It lurked behind a weepin’ marquee in
downtown Putnam
It’d be pullin’ up any minute now
Just like a bastard amber Velveeta yellow cab
on a rainy corner
And be blowin’ its horn in every window in town
— Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner, "Putnam County"

20. 6. Show, Don’t Tell

21. "Don’t tell me
the moon is
shining;
show me the
glint of light on
broken glass."
@edeckers

22. 7. The
road to
hell is
paved
with
adverbs.

23. Never use an adverb
to modify the verb
''said'' . . .
. . . he admonished
gravely.
To use an adverb this
way (or almost any
way) is a mortal sin.
Elmore Leonard

24. The train went on up the track out of sight, around one
of the hills of burnt timber. Nick sat down on the
bundle of canvas and bedding the baggage man had
pitched out of the door of the baggage car. There was
no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over
country. The thirteen saloons that had lined the one
street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of
the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground.
The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all
that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had
been burned off the ground.
— Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River
@edeckers

25. “Work on
one thing at
a time until
finished.”
8. Focus
@edeckers

26. “Short stories
demand a certain
awareness of one’s
own intentions, a
certain narrowing
of the focus.”
Joan Didion
@edeckers

27. Hunter S. Thompson
9. Grab readers from the beginning
@edeckers

28. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when
the drugs began to take hold.
I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe
you should drive . . ."
And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was
full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and
diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with
the top down to Las Vegas.
And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn
animals?"

29. 10. “Write Shitty First Drafts”
@edeckers

30. “The first draft of
everything is shit.”

31. (Just don’t publish them)
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32. 11. Learn
to hate
yourself:
Edit your
work.

33. "Be your own
editor/critic.
Sympathetic but
merciless!"
Joyce Carol Oates
@edeckers

34. "Remember: when
people tell you
something's wrong or
doesn't work for them,
they are almost always
right.
When they tell you
exactly what they think
is wrong and how to fix
it, they are almost always
wrong."
@edeckers

35. 12. Read every day.

36. "If you want
to be a writer,
you must
do two things
above all others:
read a lot and
write a lot."
@edeckers

37. Read widely and
with discrimination.
Bad writing is
contagious.
P.D. James
@edeckers

38. Reading a lot teaches you
what good sentences sound
like, feel like, look like.
If you don't know what
good sentences are, you will
not be successful as a writer
of words. @edeckers

39. Read me
ErikDeckers.com
ProBlogService.com
@edeckers
erik@problogservice.com
Reach me
Thank you!