“There will be no survivors… my men are here, and I am here… but soon, you will not be here…”
Here’s a little riddle for you:
How do three men, one of whom has been mostly dead all day long, storm a castle gate guarded by 60 soldiers?
Inconceivable, right?
Even if one of the three men happens to be a giant, and another a master swordsman… the enemies are too many. Success is inconceivable.
But what if you also throw in a wheelbarrow among your assets? And what if you even have a magical, fire-protective, “holocaust cloak”?
Suddenly, the inconceivable becomes easy. Because here’s what you do:
Just load one of the three men — preferably, the giant — into the wheelbarrow. Wrap the holocaust cloak around him.
Then start rolling the wheelbarrow towards the gate… and have the giant yell death threats at the soldiers as you approach.
Finally, just as fear and doubt start to creep into the hearts of the castle defenders… set the holocaust cloak on fire. Have your burning giant yell:
“The Dread Pirate Roberts takes no survivors… all your worst nightmares are about to come true… the Dread Pirate Roberts is here for your souls…”
Presto. The soldiers scatter in a panic, and you have taken the castle.
Perhaps you recognize this as a scene from the 1987 movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman.
But perhaps you also recognize it as something else, written by me in 2021.
Because about a month ago, I wrote an email about pirates. In that email, I was re-telling another scene from another William Goldman script, titled Sea Kings. That other scene had many of the same elements as the scene above:
First, a giant all-black figure who appears on the horizon at dusk, and who keeps floating nearer and nearer…
Then, the deep voice rumbling out from the figure… “Death or surrender… surrender or die… the Devil bids you choose…”
And finally, smoke and flames that erupt from around that black giant… to truly identify the legendary pirate you’re meeting face to face:
“Run up the white flag… It’s Blackbeard…”
It turns out Goldman reused a bunch of elements from Sea Kings (written some time in the 70s, never produced) to The Princess Bride (written some time later in the 70s, produced into a movie in 1987, became a giant hit and a big cultural icon).
The bigger point is that if you write a lot, you will eventually come up with a good idea, phrase, joke, motif, trick, transition, or image… which is part of a big creative shipwreck.
Maybe that’s a book you never got published… or a video you made that nobody ever watched… or a daily email that ran too long and failed to make a clear point.
So why not reuse that good element a second, or a third, or a fifth time? In the right context, that rescued element might become highly influential, even though it was part of a disaster initially.
Take my email today, for example.
I hope you liked it. But maybe you didn’t.
If so, would you like me to try again?
As you wish. I’ll try again tomorrow, by rescuing an element of the copy I used today… and fitting it to a new purpose and a different format.
Good night, dear reader. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely write you an email in the morning.