Structure Of Copy and Content

“So cringe”: Content creators get rich without anyone knowing who they are

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I sat down just a few minutes ago, my hotdog + espresso soup at the ready, and I watched 8 minutes of:

* A hot girl putting a live fish down her sweatpants

​* A man walking up the side of a 30-foot light pole

​* A motorcyclist’s head falling off

​* Pigtails being cut by office scissors and meat cleavers

​* Cheating wives and husbands caught in the act and running for cover

​* A leech up somebody’s nose

The backstory is all these videos were produced by Network Media, a video content mill that’s gotten 200 billion views on Facebook and Snapchat over the past two years.

200.

Billion.

Let me repeat that number so that it perhaps has a chance to sink into your brain. If each of those video views were a hotdog, that means that you and everybody else on the planet would have eaten 25 Network Media hotdogs each over the past two years.

Network Media was started by Rick Lax, who looks a little like a young Mickey Rourke.

Lax ​​has a law degree.

But Lax’s primary passion was never law. It was always magic.

Lax wasn’t popular as a kid. To make things worse, he never could quite make it at the highest levels of the magic business.

He was apparently hurt to be excluded even from this community of misfits.

So Lax went outside the magic establishment, and started posting videos on Facebook, iterating, optimizing, and cranking out content. At first, his videos showed magic tricks. Later, they showed random stuff Lax figured out to be popular.

It got so Lax’s Facebook videos were easily getting 100 million views each.

Lax started to monetize his videos with Facebook’s “paid creator” ad share as soon as that became available. Immediately, he started making six figures a month.

What’s more, Lax realized the demand for his bizarre videos, which applied his insights from magic, was endless. So he brought on more people, often broke actors and singers, who were making minimum wage before Lax found them.

Lax turned many of his anonymous content creators into millionaires. By late 2021, Lax’s Network Media was pulling in $5 million a month across all its different videos.

I’d like to tell you more of Lax’s story, but I’ve just finished my hotdog + espresso soup and my time is up. So I’ll make you an offer instead.

Check out article below. It’s where I learned about Rick Lax and his $5M/month viral video business. The article contains lots of titillating facts, plus some useful techniques.

In fact, if you read the article below, you can find out why almost all of Lax’s video feature something surreal, such as tampons in the fridge or a dirty hairbrush as part of a cooking video.

​​Maybe that will even explain why I’m eating hotdogs in espresso sauce as I write this email.

So my offers is, read the article below, find out the technical term for this “tampons in the fridge” technique, sign up to my email newsletter, and then write me an email to tell me the name of this technique.

In return, I will share with you something else interesting, valuable, and related. It’s something that I might share with my entire list down the line, but that I will share with you first, and for certain, if you only take me up on my offer.

In case you want to do that, here’s the link to get started:

https://bejakovic.com/lax

How living next to train tracks can transform your copywriting skills

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A few days ago, I came across a trending science article with the headline:

“These cancer cells wake up when people sleep”

From what my zero-biology-classes-in-college brain could understand, researchers have made an important new discovery.

Cancer cells in one part of the body are most likely to spread to other parts of the body — a dangerous process called metastasis — while we sleep.

In other words, sleep — usually a good thing – suddenly becomes threatening and dangerous if you have cancer.

I guess this is big news in the science community and might lead to new ways to stop cancer from metastasizing.

But I’m not part of the science community. I’m part of the direct response copywriting community.

And so I mused that, were I in the business of selling important new health information, like Boardroom used to do, I might sell this breakthrough research with a provocative headline:

“How living next to train tracks can stop cancer”

The reason I thought this immediately was because the above science story reminded me of what I think is the greatest bullet of all time:

“How a pickpocket can cure your back pain”

That bullet was written by A-list copywriter David Deutsch in control package for Boardroom, back in the 2000s. David’s brilliant bullet has a clever underlying structure, which I modeled for my would-be headline/bullet above.

Perhaps you can parse exactly what I did with my bullet above. Or perhaps you know the story behind David’s bullet and therefore don’t need to parse what I did.

But if not, you can find the background of David’s bullet, including a breakdown of his clever technique, in Round 10A of my Copy Riddles program.

But let me put it this way:

Living next to train tracks can transform your copywriting skills.

Because enrollment for Copy Riddles closes later today, at 12 midnight PST.

If you haven’t signed up yet, and if you’re sleeping fitfully when the deadline hits, you will miss the enrollment window, and you will have to wait who-knows-how-long to enroll and find out the secret (and more importantly, the copywriting lesson) behind David’s bullet.

So trains rumbling outside your window might actually be a good thing in this case.

On the other hand, if you got no rumbling trains to count on, then you can always sign up now, while you’re still awake and while your mind is fresh and on it. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

A shark in blowfish’s clothing

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A few days ago, as research for the next issue of my Most Valuable Postcard, I re-watched an old presentation given by Jeff Walker.

You might know Jeff as a big-time Internet Marketing guru and the inventor of the Product Launch Formula, which has been used by tons of businesses to make tons of money online.

Here’s what got me:

Jeff’s whole aura during this presentation was very gee-shucks, how-did-I-wind-up-here-on-stage.

He had a kind of Woody Allen delivery, constantly correcting himself, backtracking, stammering, stumbling, and apologizing.

His outfit confirmed the impression. Jeff wore a ballooning blue shirt, which looked a size too large for him, and which was crimped at the chest by a microphone.

Of course, you won’t make tens of millions of dollars, which Jeff had already done by the time of this old presentation, by being a naive nincompoop.

But if you look like a naive nincompoop, it can certainly help you out, particularly if you are actually shrewd and calculating at heart. It pays to put on a oversized and poorly fitting blue shirt, and turn yourself into a harmless and goofy blowfish, when you are really a shark underneath.

Anyways, at one point, Jeff said the following about product launches using his PLF:

“I don’t just teach them, I’m pretty good at them. That’s actually self-deprecating. I’m REALLY REALLY good at them.”

This reminded me of a valuable mantra I heard from Chris Voss, the FBI negotiator who wrote the book Never Split the Difference.

“The last impression is the lasting impression,” says Chris.

You can see that in the structure of how Jeff talks about himself and his skills and success.

And if you meditate on this example a bit, you can hit upon a very clever way to sneak giant, even unbelievable claims into people’s heads.

If you’ve been through my Copy Riddles program, you might know what I’m talking about. It’s there in round 6B.

And if you haven’t been through Copy Riddles, you’ll have a chance to do so, starting in a few weeks from now, and to find out about this clever technique.

But Copy Riddles isn’t open yet. And neither is my Most Valuable Postcard. So my only offer for you is to sign up for my email newsletter, and read what I have to write about copywriting and marketing topics.

Of course, I don’t just write about them. I’m pretty good at them. That’s actually self-deprecating. I’m REALLY REALLY good at them. So in case you’d like to get on my newsletter, here’s where to sign up.

Don’t rape your audience

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Today’s post is on the subject of email marketing, a rather milquetoast topic. The hook, though, is jarring — rape.

I didn’t think of that hook. Instead, it comes from William Goldman, somebody I’ve mentioned often in these emails.

Goldman was first a successful novelist and later a successful Hollywood screenwriter and then again a novelist.

Along the way, he also wrote a non-fiction book called Adventures in the Screen Trade. I read it a couple years ago. It’s a combination of memoir and an insider’s look into Hollywood as it was in the 60s and 70s of the last century.

Somewhere in the Adventures book, Goldman talks about the most important part of a screenplay — the beginning. And it’s here that he writes the following:

“In narrative writing of any sort, you must eventually seduce your audience. But seduce doesn’t mean rape.”

Goldman is contrasting movie writing to TV writing. At the beginning of a movie, Goldman says, you have some time. You can seduce. Things are different in TV land — you gotta be aggressive, right in the first few seconds. Otherwise the viewer will simply change the channel.

I had never thought about this difference. But it makes sense. And it makes me think of…

Sales copy, which is definitely on the TV end of the seduction/rape spectrum. Just think of some famous opening lines of blockbuster VSLs:

“Talk dirty to me”

“We’re going to have to amputate your leg”

What about email copy? Much of it also opens up in the same aggressive way. Here are a few opening lines I just dug up from recent sales emails in my inbox:

“MaryAnne couldn’t take it anymore:”

“In 1981, a dirty magazine published an article that had the potential to make its readers filthy rich.”

I always assumed this is just the way good copy is — VSLs or emails or whatever. Of course, that’s not true.

When I actually look at some of my favorite newsletters (and even some successful sales letters), they don’t have an immediate and aggressive grabber. Instead, they build up and work their way into their point — without rambling, but without aggression either.

The difference comes down to the relationship you have with your list. Some businesses, including some businesses I’ve worked for, have little to no relationship with their list. Each email they send out is like a random infomercial popping up on TV — if it doesn’t capture attention right away, it never will.

But some businesses have a great relationship with their list. They can afford to take the time to light the candles and pour the wine and stare seductively at their reader across the table. In fact, if they didn’t, things would seem off.

Is it possible to go from one style of email marketing to the other?

I believe so. In my experience, people tend to mirror your own emotions and behavior. That means you’ll have to take the first step if you want things to change. Rather than waiting for your list to have a better relationship with you… start seducing, and stop trying to rape.

Now that we’ve warmed up the conversation:

I also have a daily email newsletter. You can subscribe for it here. And if you do subscribe, I promise to… well, I won’t go there.

\/\

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Today I’d like to tell you about the time I forgot how to write emails.

In the interest of keeping this story under 130,000 words, let me just give you four quick snapshots:

1. Friday, Oct 22 2021. I’m walking along the sea in Opatija, Croatia when I have a bright idea.

All these people have been telling me I’m so good at writing emails. So why don’t I finally offer a training on how I write emails?

​​Yes! I take out my phone, and write down a bunch of ideas for the offer, the sales page, and the actual content of the training.

Later that evening, I send out an email about it. Then I watch in wonder as thousands of dollars start to pour into my PayPal account from people who trust me enough to preorder this training.

2. Two weeks later. I’m sitting at my desk, head in hands, a pained grimace on my face. I’m staring at the pages of notes I’ve taken in preparation for the training, which is now called Influential Emails. But all I see are a bunch of half-baked ideas and vague fluff.

I start to despair that I will be able to give people their money’s worth. And the deadline is nearing.

3. Thursday, Dec 2, 2021. The Influential Emails training has completed. It consisted of me talking about a bunch of writing techniques, which I’d unconsciously used for a long time, but which I’ve now identified and given names to, such as stacking… layering… S. Morgenstern transitions… and bait-and-switch email closes.

According to the feedback I get, people loved the training. I’m amazed and very happy with how well it went.

4. The gray, rainy weeks and months that follow. Real despair sets in. After the Influential Emails training, whenever I sit down to write one of my daily emails, I am filled with confusion and doubt. Instead of writing spontaneously and enjoying the process, I hesitate.

“Should I stack something here? Or add another layer to the email? Maybe I could take out this whole section and replace it with an S. Morgenstern transition?”

Each email takes forever to write. I hate the process. And from what I can see in terms of engagement, people don’t love reading the results either.

I curse that Influential Emails training that I gave. “Why is fate like this?” I ask out loud, but nobody answers. I wish I could forget the techniques I have identified so I could enjoy writing my email newsletter again.

Let’s cut the story off at this point so I can tell what I just tried to show you. It’s the last of the six canonical story formats.

This one is called the Oedipus format. It goes like this: \/\. ​​Start high… go low… then go back up… and finally end down, way down.

And now that I’ve told you that… and now that you know about all six canonical story formats… maybe it’s best if you forget all about it.

Because these story formulas are fun to learn about. But they are not good to consciously follow. At least in my experience.

From what I’ve seen and tried myself, when you consciously write according to a formula or recipe, something feels wooden and off. And people can sense it, particularly in an intimate setting like daily emails.

Besides, there are a lot of fun stories that work well as anecdotes, which don’t fit any of these canonical structures, not unless you really give it some brutal massage.

So if you wanna have fun writing, and produce something that’s fun to read… then forget about the canonical story structure formats. Let them sink into the darkness of your subconscious, and let them guide you from there.

But if you really insist on conscious guidelines to help you write better stories, then remember the higher-level points I brought up over the past few days.

Be mindful of where you start your story… where you end it… what details you choose to include, what you omit… and of course, make sure there is drama, conflict, contrast, twists and turns of some kind.

Do this, and you won’t need an exact recipe. Your brain will surprise you with how creative you can be. And you’ll even enjoy the process.

And finally:

For more structural advice you can enjoy and then forget, sign up to my email newsletter.

/\/

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A poor, motherless, neglected boy is sent off to wizard school, where he discovers himself to be this generation’s—

“Oh what the hell is this?” I said to myself. “What did I get myself into? Is this some cheap Harry Potter imitation?”

It turns out no.

Late last year, I took one of my slow and creeping steps through my ever-expanding to-read list. I picked up a copy of A Wizard of Earthsea.

It turns out the book was published in 1968, 30 years before the first Harry Potter book.

The story might be familiar to you — and not just because of the Harry Potter similarities. It goes like this:

1. A poor, motherless, neglected boy is sent off to wizard school.

2. There he discovers that he has immense wizarding talent, and the promise to become his generation’s greatest and most powerful wizard. As a result, his hubris and his recklessness grow.

3. While abusing his still uncontrolled wizard skills, the boy lets an evil shadow into the world. The shadow almost kills the boy and leaves him scarred for life. The boy runs around the world, trying to escape the shadow and the evil that it brings.

4. Finally, the boy gives up running. He turns to face the shadow. He confronts it. And in so doing, he confronts his own dark side, and sets the world aright again.

The reason why this story might sound familiar to you is because it’s basically every story ever told. Well, at least it’s every story ever told in every fairy tale, every Disney movie, every Marvel movie, every Bruce Willis movie, every rags-to-riches sales letter, and every “horror advertorial” I have ever written.

The story template is called “Cinderella.” Maybe you can see why. It goes down-up-down-up and can be represented graphically by /\/.

Over the past few days, I’ve given you a lot of these canonical story templates. They started out simple — just a single / or \. Then two. Now three.

The bigger point is that in any good story, you gotta have contrast, emotional manipulation, surprise, twists.

In fact, that’s why you will often not see the typical rags-to-riches story, as I described it in my first email in this series. The contrast and drama in / is just not enough. Things are bad, then they get better, and then they get best. People feel let down. Where’s the conflict? It sounds too easy and too predictable.

You don’t want predictable. So give people twists and drama.

Which is a lesson I should take myself — this mini-series on canonical story types is starting to get predictable. So I will end it tomorrow, with the sixth and final canonical format for storytelling… along with a bit of storytelling advice that you might find to be a surprising twist.

If you want to read that when it comes out, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

/\

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I was tearing my hair out and gnashing my teeth and shaking my fists at the sky.

​​Ok, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic but things were really bad. I spent a long time trying to come up with an example to illustrate the “Icarus” story template — and I still had nothing.

And then I had this brilliant idea. I would write about pickup artist Tom Torero.

​​Tom went from a shy, nerdy, anxiety-ridden Oxford student… to a professional pickup artist, living a life of confidence, adventure, and freedom… to finally being doxxed, deplatformed, and driven to suicide this past December.

​​Pretty Icarusy, right?

But here’s the thing. Maybe you notice I am sending this email out later than usual.

​​That’s because I spent an unholy amount of time trying to tell Tom’s story. But I couldn’t do it right, not without running into pages of text, completely obscuring the Icarus structure I was supposed to be illustrating.

​​After hours of fruitless work, crushed and defeated, I raised my fist up at the sky one last time, shook it weakly, and then gave up. All I can do now is report on my failure to write today’s email.

So remember there is such a thing as a canonical Icarus storyline. It can be represented graphically by /\.

And also, remember to be mindful of what details you include in your stories.

There are details — like the oversized brown corduroy pants that Tom used to wear, which emphasized his girlish hips and his narrow shoulders — that can give your story sticking power.

But there also details — like the many too many details I couldn’t keep myself from including today — that just sidetrack your story.

So learn from my mistake. Be conscious and continent with your detail sharing. Your stories will be more impactful for it — and you will be done writing much sooner.

If you want more advice on storytelling, including about the most powerful story template to use in online selling, you will want to read my email tomorrow. You can sign up to get it here.

\/

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In May 2014, I quit my secure, full-time IT office job and I started spending my mornings writing stock analysis articles for the Motley Fool.

It was great. I was working from home. I was working for myself and doing work I didn’t dislike. I could organize my own schedule, my rates were quickly increasing, and the future was looking bright.

Then in July 2014, just a couple months after my new barefoot writer lifestyle had begun, I got the following email from the managing editor at the Motley Fool:

it is disheartening for us to say that effective today, we will not be able to continue our writing relationship and further this mission together.

This is no fault of your own; it is the simple result of our business model and the corresponding structure we’ve built. It has been our pleasure to work with you, and we hope you consider yourself a Fool for life. We certainly do.

“Well, shit,” I said to myself. “Fool for life, indeed.”

I wrote to the MF editor I had been in touch with. I asked if there was any chance I might be kept on — while hundreds of other writers were being let go. I never heard back.

I wrote to my friend, who was also writing for the MF and who got me this gig. “It sucks,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s not looking good.”

So there I was. I had no job, and I needed money. I had rent to pay, food to buy, plus I had a cat at the time, and maintaining those things in life is not exactly free.

What to do?

Getting an office job again was inconceivable. For one thing, I wasn’t sure anyone would hire me — certainly not the people at my old job. For another, it was just a matter of pride, plus the fact I had always been a bad match for office work.

I looked at my arm, and briefly considered sawing it off. But I soon realized that’s another story, although with the same structure. In any case, losing the arm wouldn’t help.

So I took a deep breath. I gritted my teeth. And I did what I always do:

I made a list of ideas. In this case the list was titled, “10 ways I could make money by the end of this month.”

#6 on that list, between #5 (stealing) and #7 (begging) was “Write and publish some Kindle books.” And that was my start as a Kindle publishing magnate.

I’ve written about this history before. But the gist of it is:

That first month, I wrote three short Kindle ebooks, on three related niche topics. The total word count was around 15,000, and 10,000 of that was reused among the three ebooks.

I sold $285 worth of books in that first month.

The next month, I wrote 3 new tiny books. And then some more. Within a few months, I had a stable of a dozen titles, and I was making a steady income that was getting close to what i was making at my IT job just a few months earlier.

Ta-da! Who needs the Motley Fool? Who needs a stupid office job?

​​I had a found a way to survive and even thrive, working for myself, on my own terms, with “up” as the only direction to go.

​​The end. Well, almost.

Yesterday, I told you about the riches-to-rags story type, which can be represented by \. The day before that, I told you about rags-to-riches, represented by /.

Combine those two, and you get \/ aka the “man in a hole” story type.

“Man in a hole” is a common format for complete stories — like that of Aron Ralston, who sawed off his own arm to survive after being pinned down by a boulder.

“Man in a hole” is an even more common plot element of bigger stories — think James Bond losing $14.5 million in a poker game in Montenegro, because he’s been suckered by the fake tell of the main villain.

Which brings up the following storywriting rule:

It matters where you cut you your story off.

For example, after those first few glorious months, my Kindle sales cratered. It turns out I wasn’t going to make a living selling $2.99 ebooks. So I got into writing sales copy for other business… then a few years later, I got back into Kindle publishing but with a different approach… then I met this guy who told me about crypto and we went to London for a conference…

You know what that’s called? That’s called rambling. It’s definitely not called storytelling.

Human brains want neatly tied-up episodes, and they want the satisfaction of having story elements fit and click.

One powerful mechanism you have to make things fit and click is the stop button. So think of the effect you want to have, and use that to decide where to cut your story off. Speaking of which—

Sign up to my email newsletter. That’s been the point of this entire email. To show you I have something interesting to say about writing and persuasion more broadly, and that I can even be entertaining about it. Are you convinced? If you are, here’s where to go.

\

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Boris raised the famous golden trophy over his head, and the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

​​They had never seen anything like this before.

Boris had become the youngest man ever to win the most prestigious tournament in tennis, Wimbledon.

For 17-year-old Boris, the acclaim was nice. The $169,000 prize winnings — equivalent to $446,000 in today’s money — didn’t hurt either.

Throughout the rest of his tennis career, Boris Becker won 48 more tournaments, including 2 more Wimbledon titles.

​​When he retired from tennis, in 1999, his entire career winnings totaled over $25 million. Combined with various endorsements and sinecures, his total earnings came to over $50 million.

But it’s not hard to squander a fortune. And over the years, Becker has worked hard to squander his.

Luxury apartments around the world… expensive divorces… a child begotten in the broom closet of a Nobu in London… by the mid 2010s, Becker’s resources were strained. And his debts were mounting.

Finally, it became too much. In 2017, Boris Becker filed for bankruptcy.

The tennis world, and the world at large, shrugged. It’s hardly a new story — a talented star makes millions in his youth, then squanders it all in middle age. Besides, bankruptcy is not the end of the world. People routinely recover from it.

But then just this past week, things got a lot worse for Becker.

It turns out he has been under criminal investigation for failing to report some of his assets during the bankruptcy hearings.

So now, not only will those assets be seized, but there’s a very real possibility that on Apr 29, Becker will be sentenced to jail time for his bankruptcy jiggery-pokery.

​​He might have to spend the next 7 years in prison… pushing the library cart around, fighting off advances in the shower, and trying to get used to the gruel — no Nobu behind bars!

Yesterday, I told you about the first canonical story type, rags-to-riches, which can be represented by /.

Today is about the second canonical story type, riches-to-rags, \. There are plenty of illustrations of this format. But I had been reading about Becker only a few days ago, and so he popped into mind.

And here’s an extra tip if you are massaging a story, whether riches-to-rags or any other type:

It matters big time where you start your story. Not just for sucking the reader in and getting his attention. But for the total effect.

For example, I could have started today by talking about the struggles Becker experienced only weeks before his first Wimbledon. Or I could have talked about the sacrifices he made as a kid.

Those might be valid places to start — if I were after a different effect.

​​But if the point of my story is to get you depressed and scared about losing everything you’ve got — after all, if it can happen to somebody as talented and blessed as Becker, why not you — then the best place to start is the highest, most pure moment of his career and life.

“Yeah about that,” I hear you saying, “this riches-to-rags structure is kind of depressing. It’s also kind of preachy. Who wants to read this kind of thing? I feel like you’ll just turn people off.”

Fair concern. But the fact is, some of the most influential and powerful stories in human history basically follow this basic riches-to-rags structure.

Adam and Eve had it really good in the Garden of Eden and then—

King Lear had three fair daughters who loved him and then—

And an Ikea lamp had a happy home and—

​Well, maybe you don’t know the most famous Ikea commercial ever.

​​It was directed by Spike Jonze. And people still talk about it today, 20 years after it came out.

​​You can find it below. And if you watch it, you will find a second crucial thing you need to do to make your riches-to-rags story work well.

​​In fact, it’s something I screwed up with my story of Boris Becker above.

​​It’s too late for me and my story in this email. But it’s not too late for you. Watch below and learn. Oh, and sign up for my email newsletter — I will write more about story types tomorrow.

/

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Today I’d like to tell you the story of a boy who became known as Thee-Thee.

When Thee-Thee was just ten years old, his father died. The family wasn’t rich before, but now they were poor. Thee-Thee had to go to work — every day, before and after school, weekends too — to help support himself and the rest of his family.

Thee-Thee kept working. And he kept studying. He finished high school and even some college.

But his first job out of college paid so poorly that Thee-Thee couldn’t afford a meal every night. His budget could just support the room he was renting, occasional laundry service for his two shirts, and dinners only five nights a week. The other two nights he had to go to bed hungry.

But Thee-Thee didn’t stop, and he didn’t quit. He kept working hard and being honest. He made his employers more and more money. And as a result, he himself progressed, further and further.

Thee-Thee started getting paid higher wages. Then he got commissions on the money he was earning his employers. Then he was given shares of businesses he helped grow.

In time, Thee-Thee became rich. He bought an ocean-going yacht. He lived in a palatial house surrounded by flower gardens admired across the state. He died a multimillionaire, back when that was the equivalent of what today is a billionaire.

You might recognize who I’m talking about. It’s a famous marketer and copywriter. Perhaps the most famous and influential of them all:

Claude C. Hopkins.

(Thee-Thee? Hopkins had a lisp. When he introduced himself — C.C. — it came out as Thee-Thee. This became his nickname around the Lord & Thomas offices — behind his back of course.)

I’m telling you the story of Thee-Thee Hopkins for two reasons:

First, because it shows what you can earn — “at a typewriter which you operate yourself, without a clerk or secretary, and much of it earned in the woods” — if you get really dedicated to this marketing and copywriting thing.

The second reason is that Hopkins’s life is a perfect illustration of a rags-to-riches story.

Back in 1995, scientists from the University of Vermont looked at 1,700 popular stories, spanning all eras. The scientists used some fancy computering to analyze all these stories.

The upshot was they found these 1,700 stories all boiled down to just six fundamental structures.

The first of these can be concisely represented by the character /. It is the rags-to-riches story, which I just told you about.

If you’re curious about the other five fundamental story structures, you can go look them up for yourself. Or you can just sign up to my email newsletter.

Because over the coming five days, I will illustrate each of these five other canonical story types in an email. And will tell you some extra storytelling tricks and ideas that can help you also.

So if, like me, you get off on the hidden structure behind everyday things, my next few emails might be interesting for you. And who knows, they might even be profitable for you. As Thee-Thee Hopkins almost said once:

“Our success depends on pleasing people. By an inexpensive test we can learn if we please them or not. And if some guys from the University of Vermont have already done that testing for us, all the better. We can guide our endeavors accordingly.”

In case you want to read those emails when I send them out, here’s how to get a spot on my newsletter.