The Princess Bride

Free presentation about storytelling in emails

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I’ll tell you about the free presentation in a second. But first, let me set it up:

I met a friend for lunch yesterday. She’s a corporate trainer. She trains, I assume, corporates. She teaches them things like “change management.”

We sat down on a park bench. I told her about my presentation in London last week, specifically, how I led it off with a story. That’s something even other copywriters forget to do when they get up and talk in front of others.

My friend said, “I’d like to introduce stories into my presentations. But I don’t know how.”

I frowned like she had told me she enjoys eating cat food. What is there to know? You look through the presentation, find the key moments of it, and squeeze in a story there.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure I know how to tell a story well,” she said.

I frowned again.

Like I’ve written before, I feel there’s a lot of mystification around storytelling. To me, it mostly comes down to 1) watching lots of movies and 2) occasional practice.

But I bet you want some shortcuts. Some tips. Some tricks to tell better stories, sooner, without the dozens of rewatchings of the Princess Bride that I’ve put myself through.

So I’ll make you a deal.

I’m preparing a presentation I’ll put together, tentatively titled:

“Next-level storytelling tricks for emails that sell (no hero’s journey, thank you)”

I’ll see about that title still. But I think you get the idea.

Now, the deal is — if you have questions around storytelling, hit reply right now and ask away.

You can ask me anything that comes to mind. I will use any questions you send me before tomorrow at 8:31 CET to shape and inform this presentation.

​​In return, I’ll tell you how you can get free access to this presentation when I do put it out — which will be soon, but more details on that are coming.

If this sounds interesting to you, take a moment right now. Think about your questions around storytelling. Then hit reply and let me know. Thanks in advance. ​​

How to spot a lie

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Four days ago, I sent out an email inviting readers to reply with one truth and one lie about themselves. It turned out to be both fun and informative.

I got hobuncha responses.

Inevitably, a few people didn’t follow the instructions I gave. Not much I can do there.

Others followed the instructions perfectly but then went one further, and told me which of their statements was the lie and which was the truth. That’s my fault. I forgot you can never be too specific in your CTA.

But the vast majority of people played the game as intended. As a result, I found out some interesting and true stuff about my readers. A curated selection of the most intriguing:

“In a small town in Thailand, a monkey on top of a tree threw a stump which hit my forehead and crushed part of my teeth.”

“Last April I appeared on the UK TV quiz show Countdown, 24 years after first applying as a 12-year-old and being told to wait for my vocabulary to develop.”

“I was almost bitten alive by a poorly-anesthetized tiger in an animal photoshoot session in Thailand when I was just a high-school student.”

“As a senior in high school, at a small, private day school in Harrisburg, PA, I set 2 school records in basketball. At 5’7”, I scored 44 points in one game and 309 points for the season.

So how did I do? Could I distinguish the true statements like the ones above, and separate them from the lies, like the following:

“I met Kevin Costner at the premiere of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and he was quite rude.”

“My daughter packed her own school lunch today and it was only waffles and syrup.”

“I got hit over the head with a stray chair at a pro wrestling show, and got to go backstage afterwards to meet the roster.”

I will tell you honestly, I dug myself into a hole at the start. I made a lot of wrong guesses. But I slowly realized two things kept happening over and over:

#1. When one statement was hyper-specific and the other was vague, it was more likely that the vague statement was true and the hyper-specific was false

#2. When one statement was outrageous and the other was bland, it was more likely that the outrageous statement was true and the bland statement was false

The common element to both of these realizations is “persuasion knowledge.” It’s kind of like the battle of wits between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Vizzini the Sicilian in the Princess Bride.

Bejacco the Croatian: “Only a great fool would not look to specific details to verify a statement. But I am not a great fool, and you know that I am not a great fool, therefore I can clearly not choose the hyper-specific statement in front of me!”

Spoiler alert:

In The Princess Bride, the Dread Pirate Roberts wins the battle of wits because he has developed immunity to iocaine powder, a deadly, odorless, tasteless poison that he puts into both cups, the one in front of him, and the one in front of Vizzini.

Likewise, over the course of playing this truth/lie game, I developed immunity to the persuasion knowledge of my readers. I then went on a tear, guessing almost all of the last two dozen truths/lies right, using the two realizations above and a few more like them. In spite of the bad start, I eventually ended up in the black, with more right guesses than not.

My ultimate point for you is a fundamental truth, something I heard a very great copywriter say once.

As a marketer, you have no power. Your only power is anticipation — knowing how your prospects are likely to think and behave, and adjusting for that.

And with that, let me end this email with a tease. I won’t tell you which great copywriter said the above. But I will tell you it is one of the A-list copywriters I built my little 10 Commandments book around.

​​If you haven’t gotten that yet, and you would like to see who is inside, and maybe unravel the riddle of who said that anticipation is the only power marketers have, you can find the book below:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandment

My Andre Chaperon-like, Sphere of Influence-inspired optin page

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Here’s a little riddle for you:

How do three men, one of whom has been mostl—

But hold. This is neither the time nor the place for that.

In case you read my email yesterday, you know I promised that today, I’d reuse something I’d written in my email yesterday.

And in fact, I’ve done just that. But it’s not that tiny bit at the top. And it’s not in this email you’re reading.

Instead, you can find what I promised at the link below. That’s where you can read the scene from the Princess Bride I wrote about yesterday, and see how I made it fit to a completely new purpose.

The purpose, in this case, is to illustrate and set up a valuable lesson from my Copy Riddles program, which I’ll open up again for a few days later this month.

For this round of Copy Riddles, I decided to put a bit of thought into getting the word out.

So I wrote up an Andre Chaperon-like, Sphere of Influence-inspired optin page on the Copy Riddles site.

That means that rather than promising people interesting or entertaining information if they opt in to my list… I put that interesting and entertaining stuff right there on the page. And if somebody really is interested and entertained once they are done reading, they can opt in for more.

So here’s the deal for today:

If you’d like to find out (or be reminded of, in case you’ve already gone through Copy Riddles) a valuable little copywriting secret I discovered hidden inside a bullet by A-list copywriter David Deutsch…

Or if you’d like to see what exactly an Andre Chaperon-like, Sphere of Influence-inspired optin page looks like…

Or if you just want to get closure on my Princess Bride email from yesterday…

Then take a look at the link below:

https://copyriddles.com/

Oh and if you do take a look, I’d appreciate your feedback on this page.

Because starting tomorrow, I’ll be promoting this page (I’ll explain how tomorrow). But that means i still have a bit of time to make changes, to add, and to remove.

So whatever your impression of this page, and whatever your feedback… I’ll be grateful if you write me an email and let me know. Thanks in advance.

Rescuing the Dread Pirate Roberts from a creative shipwreck

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“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.

Fezzik-slapped into success and achievement

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Andre the Giant sucked.

The other actors, all pros, were exchanging looks behind his back. This wasn’t going to work.

The time was 1986. The place was London. The movie was the Princess Bride, and this was the initial script reading.

Andre was supposed to play Fezzik. But he was terrible. Slow… and monotone… and rote. There was no way way this could work on film.

“Read faster.”

Mandy Patinkin, playing Inigo, kept telling Andre to go faster. Without effect.

“Read faster!”

Still no effect. Instructions just couldn’t penetrate Andre’s 90-lb skull.

“Faster Fezzik!” yelled Mandy at the top of his voice. But Andre still kept reading in his slow voice and then—

SLAP!

Mandy slapped the giant across the face. Hard.

Andre’s eyes went wide. There was a pause. And dead silence.

Andre, the 550-lb professional wrestler, who could manhandle seven grown men at once, was thinking. And something finally clicked. He started speaking faster and putting more energy into the role.

The rest as they say, is marketing. So let’s talk about marketing prospects who can’t or won’t follow instructions.

In my email a couple days ago, I offered people a bribe in exchange for writing me and doing two simple things.

Lots of people responded, doing just what I’d asked.

But a few of the people who responded wouldn’t follow my simple instructions.

I get it. I’m reactive like that too.

I start burning inside when anyone tells me what to do. And I start looking for ways to reassert my independence and sovereignty.

But I can tell you this:

The few things I’ve achieved in life all came from finding somebody else’s successful system. And then following it blindly.

Following it, even when I could see a better way. Even when I felt I could skip a step. Even when I was sure some part of it wouldn’t work for me.

Like I said, this is how I achieved the things I have achieved in life.

I probably would have achieved more, or much faster, had I been less stubborn… less reactive… or had I had an Inigo reach out to me and slap me across the face.

That’s not to say there is no place for creativity, uniqueness, or growth in the world.

For example, I started writing these emails following somebody else’s system. Over time, with enough practice, this warped and grew into something new and different. A new system of my own, which I’m calling Influential Emails.

I can tell you this:

Influential Emails will not work for anyone who is too smart, experienced, or reactive to follow instructions. Well, it might work after a slap, but that’s something I can’t do from where I’m sitting.

But say you are ready to follow instructions. Will Influential Emails help you achieve success?

​​Only you can discover that. But if you need some extra info to help you decide whether to give it a twy, then take a wook at the fowowing page:

https://influentialemails.com/

How to build up immunity to writing huge amounts of copy

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June 22, 1941, exactly 79 years ago, saw the start of the largest military operation in history, code name Barbarossa. 3 million Third Reich soldiers and 600,000 Third Reich horses headed east and invaded Russia.

In spite of all that man and horse, it didn’t work out well for the Germans.

No surprise there. Just another instance of the most famous of the classic blunders of history:

“Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

That line comes from a scene in The Princess Bride (book or movie), in which the Dread Pirate Roberts wins a deadly battle of wits.

He wins because he has spent the past few years building up an immunity to iocaine pwder, a colorless, odorless, instantly dissolving poison.

Which brings me to the inspirational pitch I want to make to you today:

It’s incredible what you can get used to, if you only start small enough and then build up.

Take for example, writing.

I started writing emails regularly about three years ago, At first, I did it only twice a week, and for another of my sites.

I then bumped up the frequency to three times a week. And then every day.

As of today, I’ve written 500+ emails for this list alone, and that’s in addition to hundreds (or thousands) of other emails I’ve written for clients, including several daily email lists I’ve worked on and continue to work on.

I would never have been able to put out this amount of content each day when I first started. But over the course of a few years, I slowly built up an immunity to it.

And so can you. If you get started now. And if you’re motivated enough to survive the deadly battle of wits that is the freelance copywriting marketplace.

But maybe you’re confused. I’ve referred several times to emails but this is a blog post. But it started out as an email, and as part of my daily email newsletter. If you’re interested, you can sign up for it here.

Miracle Max’s copywriting masterclass

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There’s a scene in The Princess Bride that’s very instructive for copywriters.

(If you haven’t seen the movie, go and watch it. It’s wonderful.)

Anyways, the scene is set in the hovel of Miracle Max, a miracle man who can bring people back from the dead.

And that’s why the main hero, Westley, is lying there dead on Miracle Max’s table.

But Max isn’t convinced he should bring Westley back to life.

So he takes a magical bellows, sticks it Westley’s mouth, and puffs some air into Westley’s dead body.

“Heey? Hello in there?” Max yells at Westley’s corpse. “What’s so important? Whatcha got here that’s worth living for?”

He then presses down on Westley’s chest. And out comes the response:

“TR…OOOOO…LUV…”

I thought of this scene today because I got some feedback from my copywriting coach.

He said my copy needed to be more theatrical.

More dramatic.

More “spicy.”

But how do you copy spicy?

Well, one option is to raise the stakes.

Or like William Goldman, the author of The Princess Bride, puts it,

“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Truths. Passion. Miracles.”

Of course, you shouldn’t literally add fencing and giants and torture into your copy.

But if you keep these Goldman ideas in mind, you’ll find the equivalent stories in your prospect’s life… or in the back story of your guru… or in what your competition is doing.

Just make sure you write clearly so your prospects can understand you.

Because (as you can see at the end of the Miracle Max scene in the Princess Bride) “TR…OOOOO…LUV…” can be misheard as “to blave,” which as everybody knows, means, “to bluff.”

And nobdoy’s gonna do what you ask them to do, if they think your only goal is to cheat them or make money at their expense.