Power-Writing with Jeremiah the Bullfrog

Today’s Briefing is about a power-writing technique you can use immediately in all your communications, whether simple e-mails, websites, sales packages, technical reports, job applications, even arguments at the Supreme Court– just about anything that you produce in order to get somebody to do something.

But first, about the song.

Joy to the World was made famous by Three Dog Night and was the number one rock tune in 1971. Neither the instrumentals nor the vocals were brilliant, but to this day it still gets airtime– one of those “feel good”, summertime, barbecue and beer anthems we all love.

The lyrics, quite frankly, didn’t make a lick of sense. But that doesn’t matter, because the song wasn’t meant to be an algebra lesson– it was meant to get you dancing. And no matter how silly the words, they were full of playful imagery that made you laugh and move. “Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, and joy to you and me.” Seriously? But the words stuck in your head and wouldn’t go away.

Here’s the thing: the song nailed you the first time you heard it. In fact, by the first line you were hooked, and therein is half the lesson. With the subtlety of a raging elephant, the band screamed JE-RE-MI-AH WAS A BULL-FROG, BONK! BONK! BONK! The raucous, screaming nonsense of the first line just nailed your attention. “What the heck is that?” you asked yourself.

And that is the first part of the brilliance of the song: right out of the gate, it nailed your attention to the wall. There was no way you were going to turn it off, because you now needed to know where this silly thing was going.

Nothing in this song is Shakespearian, but that doesn’t matter. The opening gets you on your feet and the rest of the song keeps you laughing and dancing. And that’s why it was written, deliberately to make you react and behave in a particular way, from beginning to end. So that’s the second part of the lesson.

Here it is in a nutshell: if you want people to read your stuff and react as you wish them to, you need just two things. First, grab their attention like a bear-trap. Second, continuously control the mood and the purpose.

Don’t believe me? Try this simple experiment for a few days: Keep a notepad at hand and write comments about those lame e-mails that languish in your inbox. Determine what it is that you hate about them.

I‘m going to guess the first great evil will be the title– too hackneyed, too histrionic, too cheesy, too long, too whatever. It may as well say “Don’t read me, I’m boring.”

The second great evil, assuming you forced yourself to wade into the weeds, is that you weren’t entirely sure what the author was trying to say to you, or why. And you didn’t care. He failed to control mood and purpose.

(There’s often a third reason you don’t want to read the e-mail: the writer has formerly established himself in your mind as never having anything worthwhile to say. But that’s for another day.)

So, ask yourself this: if your exercise as a reader reveals these things, what do they teach you as a writer? And do these lessons also apply to, say, a Supreme Court brief or a marketing proposal?

Remember: first, an opener that grabs them by the throat, second, unrelenting attention to controlling mood and purpose.

Oh, yes, and here’s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtYnCmw2CWE) the song!