CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS

You will have read a lot about ‘conversion’. Conversion is normally seen as the change from viewer or reader or prospect to customer - that is, the process by which a person becomes committed to you and what you have to offer. It’s worth noting exactly how this process works, as well as why you should place just the right amount of attention on it, neither too little nor too much.   In the same way that a reader is pulled along by a story, so is a prospect almost physically p

In the second part of this series, we saw that it was possible to devise something called a ‘customer template’ - in effect, a model customer or the ideal sort of person who would be completely fulfilled by your product or service.   If you describe a customer in terms of vulnerabilities, losses, threats, weaknesses from which they are suffering, perhaps someone who has had previous ideas crushed or made fun of, leaving a feeling of weakness and hopelessness, an interesting t

So many assumptions, so little time…   You think you know what a business is? What a product or service is? What a customer is?   Some of your assumptions as to what this things are are getting in the way of you being as successful as you would like.   Some Radical New Definitions   Let’s run through some quick definitions of the above - which you will have to take at face value at present.   Business:  a ‘business’ is an activity or operation designed to fulfil a need. Per t

So you want to be an entrepreneur?   Or someone who owns and runs a successful business?   ‘Entrepreneur’ could be defined as a ‘business creator’.   Every successful entrepreneur or businessperson begins with their existing position, and that position is one of seven potential starting points:   1. You are trapped in a job from which you would like to escape, with a vague notion of what you would like to do but no clear idea of how to get away or how to put together any kind

We’ve talked in earlier articles about the spectrum which lies behind story-telling - how a core vacuum or great threat or imminent disaster lies at the heart of any successful tale, ready to swallow up those who get too close, and how, coming out from that core, there are bands as represented by various characters and events, until, right on the edge of things, lie (in the majority of stories) freedom and wisdom. The arc of any truly great story is towards its core: some sto

How does one get to a position of power as a writer (or in relationships or Life as a matter of fact)?   As has been covered in earlier articles, there are seven distinct phases through which a person moves on the way to success in anything. One starts by being unaware of an urge which is nevertheless powerfully present, so much so that, unless it is acknowledged, it might reach explosive proportions. One may seek to distract oneself from it with various activities; some neve

If you understand the basic theory of how stories really work, it’s possible to approach the putting together of a story in a quite mechanical way. These steps give you the skeleton of the story: the ‘flesh’ of plot and character will follow rather easily if this framework is in place.   1. Recognise (or postulate) a core vacuum.   What does this mean? It means that a very good starting place for a story is coming up with a menace, a huge threat, a hole or gap or peril which

In studying the fundamentals about fiction and how it operates, sometimes someone challenges one of the principles by trying to find an exception to it.   Occasionally, it is suggested that these universal laws that govern story-telling don’t apply to this or that example. And it’s true that, in any attempt to communicate maxims so profound, it seems that some special kinds of examples are left out. But this needs a closer look.   If we accept that at their heart most stories