24 How to Nail Your Reader’s Attention
T
his may be the MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERin this entire
book.
Now ask yourselfwhyI have your attention. What grabbed you?
What made you want to keep reading? How come you’re reading
even now?
Let me take a guess:
First, I hit you—hard—with a simple but solid statement.
Second, I made the line stand out by presenting it on the page all
by itself.
Third, I gave the line greater impact by capitalizing someof the
words.
That’s almost a formula for creating Hypnotic Writing. Al-
most but not quite. Hypnotic Writing requires relentless fine-
tuning. Fidget with words and phrases and sentences until each
line kills. Every line has to work to keep the reader sucked in and
reading on.
How do you create writing of this caliber? Follow the basic Joe
Vitale formula, which is Write First, Edit Last. First, get a rough
draft down. Then, go back to edit it to perfection. A friend of mine,
a sculptor, does something similar when he first sketches out his