writing will sell like cold lemonade at a marathon. Overdo it and
your writing will read like an advertisement for jelly.
Got it?USE A BOOK OF ANALOGIES
“Become a writing wizard! Turn your words into spellsno mortal
can resist!”
Those two lines were inspired by a brief glance into another
book you need on your shelf:The Analogy Book of Related Wordsby
Selma Glasser.
The book is billed as Your Secret Shortcut to Power Writing. I’m
not sure if that’s true, but the book can certainly tickle your mind
into creating juicy new phrases. Glasser’s book is a word-storming
partner. Just open it to one of the several lists, all sorted by cate-
gories, and let your mind connect the words listed with the ideas
you’re trying to get across.
I was thinking of advertising this book when I opened her book
to the category called Myth and Legend. I saw the word wizardand
the word spelland I was suddenly inspired to write the line that be-
gan this section.
Here’s a demonstration of how the book works:
Let’s say I want to add spice to my client’s book on network-
ing. I open Glasser’s book to anycategory. It falls open to
Baseball and now I let my eyes roam the lists of related words.
There’s a bag, ball, club, error, all-star, fastballand a bunch
more words.
And then it happens! Lightning strikes and—aha!—my
mind makes a new connection!
“Don’t strike out! Become a business all-star with these
fastball concepts!”
See how it works?
Here’s one more quick example: I’m thinking of how I can de-
scribe this book as I open Glasser’s book to the category Chess.
There’s over a hundred words listed. Without more than a glance at
the list I immediately have a new line:HYPNOTIC WRITING