Accidental Magic - The Wizard’s Techniques for Writing Words Worth 1,000 Pictures

Accidental Magic - The Wizard’s Techniques for Writing Words Worth 1,000 Pictures

by Roy H. Williams

An interesting book. Created by photo submissions from graduates of Roy Williams Wizard Academy.

Of course, if you read the title without thinking, you'll probably think it implies a picture is worth 1,000 words. But reread it carefully. It says "words worth a 1,000 pictures."

And now, some snips...

Something I personally had never heard named before - FRAMELINE MAGNETISM. Seems dirty limericks are the most common use. But Roy talks about a radio compaign he created where he had the business owner make his pitch and then instead of the much expected "call xxx-xxxx, or come on down to 143 W. Main st" he just said, "Ok, I'm done." (btw, as writing this, I realize it's not a perfect example and am thinking maybe it came from another section, but I'll still with my original instincts which have never not led me astray)

"Muskogee, Oklahoma, 1965, Hilldale Elementary School, Mrs. Shelton’s second-grade class. One by one, we march to the front of the room to recite the poems we’ve written. It’s Reggie Gibson’s turn. “Spider, spider, on the wall. Ain’t you got no smarts at all? Don’t you know that’s wall’s fresh plastered? Get off that wall, you dirty…(long pause) spider.” The class explodes. Mrs. Shelton is not amused. Reggie Gibson has discovered frameline magnetism.

The edge of the picture is called the frameline. When an image extends beyond the frameline, the viewer’s imagination reacts by filling in what was left outside the frame."

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.” -Ernest Hemingway

"Poignant truth punches the listener in the stomach because mental BS is more repugnant than the real thing. Unpolluted truth is like smelling salts to Broca’s area of the brain: the careful but silent negotiations for personal space in an elevator; the change you hear in your friend’s voice when he finishes talking to his boss and turns to his beloved."

Roy Williams is good. Real good.

At first it seemed more like a photo essay book. Just like the intro said it would.

Only towards the end did I start to see how it applied to advertising. Emotion, words, photos, the expected, the unexpected.

And I was impressed with so many entries I can't even describe them all. Even went out of my way to find and contact one or two.

The royalties from sales of this book are being donated to charity in Guatemala.

Success,

Erik Lukas

P.S. For anyone wondering, I'm on an email hiatus for the next week. Ah, spring break. Anyone else like to play frisbee? :)


“Good writing is true writing. If a man is making a story up it will be true in proportion to the amount of knowledge of life that he has and how conscientious he is; so that when he makes something up it is as it would truly be.” - hemingway