EXERCISE: A Headline To Start?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting April 23, 2015

Over here

http://www.powtoon.com/blog/91-headline-formulas/

Powtoon, which combines powerpoint and cartoons, provides a long, long list of possible formulas for awesome headlines. Now, it's intended for business folks, but...

The five principles -- address your specific audience, highlight a specific benefit or outcome they desire, highlight a specific pain they want to avoid, create curiosity, and add urgency -- certainly sound like things that any fiction piece could use, too!

So what might we stumble over? Let's take a look at the first ten (with a bit of hero thrown in, for fun...)

1. A little mistake that cost your hero five years of their life?
2. The fortune hidden in your hero's closet?
3. How your hero saved the day with a bucket of cream?
4. Is your hero still wearing suspenders?
5. There are three kinds of heroes in the inner city -- which one is your hero?
6. To people who want to save the day, but can't get started...
7. The crimes we commit against our heroes?
8. These five heroes tried to beat the Joker, see what happened?
9. The death of barbarian heroes!
10. How one word can make your hero stop.

Whoa! Take those formulas, chunk a character or event from your story in there, and see what they inspire. That's the first 10 of 91, and he has links to other sources of formulas.

Just to stir up your writing!