Considering what day it is, I thought I'd try and see if there is anything useful for creative writers about Super Bowl Sunday. Of course, it's completely possible to be a determined writer and an avid football fan, I'm just not one of those people. I enjoy football, sure, but I thought I'd try and see if I could enjoy it even more by relating it to my life, i.e., creative writing. So here is what I came up with:
Subject Material: use your experiences/knowledge about football and the Super Bowl as the subject of your creative writing. Write about a football player who gets injured. A nerdy guy trying to impress a girl who knows more about football than he does. The crazy, mustached aunt who visits on Super Bowl Sunday, never on Christmas. The old man in the retirement home who does nothing but watch Super Bowl re-runs. Winning two tickets to the Super Bowl, only to have them stolen from you at gunpoint. See what I mean? Lots of options here.
Marketing Ideas: personally, I am more entertained by the Super Bowl commercials than I am with the actual football game. No where can you find better examples of good marketing, I think, than these commercials. Learn from them. What makes them effective or hilarious? What works? Use that in your own marketing. Make random YouTube videos using those ideas to promote your books. Even the fact that this is one of those times that people are getting together could be used for marketing; let your buddies know about your book, give copies to your other friends who are having Super Bowl parties and have them laying around for people to look at. What other marketing strategies can we writers get here? Any other ideas?
Traditional Value: and I don't mean moral conservatism. Let me explain. Super Bowl Sunday is one of those American traditions. Even those who don't watch the game know when it's Super Bowl Sunday. It's become part of our collective subconscious, in a way. Certain books do that too. A Christmas Carol is part of our collective Christmas celebration. You can talk about any character from Harry Potter and basically everyone will know who and what you are talking about. You can say "To be or not to be" and even those who have never picked up a Shakespeare in their life can finish with, "that is the question." Now, obviously there is not a one-track, guaranteed formula for how to become an American institution. I wish there was. I'm simply trying to bring attention to the fact that these things exist (the Super Bowl being one of them), and being aware of them, learning from them and imbibing what we value from them, perhaps can help us become more universal in our writing and expand our audience. I hope that makes sense. Being aware of our culture can help us become a bigger part of it.
What other lessons do you think we writers can learn from the Super Bowl? What are ways literaria and athletics can benefit each other?
Sarah Allen
Sunday, February 6, 2011
2 comments:
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Haha :) I just realized that all my examples for our collective subconscious come from England. Guess there's just a lot of good stuff that comes from our friends across the pond, eh?
ReplyDeleteSarah
Thanks for sharing your info. I really appreciate your efforts and I will be waiting for your further write ups thanks once again.
ReplyDeleteNFL Schedule| Super Bowl Commercials 2012