How to Invoke Mystery in Your Prescriptive Non-Fiction Writing

Hello.

Hello, everyone. Happy Tuesday. It is June 24th today. Can you guys believe it? We are almost entirely through the month of June. This is absolutely insane. We are going to wait a couple minutes before we officially dive in. You can see, obviously we've got an awesome co host here with Chad. So we don't have Julie on today. She has taken the day off. So. So Chad is going to be diving in in just a few minutes to talk about how to invoke mystery into your prescriptive nonfiction writing. And Chad is one of our internal team coaches here. He has been with us now for, oh my goodness, Chad, how many years? Like five years now.

Six if you count my years a contractor and then, yeah, five as a full time employee.

Yeah. So he has been in the book launchers realm for quite some time. And it was funny because he actually, as he just mentioned, he was a contractor for a while and he was just so solid, so consistent, so good that we were like, we need to bring this person into our internal team because he's just so great and he's been here for five years. So that's pretty awesome. Let's see, we've got a few people. So if this is your first YouTube live, please do say hello in the chat. We do give away prizes during our YouTube lives and that is how you win the prizes. You do have to participate in the chat. So let's see, we've got Jack, Hello, Gary, Jason and Kevin. We've got some YouTube besties, we've got some of our clients here. We've got Bill Miller. Hello. Hello everyone. It is so lovely to see you all here. And if you're hiding again, don't forget, it is a good, a good way to win a prize. While Chad is talking, I will also be behind the scenes collecting any questions that you guys have. So we'll probably save those all for the end unless Chad decides to answer some of them as he's going along. But more than likely I will be queuing all of those for the end. So feel free to type them into the chat and I will be holding them for us to answer all together. But I think we better go ahead and just dive in, Chad. That way you can get ready with everything. Oh, and actually, before we officially dive in, I mentioned the prizes a minute ago. So sorry, I was giving you a little teaser before Chad dives in, but let me talk about the prizes as well. So we are going to focus on giving away some more books today. So I still have plenty of Julie's books if You've never won one of her books before or if you've never read her books, this would be an excellent opportunity to perhaps win one. We've got self publish and Succeed as well as self promote and succe. I've got some of our clients books over here. I have, let me see Financial Epiphany, Live Free and Hike. I've got one of Dale Roberts books which is self publishing for new authors. I've got after the crash. I've got plenty of books over here. So there are other options if you have already one of Julie's books or you have already read them if you are outside of the US Just with tariffs and taxes and everything, it is becoming a little too expensive right now for us to ship it and for people to receive it. Now they are a lot of places are charging for the recipient to receive the package which, you know, that's not necessarily the most fun. So if you are outside of the US we will get you a digital copy of one of Julie's books for our winners. But that is all for right now. I'm going to go off stage. I'm going to hand the mic over to Chad so he can dive in and I think, Chad, are you able to put your PowerPoint on the screen or do you need me to?

I can do it.

You are? Okay, awesome. All right, guys, well, it's lovely to see you. I will be in the chat, so feel free to post your questions but I'm going to hand it on over to Chad.

All right, thank you, Angela, and welcome Everybody to this YouTube live. It's actually we'll talk about this later, but I think it's going to be the last one for the summer. Just going to take a little break and I'll remind you of that at the end. But so hopefully we can have a lot of fun, go out with a bang and you can win some prizes and learn a little something. I'm going to go ahead and see if I can add this. There we go. Perfectly. So yeah, we're going to talk about how you can use mystery and curiosity in your prescriptive nonfiction. And one of the things that I like to do, you know, I love to help writers, people who aren't writers but are writing a book, kind of learn some of the tricks of telling a story. And you know, I personally, I've been as Angela was mentioning, I've been with book launchers for six years. I'm also a, I write crime novels, thriller, suspense. So I love the sort of bringing those Two things together where you're sort of creating this. This. This engine that sort of drives the story. But in prescriptive nonfiction, and I don't even mean when I say prescriptive nonfiction. You know, it's. It's sort of a how to. You have a problem, I have a solution. So I'm going to give you the 10 steps to, you know, be more productive or increase your performance, whatever, you know, whatever it may be. So it's kind of fun to take something that seems, you know, pretty straightforward, and you can certainly do it straightforward. But if you can input, if you can put a little bit of mystery, if you can create some curiosity in your. In your reader, you know, that that will really not only help the book sort of. They'll connect with the book more, but it's like they're solving problems. They're getting sort of some satisfaction out of it because you're creating, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, these sort of curiosity gaps that need to be closed. So it's really no different than what you do when you're telling a mystery, which is, you know, if you're writing the mystery, you kind of have to know what happens first, and then you pick and choose what information to give when. And that's the beauty of this in prescriptive nonfiction, too, is it's not so much coming up with things you don't already have. It's more about sort of the way that you present it. So without any further ado, we'll just go ahead and jump in, see what's the next slide here. Yeah, so I call it irresistible, because that's essentially what it is. We have this sort of innate need to know the answer. And if you think about it, all stories are mystery stories in the sense that you want to know what happens next. You know, that's suspense. Those are unanswered questions, unexpected things happening in the story. And so we want to take those techniques and we want to apply them to, you know, your prescriptive nonfiction book. We use stories. We're big on this book, launchers. We use stories at the beginning of chapters to. To hook readers. And you can just tell them a story, and that will work because they get involved. It puts them right in something. They're not thinking about processing information. They're thinking about the story that you tell them. And that's why we call it a hook. And then you go from that story, and you kind of pivot and then talk about whatever that chapter, whatever you want to talk about in your book. And again, this is a way to kind of take that a step further so that you're telling a story and you're sort of presenting the idea, but you're presenting more than the idea. That's going to drive people to kind of go, oh, I got to turn the page. I got to find out what the answer to that is. So, you know, it can be a lot of fun. And next slide here you can actually start. I mean, you could really start with your title, you know, but you can start doing this in the table of contents. You just start hinting at, you know, the transformation that, you know, the reader has kind of come there for, but you don't really give it away. I'll give you some examples in a second. But again, we're trying to create this curiosity, this mystery, even a touch of drama if we have to. So here's some examples. Let's say we're writing a book about performance and productivity. And so we wanted to create some chapter titles for our table of contents. And even in that, we want to start creating those curiosity gaps, those things that the person sees that and goes, something's missing. I want to know more about that that appeals to me. So this is a book about performance and productivity. And the introduction, we're going to talk about the lobby nap that changed everything, How I felt my way into this book and what it might save you from. So already we're creating this sense of like, well, that's a little different. Talking about nats. This is supposed to be a performance book. And then, oh, the author failed his way into the book. Again, I want to know more about that. And so if you read through those, I'm not going to read them all to you, but if you kind of read through those, they each kind of do that thing. They set it up and they create a question that the person reading it hopefully goes, I want to know more. A lot of times these are things that are counterintuitive to what conventional wisdom may say. And a lot of times, like I said, it's just sort of leaving things out. This is a great example of they're leaving things out. Like, if you look at chapter two, the true story of how we became addicted to effort and who profits from it. So a lot of open, gaping curiosity holes there. What's another one here that I really like was the, oh, why some people sprint and others sustain, and how to switch between those systems. So here they're telling you maybe there's not any one right way to do It. Maybe there's a couple of different ways. So anyway, that's what I mean by. Even in the table of contents, you can be creating mystery. You could just say, you know, chapter one could just be, you know, how to get over Burnout. But if you do it this way, creates a little more tension, creates a little more like, I want to know. Want to know more about that. So it's. It's just one of those things where you get to. You play with it a lot. You kind of figure out, like, what is. And this is why it's so important to know your reader. You know, what they're looking for, what their problem is they need solved. Because that'll kind of help you make these decisions on how do I present this in a way that's intriguing and hints at what's there, but doesn't give everything away? Because that's. That's the beauty of not giving it away is that they want to come and find out. So let's see. Once we get into the book, one of the techniques that you can use is the tease, but don't tell. And when you're doing that, basically your goal is to plant a question in the reader's mind, and then they're often chasing that answer. Right. So again, like I said, you're creating this curiosity gap that demands to be closed. They want to know the answer. And I have some examples of teasing your audience. But before we get to that, see what I did there? We're going to give away some prizes. I teased the examples, and now you got to wait to see what they are. But again, you're going to get prizes, too. So that's a lot of fun.

That was good timing, Chad. That was. That was.

Thank you. I was very proud of myself for that one just popped into my head when I was doing this presentation. I was like, I should do.

That's pretty great. Awesome. Okay, well, I think, you know, did you have a specific way that you wanted to give away a prize?

I mean, I have, like, a question that I could do. And. And again, it's. You know, I know this is not about mystery writing and novels per se, but I have, you know, the two. Two kind of tie in, so. And I think everybody at home probably has the Internet, so if they don't know, they can always look it up. So if you can be the third person to give the correct answer to this question, who is considered the father of the mystery novel? Who is considered the father of the mystery novel, that is, who basically wrote the first mystery Novel. So if you.

I know what this is. You know, I think so. I hope I'm right. That would be fun. We have a shorter crew today, so we. We'll see if we get. Well, if we get the three. We may have to see whoever is the first.

Yeah, exactly. I thought more people were coming in. I was like, well, better be safe. Yeah, first is fine too, if anybody knows it. Like I said, I think everyone has the. The Internet, so at the very least they can look it up.

Oh, we have a guest. Let's see. Oh, Jack says, I don't have a clue and I won't look it up.

He's an honest man. He's an honest man, Jack. I appreciate that. And Gary looks like. Yep. We'll go with the first one. Gary's got the answer.

Was that the right one?

Edgar Allan Poe is the correct answer.

Oh, I was gonna say Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

He helped popularize it. But Murder at the Rue Morgue is considered the first detective mystery novel. And it's. It's amazing because it's actually a really good story too. For usually the first one, you're like, that's not that good. It's really good. So nice to be done, Gary.

Yeah, well done, Gary. I mean, that was. That was a very good guess. Whether you use the Internet or not. You don't have to tell us, but please email me at Team Tam Book launchers dot com. Let me know which of the books you would like. It says, I use my swag.

SWAG Method.

The Scientific Wild Ass Guest. I like that acronym. Maybe that Chad. Maybe we should remember that to tell Julie for I think so, like, that can be the acronym on the shirt. Well, that's great. All right, well, I'm gonna go off stage. Thank you, Gary. I'll be on the lookout for your email.

So where we're teasing. Don't tell. Okay, so, yeah, again, we're gonna, you know, sort of open with some tension or something that's like a counterintuitive idea. So some examples here. You know, if, you know, we talked about wanting to plant that question. So say you. You know, you turn to the page and the first page of the chapter and says, what if everything you've been taught about productivity is a lie? Okay? So right there, it creates this question, oh, have I been misunderstanding? Have I been lied to? You know, another version of this might be some people fail at this because they're doing too much. Now, your first thought again is, well, the conventional wisdom, you have to do more to succeed. So how can people be failing if they're doing too much? So again, you're just. It doesn't always have to be earth shattering either. It's just enough to, it's. It's a conversation starter between you and the reader. And make that. To make them kind of want to go, I just, I want to know more about that. Or at the very, you know, on the far end of that spectrum is, that's crazy. He doesn't. She doesn't know what they're talking about. I'm going to go find out. I'm going to prove them wrong. And then you, of course, read and you persuade the reader that this is why your case is in fact, correct. So again, just little ways you can kind of go, I've got this idea, I'm going to throw it out there, but I'm not going to give you the answer. I'm just going to start off with something that's going to maybe surprise you, if not shock you a little bit. The next technique is cold open with a story. And as I mentioned, we like to use stories at the beginning of chapters, and you can use them elsewhere in the chapter, but it's a great way to really just draw your reader into your chapter. So what you're doing here is, you know, you're starting with a very, you know, like a vivid anecdote. And you're not really beginning at the beginning of the story. You're really dropping the reader into somewhere in the middle with, you know, where there's tension or confusion or intrigue. And then eventually you'll pull back and explain how it ties into your big idea. But basically you're just going to give them like a miniature mystery novel in the form of an anecdote. And before you get to your, you know, your how to part. So let's go to some examples. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. This, this is a little longer. So I'll read it, but then we'll kind of break it down. So it's. Take a little drink for start reading. So basically, like, you turn the page and this is the first thing you're going to read. He missed the meeting. Not because he didn't care, not because he wasn't ready. He missed it because he fell asleep in the lobby 10 minutes before they called his name. Now, you could write this guy off as lazy, unprofessional, a burnout, cliche, but here's the thing. That guy was me. What no one saw the part under the iceberg that is me was that I'd been chasing success for years without ever stopping to ask what was fueling me. I was always pushing, grinding, saying yes, climbing, reading every book on discipline, waking up early, journaling, meditating, biohacking. And still I missed the damn meeting. So basically, that's what I mean by you're giving him a little bit of a. You know, you're dropping him in the middle of the scene. You're not sure what's going on. The mystery part is like, who is this person that fell asleep? Oh, it's him. Well, now what's going. And you can see that sort of pivot where he slowly goes from. Here's when I fell asleep in the lobby when I was supposed to be meeting with someone. And then he pivots to this. The part about, like, you know, I was. I was doing everything, and still I screwed up. And so he's. He's taking that story as a cautionary tale and turning it into. Let's, you know, segue into some of the things I want to talk to you about so that you can improve. Improve your performance and your pro productivity. Trouble with that word. Let's see, what's the next technique? Oh, yeah. Before we go on, I do kind of want to talk about that in terms of the pivot part. A lot of people get caught up on that. It's a transition. How do I jump from this to that? And sometimes it's as simple as just you tell that story, and then you start a new section, a couple spaces, and you start a new section and kind of launch into your how to part. It's always good to sort of connect those dots between the story that I just shared with you, the reader that illustrates the point of this chapter with now jumping to the point of this chapter, just. Even if it's just a sentence that links the two, we always want our readers to connect the dots because they get a real sense of accomplishment. We also want to make sure it's clear how this story that I just started, this chapter with relates to what the rest of this chapter is about. Otherwise, they'll be like, well, that's great, but why did I. Why. Why did I read that about this guy falling asleep in the lobby? So those are. Those are the things to kind of keep in mind. But it's a really effective way to draw people in. It's just like the first words. You're just sticking them right in the middle of a scene as opposed to, you know, starting at the beginning. Well, I had a job interview, and so I went And I, and then I fell asleep in the lobby. It's like, just jump right into it. Really quick way to hook people. Let's see, what's the next one? Next one is hide the blueprint. So it's just what it means, you know, you're sort of, you're not giving away everything. You're kind of hiding your, your method. You're not going to reveal your, your framework or your solution. You're going to, you're going to, you're going to build up to it. One of the best ways to do this is kind of. Again I mentioned cautionary tales. You spend the first part of your chapter helping the reader feel the problem deeply. And that's what's great about this is they already know the problem. They already feel the problem because they are dealing with it. That's why they bought your book. But again, we're such emotional creatures that if you tap into that feeling that, you know, they have of this is a problem that I'm dealing with, they connect with your work. They, oh, you, the author, you know what I'm talking about. So that's the connection that you're looking for. And then they're more willing to not only listen to what your proposed solution is, but to actually take it and implement it. But the first part of this is where you just, you know, you're showing how people got it wrong. You show if you explore some false paths, like I said, cautionary tales are great. Don't be like this. Don't do what this person did. And then finally you can come around and then unveil. You get to be the hero. Unveil your solution. I think for this book we were calling the lazy genius rule. Rule of three. Like that, you know, that would be. If I were writing this book, that'd be my big thing of, you know, once you learn the lazy genius rule of three, you'll be more productive without working as hard or something along those lines. But yeah, so if you hide the blueprint, show people failing stories of people going the wrong way, doing the wrong thing, your reader will go, and again, you don't need like 15 of those examples, but one or two, they'll go, yeah, I get that. I know what that's like. How, what, what do you recommend? You know, and so again, they're curious. They want to know how you're going to solve that problem. And then, you know, the next technique are essentially cliffhangers. You know, if you think about, like, I don't know, if you ever watch, you know, Soap operas are a great example. Before they go to commercial, there's always a cliffhanger. You know, what's, what's going to happen next, you know, and again, it kind of hooks the reader and it propels them. Propels them forward. So this works really well when you're telling stories. But also, don't forget this, if you're doing case studies in your book. Case studies are just stories. That's all they are. This is a good way to maybe tell half the story. Get right to the part where they're about to fall off the cliff, as it were. Get right to the part where something super intense is happening and then you stop telling the story and you shift to something else and you come back to it later. Or that will create that sense of what happened to that story in the reader's mind. What happened to that person in the reader's mind. And so they'll read through to the end of the section. Let's see if we can get to some examples here. For instance, example of a cliffhanger. He changed his morning routine and everything got better. So instead of writing that, which is pretty straightforward, you could say he changed one thing in his morning routine and what happened next shocked even his coach. So you don't have to go full Dateline on it, but, you know, you get the. Give it a light touch. That second version you see, it's like, leaves you going like, well, what was the thing? What did happen next? Versus the other one ahead above it? Which is kind of like, okay, well, that's that helpful. It's, it's, you know, I'm glad that the things worked out for the guy, but doesn't really drive anything within the reader. There's no sense of like, you know, curiosity or anything like that. The next one, hidden connections and reveals. Readers love it, as I mentioned, when they get to connect the dots. One ways you can do this is by introducing maybe a character, a person that is important to your solution or an idea about your solution. Do that early, and then it disappears for a while in your book. And then you, you can bring it back with, with new meaning. Let's see here. I think I got some examples. Yeah, so for instance, let's say you introduced a tough boss early in the book. This person crushed your confidence. And then in chapter four, you know, you realize that boss actually taught you something. And so the conclusion then is kind of like that same tough boss. Turns out she gave me the habit that saved my career. So if you introd character early, we know the Character. We don't know much about the character other than you're not really liking the character because they're a tough boss. And then we have that moment where everything shifts and the narrator, the person you telling the story, you realize that they were teaching you something, that you learned something. And it wasn't until later that you even, you figured it out. And so what you get with that is an emotional payoff as well as an intellectual payoff. So they're learning what you're teaching them, but they're also seeing how like, oh, that's, that's some tension that resolved itself. And that's something that you can do as you're telling the stories within your prescriptive nonfiction book is, you know, don't just tell the story. Try to find that part where there's a lot of tension or there's a lot of confusion or something and then build, or, you know, build around that. Like, again, the tension here be between this person and their boss. And so they don't introduce the boss early and then go, but it all worked out because I learned something. No, they wait until a chapter later or a couple chapters later to kind of bring that character back, that person back, or an idea, and then show like, oh, something happened because of that. That was good. We didn't think something good was going to come of that. That's a great little twist. And once you do that once, readers will constantly be looking for that because again, they get to connect the dots on that, and that makes them feel very satisfied. Let's see here. Next, we have like Easter eggs and recurring symbols, and these are pretty straightforward. I mean, I don't know if you read or watch any sort of like Lord of the Rings, that types of type of fantasy, any type of sci fi fantasy like that. They'll always have like symbols, usually visual or motifs, things like that, that keep reappearing, keep recurring. And the more they recur, you start to go, there's some significance here. This represents some sort of deeper. So it'll give your book, you know, some weight and sense of, of mystery. Again, you know, what is that? What does that mean? And just again, we don't, you know, we don't want to, like, we don't want to give it away, but we do want to make sure that we, you know, we build it. And at some point we do pay that off. Now you're probably saying, chad, that's great, but I'm not writing a sci fi fantasy book. You know, how do I do this in prescriptive nonfiction. And we've got some examples here for, like, for instance, with Easter eggs. You know, let's say in chapter one, you mentioned something called the swamp. It's some area where people get bogged down in their professional life. And you can describe it as a mysterious place, you know, but then later in a chapter, you, you know, you kind of leave it alone. But in a later chapter you come back to it again. There's always a little distance between some of these things and you define it and you basically show them the way out of the swamp. Again, it's something that, for performance book, it would be about their, you know, succeeding in their productivity. But they're mired in the swamp. And so here's how. Here's the map out of the swamp. Do this, this and this. Try this, this and this. That'll get you out. Recurring symbols would also be, like I said it would be something that you would, you know, could sort of create. And that's the beauty of this, is it gets to be really fun. But, you know, red thread or shadow figure, locked door. These are things that you could use that keep appearing in your, in your book in different places. You know, red thread, you could talk about threads woven throughout things. And you can even be very upfront about and overt about it. You know, weaving threads through your story, like this is part of the thread or this thread ties these two ideas together. I mean, you can be that on the nose about it. You can be that upfront about it. But again, if red, if these things tighten, keep popping up, it makes the reader go, what? There's something, some significance to that. What, what is that? So that those, that's a great way to kind of, you know, keep, keep them interested, keep them moving. Another one is the. Yeah, the outcome based suspense. And this is where you're gonna, you know, create some stakes about who succeeds and who fails. You create narrative tension whenever you say, like, you know, you're you. Not everyone's going to succeed even if they have the right tools. And so you kind of use this to heighten the stakes and heighten the curiosity. Let's see if I got an example here. Yeah, so again, this is another one of those. It's not so much that you've got to come up with something new, it's just kind of the way that you present it. So instead of saying, anyone can do this, you could say this. Some people do this and fail, but the ones who succeed, they all share one surprising habit. So again, what's that one surprising Habit. We're creating those little, little curiosity gaps where they want to know what the thing is. So instead of saying anyone can do this, say not everyone can do it, but if you have this one thing, you could. You could be one of the ones to do it. People just, you know, again, they want to know what that answer is. Even if they don't go and, and, and practice it, it's always a good way to get them at least engaged with what you're doing. And I think now is another good time to take a little pause and do another prize. Let's see.

I am back behind the scenes. How do you want to do this prize?

I think, you know, again, just the answer is probably good enough. You know, the first person with the answer, not necessarily the second or third, but who is considered the most commercially successful author, not necessarily mystery author, but commercially successful author of all time.

Oh, I think I might know this one. I actually think I might be right to the last one. Let's see, we've got a couple extra people. Okay, we've got a no.

It's a good guess, but no. Oh, Dr. Seuss is good, but no.

Okay, so I had two guesses. Jack, I agree with you. I also thought it was J.K. rowling. So I'm two for two. This is. I am not doing well today.

Shakespeare is kind of close, but it's not. He's not considered having sold them. It's interesting. He hasn't really. He's not considered as having sold the most. This author is considered to have sold 2 billion books over the course of from when this person started writing to today. I'll give you a hint. This person is dead. And the Bible was. And the Bible, it says Shakespeare and the Bible are like, have sold more than this person. But it's not considered the same thing because Shakespeare's like, you know, there are many versions of this and the Bible is written by more than one person. Agatha Christie is correct.

Wow. I was gonna say Stephen King. Yeah, that was my second guess.

You just gotta realize Christie's. Her books have been around since the 20s. You. And even though she's dead, the books still sell. Sell. So yeah, over 2 billion books worldwide. She sold. So.

Wow. Kevin, you were just a few seconds to the prize winner goes to Brett. So, Brett, that's awesome. I'm not sure before. If you have. It's been a while, so please email me at Team T A M Book launchers dot com. Let me know what your prize would be. If you'd like me to List out what books I have on hand. I can absolutely do that, but I will also need your mailing address, so please don't forget that. But otherwise I'm gonna go back off stage. You're. You're making us think, Chad, not only from your content, but also from these trivia questions.

Oh, that'd be fun. Okay. Nicely done. Was Kevin. No, Brett. Nicely done, Brett and Kevin. So let's see. So anyway, yeah, so that's sort of the way, like I said, you turn it from. Just anyone can do this to create a little tension. Let's see. Next technique is to kind of invite the readers on a quest. So what you're doing here is you're not. Your, Your book is sort of. You're framing it not as like advice from on high or from a mentor. You're basically saying, hey, let's go on a journey together. Let's. Let's explore this together. Let's investigate this together. Because that's what mystery thrives on, is exploration is taking the next step. So let's see. Example of this would be, this is just together we're going to uncover what's behind this invisible barrier. So you're basically saying, let's do this together. Even simp. Just. It doesn't have to be like that. It could be, hey, let's find out together. I didn't believe this would work either until I tried it, you know, or anything. Like I said, anything that's you. This idea of let's, let's you and I. Because again, remember, your book is even though you hope you have a lot of readers, each reader, when they're reading that book, it is a one on one conversation between them and you in their head. So be very, very personal in that regard. You know, us, you and me. And so as opposed to saying, you know, I'm. I'm Obi Wan Kenobi, you know, and here's what you should do. Basically say, hey, I'm just like you, Luke. Let's. Let's do this together. Even though, of course, you do know the way, because you've been through here before. That's why you've. You've written the book. Let's see, withholding certainty. And this will be, I think our last one. Withholding certainty is it takes. Takes a couple times of doing it and of really knowing your readers, like what part to withhold and not solving every mystery and letting things just kind of, you know, not everything gets wrapped up in a neat bow. Sometimes a little ambiguity is enough to really keep People going, and again, you don't want to go too far, because if it's too ambiguous, they're like, I don't get it. I'm lost. But you want them to know that there's some gray areas there, because mystery isn't always about secrets. It's about the place for readers to, you know, to wonder, to reflect, to feel like they're discovering. And that's what we're doing. So if you withhold a little certainty, that goes a long way. Let's show you what I mean. Let's say that we had this concept we call the glow. Like we were in the swamp earlier, right? And that's a horrible place. Well, the glow is when you're really working, you're glowing. But it's like, how do I know when I'm in the glow? And so you would basically say there's this concept, and it doesn't have to be defined perfectly. You'll know it when you feel it. So what you're doing there is. That's even reaches beyond the book. But you're telling your reader, not everything is going to be a checklist. There's this thing, and you're going to feel it. And again, you don't have to get all woo woo about it because, you know. But this could apply in something like, you know, 10 steps to success in Real Estate. You know, there. There are nothing but gray areas and ambiguity in life. And what you do is you find those areas with your topic and how it relates to your reader, and you play with those and you use those. So instead of like, well, I'm going to stay away from that because there's no definitive answer. It's basically saying there is no definitive answer. And that's part of the beauty of this thing. That means that, you know, you get to figure out what the answer is. We tend to really like certainty. We do, and that's why you shouldn't use this a lot. But especially toward the end of the book, it's okay to kind of go, you know what? Not everything's going to get wrapped up neatly. There's going to be some things that. That really don't resolve themselves that I can't explain to you, but you'll know when you see it. And again, not a lot of that, but just a dusting of that will go a long way to really engaging people and. And making them think like, oh, yeah, I got to do this. I want to find out, you know, I want to see what that is. So that's. Those are the points basically how you kind of go through and. And create that intrigue and. And whatnot. I just wondered if there were any questions about any of this. I know we kind of went through it. I hope the examples helped. And it's. Again, it's not supposed to be, you know, the main. This is something you do probably after you've written your first draft. You know, you go back and go. Because that's how most mysteries are written. How do I. How do I go back and, you know, take the story that I told A to B to C, and then how do I mix it up? So I start with B and then go to A and then go to C. But that's usually done on a rewrite. Unless you're somebody really special like Stephen King or like, you know, like that most of them get, like, you got to figure out where it's going before you can then break it down and create the mystery. Whether it's the story at the beginning or it's the piece that you're going to leave out, or even the ambiguity that you're going to not only admit to, but turn into a pot positive that gets people going like, oh, okay, not all the answer questions are going to be answered, but I've got enough that I know the direction that I'm going. So anyway, I hope. Hope this has been helpful and if there are any questions, we can dig into those now. And if not, you know, that means that hopefully it was good.

Yeah, we haven't had any questions yet that I've seen unless people are typing them out. Something else you could do is if you. If it's not necessarily a question, but if there is something that you have been struggling with in your writing, you wanted to put in the chat, see if you can get some feedback from Chad as well. We could try to dive into that. But something that I thought was funny was Brett said, I've only got about 45 great tips from this. So far, so good. Only 45. So hope your hand hasn't cramped from all the notes you've been taking, Brett. But yeah, while people are putting that in there, if there are any questions. Chad did allude to this earlier. This is our last YouTube live before our summer break. And so that means there won't be any deep dives or YouTube lives this summer. So we will be taking a break for the entirety of July and then I believe, partially through August as well. So we are still getting things. We're still getting things situated there. But yeah, so if you guys are in Our free community, which is a really great place to get some feedback and to have some fun connections with other authors that will of course still be having people in there will still be popping in from the Book Launchers team. If you are interested or already a part of our author business accelerator community. We will still be having office hours and different things there. So those two elements will still be going on during the summer break, but we will be taking a break from filming for YouTube but Julie will be taking a break from videos and the YouTube deep dives as well. So wanted to remind everyone of that and I will actually, while we're doing that, I will drop the links into the chat. If you're not a part of our communities, we would love to see you in there. One of. So our, our free school community is going to be geared toward people who are still writing their books, they're still designing or still in production. Whereas our author business accelerator community, that is more for people who are in the marketing phases of their book, whether their book is about to launch, it's currently launching or after it has launched. So that is more marketing focused. But I will drop both of the links in there. That way, if you have not checked it out, you are welcome to do so. And let's see, we've got some, some last comments in here. Aw, you guys are so nice. So Kevin said, thanks, Chad. This has me thinking about different approaches. Much appreciated. Bill said, it's thought provoking. Jack said, thanks so much, Chad. Thank you guys.

Thank you for showing up.

Yeah, absolutely. On this Tuesday summer afternoon. Okay. And I think you have. While I'm getting these links, I think you had one last prize that you were. That we were going to do. We could do a hashtag. Unless you have another trivia question, which I don't.

I don't have another trivia question. I only did two. I wasn't sure what the third prize was, how we were going to do that, so.

Oh, that's so fun. You know what? I don't even think we have to do a hashtag. Let's just do. I'm just going to open up our giveaway tool and we're just going to do one that way. So anyone who has commented today on this video will be able to have their name intertwined. So if you've been lurking in the background this whole time and you have not commented, now would be your time to put a plus sign or something into the chat so that your name gets added and oh, I did not open the right thing. See, sometimes I am really great at multitasking and then other times I am subpar. So let's see. Let me open this up and I will share it with everyone and we will get this last prize chosen. Let's see. There we go. Okay, so we have had 10 people enter. Let us see who put it. If you've already won today, I will choose another winner. That way we can share some of the love. Oh, Claude, you have not won. Where did I. I must have missed that comment. I don't remember seeing a comment from you, but that's exciting. So please email me atteam TAM booklaunchers.com Let me know which of the books you would like. Or if you want a list of what I have, I can certainly send that to you as well. But I will need your choice as well as your mailing address, so. Fantastic. That's awesome. Okay, any last remarks for from you, Chad?

No, just, you know, like I said, enjoy it, have fun. And like I said, anytime you can can create a little mystery or some curiosity, it goes a long way in really helping you connect with your reader.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Chad, for volunteering. You know, we, when we found out that Julie wasn't going to be able to do this, we were also going to have a guest speaker and that didn't work out, unfortunately. So we put it to the team. All right, guys, who, who can volunteer or who has an idea for a. A second guest speaker. And Chad very kindly volunteered. So thank you very much, Chad, for coming in at Clutch with some really great info. So I hope you guys have a wonderful, wonderful summer. We will see you guys around. Or if you're in our communities, you'll be seeing us around all the time. But stay safe, everyone. Stay cool and we will see you back here soon.

Bye.

Bye, everyone.