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There’s a reason why you
had an embarrassing childhood.
It’s because those
flashbacks of sheer terror, like remembering how your fly was open
when you were onstage in the school play, can be used today to
relate to your audience.
Most people will just
dismiss the memories that flash in their brain at any given time.
But, if you’re wise, you’ll trust them to at least be a starting
point for whatever bit of content you have to come up with. For
instance when I start to write, one exercise I do is to trust my
mind to come up with a flashback and I’ll start to improvise off of
that.
For instance, I started
writing this article by having a flashback to the Pershing Bowl in
my hometown of Decatur, Illinois, and how for whatever reason
whenever I hear a song by the O’Jays, (like “Love Train”), I always
think of that bowling alley. I have no idea why. I just do. From
that I thought - “hey, why not write about connections through
flashbacks?”
See, I think that those
of us who are labeled “creative” aren’t necessarily more so than
others, they just find ways to connect two completely different
objects. Flashbacks are a great way to start. I’ll give you two
examples, and they both involve Jeremy Camp.
The first is a spot for
summer camp giveaways, but I can’t take all the credit for it. What
happened was I remembered my bizarro taste in music growing up and I
flashbacked to 1975 and a 45 I had called
“Mr. Jaws” from a guy named Dickie
Goodman. The record was a silly little commentary that
had song hooks in it. Because of that I came up with this spot full
of Jeremy Camp hooks:
Click
here
for audio ...
One other time, I was on
the air and I had a break going into Jeremy’s song “There Will Be a
Day.” For some reason my brain flashed back to the Decatur Public
Library and these funky vinyl chairs they had that were kind of like
what you’d find on the bridge of the Enterprise-D. I remembered
days as a kid, reading books in those chairs, and I came up with
this little ministry bit:
“Remember some of the great stories
you’ve read and how they all come to a good ending? Those stories
often have a few rough chapters, but the main characters make it
through. You may be going through a rough time, but God is still
writing your book, and He’ll get you to that good ending. Here’s
Jeremy Camp, “There Will Be a Day on 89.3, KSBJ...”
So don’t dismiss your
flashbacks. If you want to have spots or on-air talk that relates,
then latch on to them, because, guess what - everyone in your
audience had an embarrassing childhood too.
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AFTERWORD: Shortly
after I wrote this article I came across a Wired Magazine interview
from February, 1996. This is a great quote that wraps up the
thought of this article:
“Creativity is just
connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did
something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really
do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to
them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect
experiences they’ve had to synthesize new things. And the reason
they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or
they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”
-Steve Jobs
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Sterling Tarrant is the Production Director at
KSBJ in Houston,. Since 1978 he has specialized in connecting people
to products through copywriting, voicework, and production. He also
helps other stations message effectively. He does that through the
KSBJ Mentoring Department, and also through his own company, Port of
Entry Communications, which exists to connect messages to people’s
hearts. He can be reached at
[email protected]
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