Podcast #125: The #1 Writing Lesson from Disney’s Star Wars Trilogy

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A few weeks ago, I sat down in a darkened theater with my 15-year-old son, Ben. It was a Thursday night, a few days before Christmas, and we were there to see a movie I had been looking forward to for a couple of years.

That movie was The Rise of Skywalker, which as you know, is the culmination of not just Disney’s Star Wars trilogy, but also the entire 9-film Skywalker saga as a whole.

Now don’t get me wrong—I truly enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker. It had a lot of great fan moments (some might call it “fan service” but I’m OK with that), but story-wise, the movie is kind of a mess. It’s clear that the filmmakers did not have enough time to craft a truly coherent story, and it feels like the whole story is rushing forward with such a breakneck pace that it doesn’t have time to catch its breath.

The thing you immediately notice when you watch the film is that in many ways it’s designed to walk back on story points from the previous film, The Last Jedi. I’m not going to go into all those details here—there are a million YouTube videos exploring all that. It’s clear these two movies were going in totally different directions.

And of course, The Last Jedi took a radically different direction than the previous movie, The Force Awakens. Pretty much anyone who has seen these movies would agree that these movies don’t really fit together. And if you look at how the Disney trilogy was created, it’s common knowledge that Lucasfilm did not have an over-arching, coherent plan for this trilogy. They took it film by film, with episodes 8 and 9 going in a different direction the movie that immediately came before it.

Which brings me to the point of this episode. The #1 writing lesson we can take away from the Disney Star Wars trilogy is that YOU NEED TO HAVE A PLAN. Honestly, it totally baffles me that Disney purchased Lucasfilm for about 4 billion dollars … yet did not have a coherent plan for this trilogy. I’m not a business wizard, but that seems like common sense to me.

And I don’t mean to crap on this new Star Wars trilogy. Not at all. I have enjoyed each of these movies and am grateful to have them. But it’s still pretty clear that there was no overall story plan for this trilogy.

So let’s take a moment and apply this lesson to our business writing. What does it mean to “have a plan” for our writing? In short, it just means that when you sit down to write something, have an idea of where you want to go. It makes writing so much easier, so much faster, and so much more fun!

And if you’re not having fun when you’re writing, then you need to change it up! Writing should be enjoyable, at least to some degree.

Let’s apply this to one of the most common types of writing, which is the humble blog post. Here I’m talking about a self-contained piece of writing that’s somewhere between 500 and 1,000 words long. Now, this also applies to other types of writing as well, such as a short book chapter, a podcast episode, or an average-length article.

Here are 3 things to plan when you sit down to write a blog post. When you plan these things out, the writing goes a lot faster.

1. The Introduction

In my day job, I’m a college professor, and one of the courses in teach is Speech. It’s a freshmen-level course, and the whole last section of the course, we focus on persuasive speeches.

In a persuasive speech, we don’t call the first part the Introduction. We call it the Attention step. Why? Because the purpose of the beginning of the speech is to get the listener’s attention.

The same is true for any piece of content you write. Let me give you two simple ways to get a reader’s attention in a blog post or article:

1. Reversal. This is a very, very common approach. Basically, you say, “This is the conventional wisdom about the topic, but I’m saying something else.” You spend the first paragraph of the intro talking about what everyone believes, then you take the second paragraph and say, “Here’s why the conventional wisdom is wrong.” And this makes sense—because why should they read your article if you’re telling them something they already know?
2. Story. Everybody loves stories. Did you notice I started off this episode with a story about seeing the new Star Wars movie? There’s a reason I did that. It’s because stories get our attention.

So those are two possible ways to plan out an effective introduction: a reversal of conventional wisdom, and a story.

2. The Main Points

This is very simple. Just choose 2-5 aspects of your topic, and spend a paragraph or two on each of these. People loved numbered lists—it’s baked into our human nature. In fact, there’s a name for this type of article in the publishing world: a “listicle.”

When I write a blog post, a podcast, or an article, I almost always have the main points set before I write it. Most of the time, these change somewhat as I write. Why? Because the process of writing is a process of discovery. You discover things, you think of things, when you write.

And sometimes, when you write, you discover that the article needs to be about something else entirely. But you need to have something to get you started, something to hang your hat on. That is why I strongly recommend that you have your main points written before you actually start writing the blog post.

As they say, “You can’t edit something you haven’t written.” So you need something to get you started.

One more thing about all this: Sometimes you will be writing and then come up with main points that don’t fit within the article. That’s a good thing! Why? Because that’s another article idea. So store that in Evernote, Scrivener, or whatever you use to write and hang onto it for later.

3. The Call to Action

In some sense, this is a conclusion. However, a “call to action” is more than a summary at the end. It is literally a call, or you might say a beckoning or an invitation, for the reader to take some type of action.

Ultimately, all business writing should be about inspiring some kind of action within the reader. That might be signing up for an email list, buying a product, getting on a sales call, making some change in their life, or something else.

Business writing is ultimately pointless unless it somehow prompts the reader to action. Many times, we create articles or books or blog posts that contain information, but that don’t ultimately compel the reader to take action.

So before you sit down to actually write the content, think in advance what you want the reader’s action to be. Then you can write toward that. Don’t just guess what you want that action to be—think intelligently about it so that you are leading the reader on a journey. The blog post, podcast, book chapter, or article is just one part of the overall journey you want to take the reader on. So think about what the next logical steps for them should be.

Sometimes when it comes to the call to action, we shrink back and are too timid. But ultimately, we write to serve people. We do this to improve people’s lives and make things better for them. So don’t be shy in asking for a response from them. For example: If you have something cool for them as a gift for signing up to your email list, invite them boldly!

Here’s the secret: people want to be led. They really do. They want you to take them on a journey. They want someone to give them clear guidance on their next steps. So whatever your call to action is, make it BOLD and make it CLEAR.

One more thing before I wrap up: I applied all of these steps to this podcast episode before I sat down to write out the content. I knew what the introduction would be, the main points, and the conclusion, which we’ll get to in just a moment. Most of the time for this podcast, the conclusion is checking out the show notes and getting onto my website, which will then prompt you to sign up for my email list. So a single podcast episode is just one small step in inviting you to join me on a much larger journey that can include reading my book, signing up for an email list, coming to an event, or hiring me as a ghostwriter.

Those are my thoughts, but I’d love to hear what YOU think. What did you think about The Rise of Skywalker? How do YOU plan out your writing?