The year is 1997 and Jack has just moved his two daughters from Los Angeles to Aspen. The city is not safe. A man has been watching his house.
The new place in Aspen is not like the homes he had known in the city. It’s not big and it’s not new. It sits by itself, up a long, steep road, tucked in the white hills. It’s made of old wood and stone. The roof slopes low and the windows are set deep in the walls to keep the cold out.
It’s Jack’s birthday. He invited a few friends to travel and stay a few days. To celebrate old times and laugh at the cold. But there was a bad weather warning and they’re not going to make it. There’s a blizzard coming in. They will be alone tonight. He lights a fire and checks the locks. The man in L.A. sent letters. He left roses on the doorstep.
The blizzard is howling and the power is flickering. Normally he drinks beer. He pours a whiskey—neat—and stares at the fire. His girls aren’t scared. They’re in their pyjamas playing with crayons. They baked him a chocolate cake. They don’t know about the man.
Jack’s never seen him. But he’s seen enough of the world to know that evil isn’t a faceless stranger. Mostly evil has a wholesome, hometown face. An easy smile. He takes another sip. Evil can be sitting right next to us. It wears a mask. But that mask can look just like your friend.
A sharp crack splits the howl of the blizzard. Jack sits up as his heart reaches for his throat. Gunshots. Or fireworks. Maybe both. Another bang, then a burst of wild red flashes against the snow outside the window. The girls are frozen in terror. Now there is a blinding light outside. He picks them up and bundles them into the cellar.
The next blast is closer. The windows shake in their frames. Jack pulls the girls tight. The noise is everywhere now. Then, from outside, a new sound rises: screams, wild and sharp. Not human. Maybe not even from this world. The cellar feels smaller with every second. Jack presses his back against the door, trying to steady his breath while his trembling daughters cling to his arms.
He counts the seconds between the blasts. All he hears is the wind, and those awful, snarling cries. Then it stops. The screams fade. But then come the slow, deliberate steps. They crunch their way towards the front door. The man is on the porch. Something thuds once against the door. It’s not a knock. The man lingers for a moment. Then the steps crunch away again, back into the storm.
Silence. Jack waits until his heartbeat is slow enough to count. The girls are crying. They sit in the dark and wait. When he eventually stands, his legs are stiff. He helps his daughters up the stairs. The house is cold and the fire is out. He checks the windows. The black night is now grey. The snow is deep and smooth. Untouched.
Jack tells the girls to wait in the kitchen. He opens the front door. There, on the porch is something dark and strange in the snow. It’s a heart—big, raw, red. It’s the biggest heart he’s ever seen. Blood has melted into a red puddle in the white. Jack stares. For a moment, he cannot move.
The phone rings.
I’m going to explain this gruesome tale in a moment.
It’s taken me 6 months but I’ve finished putting together my Copywriting Gems, a compendium of the most specific and actionable copywriting lessons I’ve collected over the past 5 years.
And in the process of crystallizing everything I’ve learned about writing high-performing copy, I noticed . . .
Everyone talks about Big Ideas.
Fewer talk about positioning.
Fewer talk about psychology.
Fewer talk about research.
And almost no one talks about framing.
If positioning is what your product does and who it does it for . . .
Framing is how you present the product to your audience.
As it turns out, this gruesome tale is a true story. The Jack in the story is Jack Nicholson. And the man outside, the man with a pistol, a 1-million watt searchlight, 40-million candle parachute flair and a tape recording of pigs being torn apart by bears, was his friend and neighbour, Mr Thompson.
Mr Hunter S Thompson.
If you’ve read much about Hunter Thompson you might even have known the story already. There are plenty of articles and YouTube videos. It’s practically “gonzo” folklore. But nobody’s ever told it from Jack Nicholson’s point of view. This gives it a fresh lease of life.
The lesson?
It’s not the product.
It’s how you frame it.
