Road Trip!
Post-Trip Review: Mad Libs and Niceness Bombs
Alakazam!
Note: This is the sixth in a series of posts describing my effort to get letters published in newspapers in every state and territory of the U.S.A. You can read the whole series here.
When I set out to have letters published in newspapers nationwide, my approach was to come up with letters on topics that would be relevant in more than one place. Now, it is quite possible to write a one-size-fits-all letter that could appear anywhere without modification. If you write about national issues, or basic human issues, you could go with one version of the letter. The problem with that approach is that the competition is too stiff. Papers already publish national commentary from syndicated columnists. They already publish basic human relationship commentary from national authors, or that topic is covered ad nauseum in the advice columns. You could write something very good, but unless you state the case better than George Will (for instance), that turf is already occupied.
Your chances are better if you compete with the locals.
What I did, then, was come up with a letter suited to one location, then see if I could find the same situation in other states. Then I would tailor the letter to each location. This is why I refer to “Mad Libs” in the subtitle of this blog post: Mad Libs is a game where you start with a piece of writing with certain words missing. You then invite players who have not seen the writing to give you a word to fill in the blank. You ask for verb, noun, adjective, etc. based on what type of word is missing. After all the blanks are filled in, you have a story with the same basic outline you started with, but with a different meaning due to the word substitutions.
Now, for topical letters I didn’t just substitute random words. My Mad Libs consisted of replacing references to places and things so that the letter would read like a local product.
In an earlier post I shared my letter about legislation to allow mail-order delivery of alcohol in Alabama. I easily found similar legislation in other states. And so my Smokey and the Bandit letter was quite easy to customize just by changing references to state names and legislative bills. I wrote versions for Arkansas, California, Georgia, Utah, and national. In addition to Alabama, the letter appeared in four other states.
Understanding Smokey and the Bandit
As it appeared in the Log Cabin Democrat.
As it appeared in the Rome News-Tribune.
As it appeared in the Bakersfield Californian.
As it appeared in the Enterprise-Journal. A much longer version, with an appearance by The Dukes of Hazzard.
Commentary Only for the Alabama original.
While this was immensely gratifying, it was also a learning experience. The letters in Arkansas and Georgia were published in early February. The other two were published in April. In between those two successes I had failures in many other newspapers in those same states, as well as in Utah and in national papers. I was also submitting letters on other topics to other states, to no avail. In the month of February, out of a couple of dozen submissions, I had just the Arkansas and Georgia letters published.
Then, starting in March, I began to have a nearly 100% success rate. By success I mean I was getting published in every state I tried, fairly quickly, though not in every newspaper I tried in each state.
What changed in March to improve my success rate? Were my letters suddenly better?
No.
What changed was that I started claiming to live in each local newspaper’s circulation area. I did this by putting the city of the newspaper, and a local street address, in my contact information on the online submission forms. As soon as I appeared to be a local, more of my letters were published. Clearly, the locals-only policy was widespread (though mostly unstated) and was an instant killer of letters.
I have covered the locals-only policy of newspapers in detail in earlier road trip posts so I won’t rant about it here. I mention it now only to let you know why, if you look at the newsprint images of my letters, starting with the Bakersfield Californian letter above you will see my town listed as in or near the town where the newspaper is published.
I know that this is an ethical issue. Many (but fewer than half) of the newspapers called me by telephone to verify my authorship of letters, and that I wanted them published. Some (but fewer than half) of those that verified authorship also asked me about my purported home address. Of course, every time I said “Yes, I live at that address,” and that address was not in fact my address, I was lying.
I do not justify my lying based on the fact that fewer than half of the newspapers verified authorship, and only a few of those verified my location. I only report that that was my experience.
Even given the low incidence of verification by newspaper staff, I do not know the general opinion of editors about the locals-only policy. I do know the opinion of one editor with whom I discussed it, but I will cover that in a later post.
But now you know: while I think my letters are pretty good, their success depends in large part on a lie about where I live. Based on my previous writings about locals-only, and the adherence to it in these days of dying local journalism, and my thoughts about local papers needing to report locally but engage globally, I won’t be apologizing for breaking that rule. As I stated at length elsewhere, I think good, humorous letters from anywhere in the world would only help any newspaper, anywhere. But of course I think in terms of my own desire to be entertained; newspaper editors seem to care more about providing a local platform for local voices. Or I should say that some seem to care exclusively about that.
While getting a few letters published but having most rejected, I noticed a phenomenon in many papers that I came to call a “Niceness Bomb.” The Niceness Bomb is a gooey letter about how wonderful the town, and the people in it, are. There I was, researching mail-order alcohol legislation and other arcane matters, while some local was stealing my ink just by waxing poetic about how nice the town is. They were downright diabolical!
I then realized that, with a little bit of research on Google Maps and on Wikipedia, I could write up a pretty convincing Niceness Bomb. This was the only type of letter for which I actually wrote a true Mad Libs-style template with key words and identifying characteristics left blank. Here’s my template for a general niceness bomb. Note the <angle bracketed> words and phrases:
I’m writing to say a big “thank you” to <name of town>. I recently moved here from New York City, and as you can imagine it has been a big adjustment getting used to small town life. Based on what I used to read in newspapers and online, I thought I would be met with hostility. In fact, the opposite is true. I have been welcomed everywhere I go, and when people find out I’m from a big city they go out of their way to tell me their favorite things about <name of town>. I have visited several churches, and while all of them were nice I think <name of church> will be my new church home. Honestly, I never looked forward to sermons before, but <name of reverend> has changed that. You know how proud New Yorkers are of our parks, especially Central Park. Well, I won’t compare it with Central Park, but <name of park> is wonderful, and I really like walking and cycling on the path. I like your newspaper, too. It is small, just like the town, but everything in it actually matters to ordinary people.
The Original Niceness Bombs
Original text. Right away, I began departing from the template. Note the folksy touches about Norman Rockwell and walking slowly on the sidewalks.
As it appeared in the Beckley Register-Herald.
Original text. More departure from the template. In researching Minot, I noticed a centrally-located chicken and waffles restaurant, so I added a bit about the pricing of good, honest chicken and waffles in North Dakota versus the hipster pricing on the West Coast. This marks the first—but not the last—appearance of chicken and waffles in my letters. For the record, I have eaten them separately but never together, so as with my home address, my appreciation of chicken and waffles is pure fiction.
As it appeared in the Minot Daily News.
For this and all subsequent letters, I link to the publication image and to the original text on my other blog, but I don’t link to any additional commentary. That’s because, once the national road trip was in full swing, I didn’t take time to write commentary about each publication. This road trip review is, in fact, the after-the-fact commentary on the whole effort.
While my generic niceness bombs were going off in a puff of lavender and glitter, I noticed that other niceness bombers were beating me with letters about their wonderful experience getting a COVID-19 vaccination. How dare they out-nice me, and in such a socially-responsible way! So, back to the Niceness Laboratory I went. I am especially proud of having gotten the word “trypanophobes” and the phrase “vaccination train” into print. Toot toot! All aboard!
Here is the template for the vaccination variation on the niceness bomb:
I am writing to say a big public “thank you” to the good folks down at <place>, where I just got my first of two Covid-19 vaccination shots. My family knows I am something of an old scaredy-cat when it comes to needles. In fact, I used to refuse Novocaine from my dentist, preferring to white-knuckle my way through drilling and filling of cavities rather than get a shot in the gums. But my wife said if I didn’t get the Covid-19 vaccine, I should plan to be a shut-in for the foreseeable future while she was out enjoying life among people. So I signed up. I was not too keen on getting a shot in a commercial establishment with people shopping on all sides, but that’s what was available when we signed up, so off we went to <place>. The people helping us couldn’t have been nicer, and best of all, the shot didn’t hurt at all. Either they improved the needles since my childhood, or possibly my fear was overblown even if based on a reasonable childhood dislike of being stabbed in any way, shape or form. Finally, we got candy bars afterward. Yes, we bought those ourselves, but now I see the beauty of getting injections, if you must, in a place with a well-stocked candy aisle. I urge my fellow trypanophobes to get on board the vaccination train.
Vaccination Niceness Bombs
As it appeared in the Portland Press Herald.
As it appeared in the Enterprise-Journal. Yes, I sometimes sent letters to papers that had already published other letters, especially in the early days of the road trip. I figured that I should get as much ink as I could once I found a friendly paper. Later, I scaled back that practice in favor of focusing on states where I had not been published.
As it appeared in the Tri-City Herald.
I then had an idea sparked by a movie. One of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day, and one of the best scenes is Phil’s speech on the day he finally achieves his maximum wonderfulness. I set out to write the pandemic-recovery equivalent of that speech in the form of a letter. This is the only letter I wrote with a particular reader in mind. I had already had a letter published in Georgia, but I have a friend who lives in Savannah and who knew about my letter-writing road trip, and so I wrote this letter for the express purpose of getting it into the Savannah newspaper for her entertainment. Mission accomplished, plus three other states!
Spring Awakening Niceness Bombs
As it appeared in the Valley Breeze.
As it appeared in the Savannah Morning News.
As it appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
As it appeared in the Manchester Journal Inquirer.
While I was happy that my Niceness Bomb theory had proven correct, the actual production and planting of such devices became too much of a factory job. I enjoyed reading many local newspapers and studying the town websites and Wikipedia pages and maps. But then the process of plugging the fruits of my research into the letter templates and getting the letters published stopped feeling like writing. All the fun was in conceiving the idea, writing the templates, and coming up with the repeatable process.
I imagined how I would view my national publishing campaign if three fourths of my letters were variations on just three letters, and I decided to stop with the gooey word-syrup. I decided to go back to issue-oriented letters like the Smokey and the Bandit one, but on other topics.
In my next road trip review post I describe my issue-oriented letters.
Boing!