How To Make Your Audience “Mad As Hell”… And Why It’s A Good Idea

Barry Davret
Jul 23, 2017 · 3 min read
Source: Stencil

There’s a famous line from the 1976 movie, Network. The character Howard Beale goes on air and goes off script. The famous line from his rant:

Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell — ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. ’

Customers, co-workers and everyone in between huddled up in the morning and decided to attack. At least, that’s what it felt like. I gave in without complaining. I held in my feelings and played along. Just before 1 PM I hit my breaking point. I couldn’t take it any longer. I fought back.

Just like Howard Beale in Netowrk, I gave my own rant.

I’m going to lunch. I’ll get to it later

I no longer cared what anyone thought. I reached my breaking point.

Where Things Get Interesting

The breaking point is where the fun begins. Before the breaking point, we feel comfortable going with the flow. We stay in harmony with the crowd even if it goes against our desires. All the while anger swells. When it reaches a tipping point, we lose control.

That’s exactly what you want as a persuasive writer. You want to build up the emotion to a point where the audience reaches their breaking point. It doesn’t matter if it’s losing weight, poor customer support or working in a dead-end job. You want your audience to say:

Damn It. I’m sick of this. I need to do something about it.

How do you ramp up emotion and bring your reader to her breaking point?

The Three C’s Of Unbridled Emotion

There are several tools to create this kind of emotion. This is not a complete list but these are three common techniques. You’ve seen them used (abused) in everything from fiction to blogs to politics.

1. Conflict

Any kind of conflict generates emotion. Wars, arguments, struggles allow us to picture ourselves in the middle of the action. We may even root for one side to win.

2. Conspiracy

Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory.

The government is monitoring you.
Mass Media is fake news.
The Moon landing was staged in the Nevada desert.

Conspiracy theories seduce us. They’re hard to resist. When you confirm someone’s conspiracy theory and they think “Ah. I knew it!” — instant emotion.

3. Conceptual Victim

I call this conceptual victimization to distinguish between the real victimization tyrants have abused throughout history.

Here’s how it works.

Tell a story about how your enemy takes advantage of vulnerable victims. Your enemy is conceptual. Suppose your conceptual enemy is rogue DNA causing weight gain.

Explaining the deep science behind DNA and weight gain generates zero emotion. Instead, tell a story of how rogue DNA terrorizes your brain to send you uncontrollable hunger signals. It’s more visceral than just a scientific explanation.

The Three C’s Of Emotion is just one of my tools. Get my free guides on persuasion and creativity here. Oh, If you liked this story, click the ❤ so others may find it.

surTHRIVAL Skillz — By Barry Davret

Next Level Skills For The Modern World

Barry Davret

Written by

Writer. Experimenter in life, productivity and creativity. Contact: barry@barry-davret dot com.

surTHRIVAL Skillz — By Barry Davret

Next Level Skills For The Modern World

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