mASF post by "toecutter"
posted on: mASF forum: Advanced Discussion, October 10, 2001Thought I might christen this with something I posted to Mysterys lounge a
month or so ago. Here is hoping to set a tone in this section.
A new thing I am working with is accessibility of routines. The thinking goes
like this: There are some routines that are instantly accessible from any point
in the conversation. Think for example of the Discovery Channel pattern. Highly
accessible. "Hey, I was watching this show on the Discovery Channel the other
day ..." You can break in there from anywhere. It is a change of subject.
I have routines that I really like, but are less accessible, especially since
I'm running my shit in Spanish in a foreign country at the moment. Given my
newfound popularity here, I am wanting to reserect an old routine where I get
her to recall her favorite pop star as a 13 year old. One whom she was
completely infatuated with. Deepen her into the feelings, then anchour those
feelings to me. It works well as part of a story where I introduce a young
ex-girlfriend, and talk about her love of her idols follow into a value
elicitation from the target, then anchour it explicitly to me. Now this is a
highly inaccessible routine I have found out. I usually come at this via a "You
know what I saw on the street the other day? Little kids collecting their free
condoms. I never got given condoms but had to buy them. I remember my first
time. I had my little girlfriend out the front waiting for me. And her father
hated me because she was into all these bands at the time ..." It can be as
quick as that. 6 sentences as a set-up and I am in. But the question is, here,
in a catholic country where condoms are not given away on the streets, how can
I get in? How can I make it more accessible? As much as I can get in in
English, what I am really doing is cutting out a lot of other material to get
to the routine that I like. The entrance was designed with other routines in
mind. So I have to find a new way in. A better way in. And that makes me think
about openers. Ways into conversations.
That brings me to the next point. Opening scripts. All they are are really
accessible routines. "Did you know Elvis died his hair" Super accessible. Can
start a conversation or fill a silence. Can reactivate a dormant conversation.
Super accessible. That is why it is good.
So here we have a little thought. Hoping for your thought and input into other
ways, but what I am thinking is that all my accessible routines have this one
thing in common. They go like this: "I saw / heard / read something interesting
the other day." Now you need to state something interesting. An AIDS group
giving away free condoms is not by itself interesting. It needs little kids
getting them to give you a little "wow" experience. That can then relate to
some experience from your life that can go anywhere.
So the process, at its most complex looks like this:
Recent occurrence --> wow --> reminds me of something else --> sidetrack to
routine.
So thinking about the Elvis script as a cliché. It goes "You know what I heard
the other day?" (recent occurrence) --> "Elvis died his hair" (wow) --> "What
colour do you think it was? Dirty blonde!" (more wow). End of routine. So how
can we improve it? By saying it reminds you of something else which leads to an
interesting / sexy routine. It is a great start, because it is a nice wow.
But the wows needn't be so big. RJ loves the entrance "So I was reading this
article the other day (about the difference between compulsion and attraction
or whatever)." Without a wow. That is part of where SS sucks. There is a limit
to the number of these you can use.
You can come into a story by. "So check this out, I was down in Boston last
week and" or "I was sitting in this coffee shop, and there was this guy right,"
or any other RECENT OCCURANCE. Or you can recount a RECENT CONVERSATION. "Look,
I had this really interesting conversation with a business associate the other
day where he lead me to Descartes famous "I think therefore I am." so bear with
me for a couple of minutes and lets step through the Socratic debate. I think
you'll find it worth while." Or I was sitting on the aeroplane beside this guy
who was instrumental in unlocking the Human Genome ... interesting guy and ..."
or you can go with something you recently read. "I was reading this article on
blah." or recently saw "I saw this film "Memento" the other day ... have you
seen it? It is fantastic, I won’t spoil it for you, but the main guy had no
long term memory at all. Like nothing. So he had to write himself notes and
that is like ..."
So those thoughts written, lets come back to the pop star thing. The only way,
I can see of anchouring it needs to be via a story. So retain the
ex-girlfriend. Now I have to regress back to when I would have had a 13 year
old girlfriend. What are the things you do for the first time when you are 13?
What anchour could possibly take me back to being 13? Clumsy courtship, riding
a bicycle too fast and crashing. First taste of alcohol (or any chosen drug).
Pimples. Growing pains. Things you learned in school in 8th grade (dissecting a
pregnant frog, or a sheep’s heart for example) .What could take her back? First
period. Learning to apply makeup. Teen idols (this is where we want to go.
Could I link straight to teen idols? Lets try:) So I was walking past the
Hilton the other day, and there must have been some sort of teen idol staying
there. Crowds of thirteen year old girls yelling and screaming. Wetting
themselves. And I remember my first serious girlfriend. Her father hated me.
Because she used to be into teen idols... (Routine)... and then all those
feelings were transferred to me. Can you imagine? All those thoughts and
feelings you had for (Bon Jovi) suddenly go snap to me? (as you push her
submodality). Her father knew she was about to get fucked." Good? Better? Too
blatant? Easy to do in Spanish? Sure. There is my process:
Recent occurrence --> reminds me of ex --> routine. There is a wow missing. How
can I put in a wow? "They started taking off their knickers right there in the
street and throwing them. 13 year old female knickers flying. I am serious."
There is a wow. Too sexual? It is a wow (albeit a small one, if I made it
bigger it would definitely be too sexual). Better than the last entrance?
Almost just as complex. I’ll see how many I can come up with. This is just an
example of a new thinking process in routine design.
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