The Specific

I get a tape of a comedian named Ray Romano. I just asked him, “Tell me about yourself, where you come from” and he said, “I got twin boys and an older daughter, and my family lives close by and they're always bothering me. My brother Is older and he's a police sergeant and he lives with them. He's divorced. He's jealous of me. He saw an award that I won for stand-up and he said, ‘Never ends for Raymond. Everybody loves Raymond.’”

I thought, That's a good place to start! The lesson is, the more specific you get—not just in writing, but in everything in life—the more universal it becomes, the more people you hit. Because we all deal in specificity. So even if there's a crazy thing about you that isn’t something I do, I'm going to relate to it because I do a crazy thing too. The hook is the specific.

PHIL ROSENTHAL