February 28, 1993:
KWTX reporter John McLemore pulled into Mount Carmel, a compound near Waco, Texas.
He was there with his cameraman, Dan Mulloney, after they were tipped off about a weapons raid. The two newsman followed a convoy of ATF vehicles to the remote, sprawling property, where dozens of Branch Davidians were living and following a 33-year-old cult leader named David Koresh.
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The newsmen weren’t expecting anything unusual.
“I’m thinking, they’re gonna kick in the front door,” said McLemore, “I’m gonna get a couple interviews and I’ll be home for a late lunch.”
Instead he became part of a ferocious gunfight, which lasted over two hours, killed four agents, and wounded twenty-eight more.
I watched this unfold in Waco: American Apocalypse.
It’s a Netflix docuseries about the siege. The reporter, John McLemore was interviewed. He said the ATF commandeered his Ford Bronco, using it to evacuate injured agents:
“We put a guy in the back, and then put a person in the front seat next to me,” he said. “And then the most extraordinary thing, the thing I will never forget, happened. This agent, shot in the chest—and he was in bad shape, bleeding, I could hear him moaning and groaning—and he kind of looks at me. He goes: ‘Will you put my wedding ring back on my finger?’ His wedding ring had slipped over the knuckle. So I pushed it back down—and all I could think about,” said McLemore, “was my wife.”
In Blake Snyder’s excellent screenwriting book, Save The Cat:
He talks about how important it is to give your character stakes.
“Give him stakes, real stakes, primal stakes,” explains Snyder. “Stakes that are basic, that we understand… We respond best to stories of husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons. Why?” he asks. “Because we all have these people in our lives. You say ‘father’ and I see my father… We all have them and it gets our attention because of that. It’s an immediate attention-getter because we have a primal connection to those people. To those words, even.”
Primal stakes hijack our interest.
This happens in any situation:
John McLemore saw a desperate man, a man clinging to his wedding ring, to his wife—but he could not see his situation. He could only see his own wife, his person. The human condition is self-serving this way, whether we’re in an emergency, or watching a movie, or reading an ad. Yes.
So, copywriters:
Show your prospect a spouse, a child, a father or mother—and she will see her people, her life. And now, you have her attention.
Now, she’s listening to you.
