Even Dog Stories from the late 1910s did this  -- Editor

Howdy! 

Barb Ling here and after writing about Nancy Drew yesterday, I was reminded of another author whose works I just devouredU in the 1970s - Albert Payson Terhune!   Now, this author was famous during the 1910s-1930s or so as a writer (amongst other things) of dog stories.   

Have you ever heard of Lad, a Dog?  Published in 1919, it depicted stories of his favorite Champion Collie Show Dog, Lad.   His writing style was such that you'd find *yourself* in the middle of the adventure... you could *feel* the surroundings of The Place (aka Sunnybank in Northern NJ which is now a state park), sense the choking chaos of New York City where Lad found himself lost, and breathe in the clean fresh air of the Ramapo Mountains.  

Every chapter had a different theme, but whenever Lad was highlighted, one of his favorite activities was to ensure "His Absurdly Tiny Snowy White Paws" were always sparkly and clean!  

That phrase and activity stood out for me, even 50-odd years later.

His storytelling was masterful!  And think about it - by writing beautifully about his dogs Lad, Bruce, Grey Dawn, Wolf, Treve , etc, it made his primary business (showdogs) even more popular and visible to the American Public.   Heck, one of his canines (I think it was Bruce?) was conscripted to serve in one of the wars during that decade... so his canine's patriotic actions were also visible to the public at large.

Can you imagine having that kind of edge in your business?  

Anywhos, I vividly remember asking my mom when I was in my single digits, "Mom, how does Albert Payson Terhune come up with his stories?"  Her extremely un-romantic answer?  "It's simple for him... he follows a formula.  Take a dog.  Add personal daily life adventures and embellish them.  Sell the stories.  Rinse and repeat."

I was a kid back then, not yet jaded, so I *knew* my mom was wrong - what about the magic that surrounds the reader like a warm cozy blanket and keeps the real-life troubles away, for at least an hour?  Huh?  Huh?

Wow, I miss those days.    

But back to Albert Payson Terhune... Start reading his books, and you'll realize that yep, my Mom really was right!  He *did* follow a formula.  He *did* craft an outline for all of his books, even when he veered away from dogs (did you know, he wrote over 50 books himself)?
​​​​​​​
An outline.   A dog.  An adventure.  A moral lesson (one of my favs is from his book Wolf, where a boy is being swept down a river and as he grabs a branch in an effort to save himself, he repeats "courage consists of hanging on... one minute longer."). A happy ending.  Mix 'em all together and what do you have?  An extremely usable hugely generic "How to write a dog story" outline.

But ...

What if you added more details?

What if, instead of a dog story book, you wanted to create a real product you could profit with?
 

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