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“Spectacular!” Does that word get the blood pumping a little? It should, because that’s how we’re conditioned to react to the next term in my examination of Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama: Spectacle.

Our generation certainly gets its share of spectacle, in the form of zillion-dollar summer blockbusters on the IMAX super-mega screen (“Now with BrainBuster GoogolPhonic Sound!”), extravagant corporate presentations employing all the latest multimedia technology, and amusement parks the size of cities. In fact, as we grow increasingly jaded to the bombardment, the bombardiers have to scale up their ammo, producing an endless upward spiral of bigger and shinier and louder. (Well, endless until we all go blind and deaf, anyway.)

But Aristotle defines “spectacle” much more broadly than in our normal use of the word. In the classical theatre, spectacle refers to all the visual elements of a drama — costumes, sets, makeup (or masks), lighting, and special effects. I would argue that it also includes sound effects, from the venerable thunder sheet and trumpets of Shakespeare’s day to the surround-sound capabilities of modern stagings. Even the ancient Greeks used a form of amplification by sculpting the mouths of their masks into a kind of megaphone.

At first glance, it would seem that writing can’t hold a candle to other media for spectacle. In fact, the opposite is true. Good writing can tap directly into the reader’s mind to summon any sounds, any images, no matter how spectacular. Our imaginations can paint more vivid pictures and sounds than the most extravagant motion picture could ever hope to do. And when you write your marketing copy, you’ve got to paint those pictures for your reader.

Say you’re a travel agent trying to get people interested in booking a flight to Hawaii. You could talk about great low fares or great customer service at the hotels, and those features might score points, sure. But how much more powerful is it to evoke a sunrise on the beach, the swaying of palm trees, the sparkling waves?

By setting the scene just an author does in a novel, the reader is actually pulled into that ideal dream-moment, giving him such a strong taste of the final benefit of your product that he MUST buy, or call for more info, or send off that application, or whatever you want him to do. Make your readers see, hear, and feel the ideal state your product or service promises, and you’ve bypassed the rational “Yes, but” part of the brain and gone straight for the imagination, where all bets are off and anything is possible. Your reader’s mind is the ultimate billboard, just waiting to be tickled with stirring, comforting, or jaw-dropping images.

So get to writing, and make a spectacle of yourself!