Accidental Magic: The Wizard's Techniques for Writing Words Worth 1,000 Pictures

by Roy H. Williams

160 unposed moments of life miraculously caught forever on film, juxtaposed against the words of world-class master persuaders.
Accidental Magic  is a photo essay book of striking black-and-white snapshots taken by amateur photographers and interpreted into words by graduates of Wizard Academy. It also contains some of the most potent writing and communication techniques taught at the Wizard Academy. 

Genres: Writing

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 25, 2001

Reviews

[Conrad Zero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accidental Magic is really two books in one. The first 35 pages are weapons-grade writing techniques taken from Roy H Williams' "Wizard Academy" courses. The techniques include 'Frosting' a la Robert Frost and 'Seussing' a la Dr. Seuss, and using painting techniques from Monet and writing tips from Hemingway. The techniques seem geared towards poetry and advertising but extend quite well to fiction.

The remainder of the book is filled with examples of those techniques applied (by Wizard Academy graduates) by way of poems inspired by amateur black-and-white photographs. The saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words" is challenged by the author this way:

"So the magic in the photographs is accidental but the magic in the words... intentional. Which snapshot do you suppose will be more interesting?"