Want to Engage? Be a Dabbler.

Whether you're writing an ad or a novel, a poem or a script, there's one thing you've got to do -- engage your audience. Okay, that much is obvious. How to do it? There are thousands of ways, but I want to mention one key method that often gets overlooked.

Be interesting.

Generally, this means you have to introduce something the audience doesn't know about. That means you yourself have to be interesting. You have to be well-read, educated, have diverse interests. Being a writer is one of the few professions where it pays to dabble. Be a dabbler. Take up oil painting. Travel to out-of-the-way, unlikely spots. Take an interest in steampunk. Or twelfth-century Italy. Or scour the Internet for obscure pop references like Crispin Glover's bizarre appearance on Letterman. (See, I bet if you didn't know about that, you're officially interested. Try to deny it.) Or read up on rare psychological disorders, like Fregoli delusion, where a person believes that different people he or she meets is actually the same person in disguise or with the ability to change his or her appearance.

The world is filled with interesting bits, you just have to come out of the cave every once in awhile.