7/3/2008
On Being a Copyunwriter
Image via WikipediaSometimes I think the true art of copywriting is knowing what to leave out. One of my favorite quotes is this from Blaise Pascal –
I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
Smart man! Our tendency is to say too much. In sales, we had an expression for a long, boring, sales presentation that dwelt on product features. We called it an ‘information dump”.
Information dumps are common because information dumps are easy. Salespeople know all the details about their product. Spewing them out comes naturally. But stripping the message down to its essentials, conveying only the thing people need to know — that takes work.
Yes, it’s a rare presentation or Web page that can’t be improved by eliminating a bit of text. However, none of us enjoys relegating our words to the circular file. We can always find reasons galore to add text, but parting with one superfluous clause will cause enough separation anxiety to baffle Sigmund Freud. I’ve had far more disagreements with clients over which words to leave out than which to leave in.
As Pascal knew, being a copywriter is easy. Being a copyunwriter — that takes work!
So how are your unwriting skills? Do you enjoy editing, or is it a thankless, depressing chore?
10 Responses to On Being a Copyunwriter
Hi Brad, unwriting is as much art as composing the initial piece. I have come to enjoy the process but it took time to get there. When I was younger, I was married to every word on the page! I most enjoy when someone else unwrites for me.
If I find myself attached to a sentence or two, I copy them into a new document. In this way I haven’t banished it entirely and I am free to use it in the future in a new text.
Karen, Great idea about saving edits for later. You probably have quite a library by now.
Karen, My last comment came out wrong. Didn’t mean to imply your writing needs a lot of editing, just that you have produced quite a bit of material over your career.
I don’t know, Brad. Maybe I’m weird. Or something.
For me, the best part of writing is the copywriting, because that’s when I take the rough draft and really smack it into shape. I find that part of the job fun, actually.
Pruning, shaping, shifting things around – it’s really fun to see it finally come together.
By the way, nice save up there with Karen…
Hi Brad, I was also thinking you’d be wishing you could do some unwriting with your comment to Karen
Good job we’re all friends.
I have to say I enjoy the editing process – but more so when I’m editing other peoples stuff than my own
Joanna
Robert, It’s not weird to like editing – I can see the attraction anyway. You are a craftsman and seem to like details. Fine qualities for a writer or editor.
Joanna, LOL … Leadership by unexample. Editing other people’s work does seem to be less stressful … why is that?
Brad, ROFL! Your clean-up was even funnier than the original comment. LOL! Yes, actually it is a nifty little trick because those fragments can be spun into nice new stories or inserted in business pieces when you’re looking for a phrase. There are also those that once I move out of the original doc, I just delete.
I agree with Joanna, it is always easier to edit for others as you are not “emotionally” invested and can do so with an objective eye.
Brad,
You guys ever heard of “Strunk and White?”
The company I work in a call center for has a proposal-writing guide that quotes William Strunk Jr.:
“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts”
-Sam
Sam, S&W is a great resource and you remind me I need to get a copy.
Hi Brad
I like the Pascal quote. I think Mark Twain said something similar.
Like Karen, I find it easier these days to let go of some of my “best” phrases if they don’t do anything for the piece. I really enjoy editing. As Robert says, it’s quite fun to move the pieces of the word jigsaw around to fit.
As Joanna and Karen say, it’s much easier to edit other people’s work objectively.