William Zinsser

On writing badly

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“Don’t fight such a current if it feels right. Trust your material if it’s taking you into terrain you didn’t intend to enter but where the vibrations are good. Adjust your style accordingly and proceed to whatever destination you reach. Don’t become a prisoner of a preconceived plan. Writing is no respecter of blueprints.”

I’m re-reading William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well. I don’t like this book. I have several reasons why, but one is that I don’t like the style.

The passage above is one example. It comes from a chapter on “unity.” That’s what Zinsser calls being consistent with your pronouns, your tense, and your mood. But…

It seems no one told William Zinsser about being consistent with your imagery. So in the passage above, the reader is first floating on a body of water (current). Then he’s on hard land (terrain) or perhaps a volcano (vibrations). Suddenly, he seems to be in trouble with the law (a prisoner) and finally he’s building a house (blueprints).

My point is that a lot of the “rules” of writing well, even by supposed authorities like Zinsser, don’t mean much. A good writer can break these rules. So can a mediocre writer.

My advice, in case you want it, is to not worry about the rules of “good” writing. Instead, spend your energy on looking for something new or unique to say. And if you don’t know where to find such stuff, then start with what’s already been written by others — “On Writing Well” — and turn it on its head.

At least that’s what I do. Each day, I write a few hundred words like this. My goal is to say something new or unique about writing, persuasion, and marketing.

I’ve got an email newsletter where I publish these daily essays. In case the vibrations are good and you want to reach the destination of being subscribed to this newsletter, then click here and float down the current it leads you to.

Creating your own luck as a copywriter

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Two days ago, it was snowing heavily in the town where I’ve been for the past few weeks.

That’s unusual. The place is at the seaside, and the weather is usually sunny and mild, even in winter.

But the last few days, no. It’s been gray, cold, and ugly.

That’s why this morning, I had trouble getting out the door for my usual “wake me up” walk.

“Look at it,” I told myself. “The wind is blowing the shutters down. Dark clouds are gathering above. I’m sure it will be freezing.”

Somehow, I didn’t listen to this reasoning. I went out.

The first thing I noticed was how warm it was. From last night — around 3 degrees Celsius — the temperature had jumped to about 15. (From high 30s to around 60F, if you only do American.)

There was a strong wind blowing from the south. I guess it brought in the warmth.

But the wind did something else also. I saw it when I got down to the seashore.

The normally calm sea, which never makes waves bigger than a foot or so, was crashing against the shore in big swells. The streets nearest the sea were flooded with water.

And each time a new wave broke against the stone rampart that separates the sea from the town, a 3-4 meter geyser of sea water gushed up into the air, and then collapsed on the other side, onto the road.

I, a person who is rarely impressed or enthused, thought it looked spectacular.

The few other people who were out at 7am on a Saturday seemed to think the same. They were standing spellbound, staring at the water show.

As I was walking home from this, I remembered something I read in William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.

“The nonfiction writer has to create his own luck,” Zinsser wrote. He was talking about traveling to unusual places and following the story wherever it leads you.

I don’t consider myself a writer. But Zinsser’s advice applies even if you do marketing or write sales copy for a living.

Because inspiration for a breakthrough hook (or just a daily email) can come from anywhere. But it’s unlikely to come from the same places everybody else has already milked — the same articles, blogs, and YouPorn comment threads.

So go and create your own luck. Read things other people aren’t reading. Go to places other people aren’t going. Or at the very least, get out the door, even if looks ugly outside.

If you’d like to read something few other people read, you can subscribe to my daily email newsletter.

On writing badly

by

“Don’t fight such a current if it feels right. Trust your material if it’s taking you into terrain you didn’t intend to enter but where the vibrations are good. Adjust your style accordingly and proceed to whatever destination you reach. Don’t become a prisoner of a preconceived plan. Writing is no respecter of blueprints.”

I’m re-reading William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well. I don’t like this book. I have several reasons why, but one is that I don’t like the style.

The passage above is one example. It comes from a chapter on “unity.” That’s what Zinsser calls being consistent with your pronouns, your tense, and your mood. But…

It seems no one told William Zinsser about being consistent with your imagery. So in the passage above, the reader is first floating on a body of water (current). Then he’s on hard land (terrain) or perhaps a volcano (vibrations). Suddenly, he seems to be in trouble with the law (a prisoner) and finally he’s building a house (blueprints).

My point is that a lot of the “rules” of writing well, even by supposed authorities like Zinsser, don’t mean much. A good writer can break these rules. So can a mediocre writer.

My advice, in case you want it, is to not worry about the rules of “good” writing. Instead, spend your energy on looking for something new or unique to say. And if you don’t know where to find such stuff, then start with what’s already been written by others — “On Writing Well” — and turn it on its head.

At least that’s what I do. Each day, I write a few hundred words like this. My goal is to say something new or unique about writing, persuasion, and marketing.

I’ve got an email newsletter where I publish these daily essays. In case the vibrations are good and you want to reach the destination of being subscribed to this newsletter, then click here and float down the current it leads you to.

How to avoid email copy that’s like a sack of wet eggs

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A UK supermarket named Morrisons became the target of Internet bullying yesterday after shoppers tweeted photos of a bizarre item on sale there.

“This is the most wretched and cursed item I have ever witnessed,” one person wrote.

The item in question is a purse-sized plastic bag of hard-boiled, peeled eggs, swimming in a preservative liquid. Each bag says it has only 5 eggs, but actually has more than 40 — and you can catch ’em all for just 1 GBP.

Morissons tried to joke away the sacks of wet eggs on its shelves. But what can you say? The bags look wretched and cursed. No amount of twitter fiddling can fix that.

These days, along with the Daily Mail, where I read the above story, I’m also re-reading William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.

One idea that Zinsser beats into your head is that “writing is rewriting.”

No. I don’t agree.

You can rewrite to make your writing tighter… to clean it up… to do away with cliches or vague words.

But if you start out with a sack of wet eggs, no amount of rewriting will get you a final product that’s anything but wretched and cursed.

You have to have something to say at the start. And more importantly, you have to have the right mood to sell it. Matt Furey, who pretty much invented the daily email format, put it this way:

“It isn’t just the words that do the selling. It’s the emotion behind the words. Remove the emotion and you don’t have great copy. So it makes sense to me that you spend as much time learning how to raise your level of vibration as you do learning marketing and copywriting strategies.”

Speaking of daily emails:

I’ve got an email newsletter, and I email daily. No cursed or wretched items here though. At Bejakovic supermarket, we make sure all our emails are fresh and appetizing. If you’d like to try a sample, you can sign up here.

Blare your sales message loudly at your readers

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I took a walk through town today and I heard a busker chirping on a flute.

My brain immediately started playing the Chinese dance from the Nutcracker. That’s not the tune the busker was playing. But it didn’t matter, because that’s how our brains work.

Our brains get influenced all the time by random sounds, words, and touches. Most of the time, we’re not even aware this is happening. Take a look at Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. It gives lots of examples of decisions that were swayed, often in big ways, by an unnoticed detail in the environment.

Of course, this has consequences if you’re writing copy. For example, one classic bit of advice is to edit your first draft heavily. Make it as tight as possible. Follow William Zinsser, who wrote:

“Most adverbs are unnecessary. You will clutter your sentence and annoy the reader if you choose a verb that has a specific meaning and then add an adverb that carries the same meaning. Don’t tell us that the radio blared loudly; ‘blare’ connotes loudness.”

“Blare” does connote loudness. But maybe “loudly” triggers the brain in a way that “blare” does not. Words redundant in meaning might not be redundant in effect.

So should you stop editing your copy? No. The fewer words you can get your point across in, the better.

But don’t be a slave to the advice of people like William Zinsser. Use your own taste and emotional response to make the call whether a word stays in or not.

John Caples once gave an example of how an ad improved with a bit of redundancy. The original ad read, “Most of these articles are exclusive with this store.” The improved ad read, “Most of these articles are exclusive with this store — cannot be obtained elsewhere.”

The point Caples was making is that more words can help you explain your meaning better. That includes emotional meaning too. Because you don’t know for sure which hook will finally catch your fish, or which word will prime your prospect into buying.

Want more info on editing your copy? It’s one of the topics I cover in my daily email newsletter. If you’re interested, click here to subscribe.