The Writing Rules or, The Only Commandments I Recite Each Day
The job I hold currently at Lucideas, I took from someone else.
I say take, I mean offered. My copywriter friend, Alan, was working here before me and decided to move on. So he called me up in NZ and asked if I wanted to take over his job and three months later, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur.
I was clearing Alan’s desk and making it my own when I came across a little gem Blu-Tacked to the wall at the desk’s corner.
It was a simple piece of A4 computer paper. And on it, was a list. Scrawled quickly and without ceremony in what looked to be an black inked Artline with a 0.6 tip. There was no title, just eleven points.
Any other writer would also not need a title.
Its instructions were quite clear:
1) Have something to say.
Otherwise, why are you writing? If there’s no purpose, then it will show and people will stop writing.
2) Be specific.
You’ve worked too hard to have some Joe read your piece and not be able to recall exactly what you were talking about. Be sure to mention exactly what you’re trying to say.
3) Choose simple words.
With most people, simple words are what we all know and love. The message gets across clearer. It’s nice to fiddle with English and explore its nuances, but if you come out looking like a douche, then there’s no point.
4) Write short sentences.
Short sentences are easy to read. They’re more punchy too. Biff.
5) Use the active voice (SVO).
Sentences sound better with an subject-verb-object (SVO) structure. It’s more active and quicker to say and read.
‘Joshua plucked out his grandmother’s teeth’ rather than ‘Joshua’s grandmother’s teeth were plucked out by him.’
6) Keep paragraphs short.
Keep to the point. Short paragraphs can get a reasonably long piece of writing read rather quickly. Long paragraphs look intimidating; the look of your writing will scare people before they read it.
7) Eliminate fluff words.
These are words that we tend to add to our copy that don’t actually need to be there.
Quick examples:
“He said that his father helped do his homework.” Take out ‘that’.
“We need to utilize his skills.” ‘Utilize’ doesn’t do what ‘use’ can’t.
Some more examples in this article.
8) Don’t ramble.
Especially in ad copy. You’ve got 2 seconds to grab someone’s attention and 4 seconds to keep it.
Your girlfriend’s father give you 15 seconds to convince him why he should let you take his daughter out. Do you stick to the relevant points, or prattle on about how you’re making a portrait of her using all the photos she’s tagged in on Facebook?
9) Don’t be redundant or repeat yourself.
Repetition is a language device, true. But most of the time it’s not used consciously. It’s annoying enough when people say the same thing over and over. It’s no different in writing. Sometimes, it can be used in a clever way in your writing, but most people don’t use it like that. Don’t you hate it when people repeat themselves all the time to you? You turn off, don’t you? Same goes for writing.
10) Don’t over write.
A lot of writers tend to have a thunderous need that comes from deep within their creative soul to express their thoughts with such great and wondrous illustration and elaboration, that it completely loses the reader in a jumble of articulation and eloquence. We would be wise as the oldest sage to be mindful of such a atrocious risk.
11) Edit ruthlessly.
Wow, that’s a really well-written sentence. Good use of adverbs. I see that it doesn’t really do anything for your message, though. You’ve grown attached to it? Aw. Get over it. It happens.
If I have to condense them, the rules simply state when writing copy, keep it short and to the point, but not without your own bit of zazz.
Maybe Alan wrote this list, maybe it was up on the wall all along. Nevertheless, these commandments were delivered to me (much less dramatically than certain dudes that live in the clouds) and I plan to uphold them the best I can, like any good copywriter should.
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