5 tips to make you a better copywriter right now
Remove Qualifications. You don’t need to apologize for, justify, or explain why you’re writing something. You can just write it! When you write, “It seems like these days bad writing is everywhere” you can instantly make it better by dropping the qualifications. Just say, “Bad writing is everywhere.” Boom. Isn’t that much stronger? Qualifications take the muscle out of a sentence. Remove those, and your piece will become instantly 25% better.
Remove double words. Every time you use a word, it loses a little bit of its power. If you describe an entrepreneur in your first paragraph as “savvy” and then go on to describe their business, their competition, and their product as “savvy” too, the word “savvy” becomes weaker each time’s used. Take a look at what you’ve written and find replacements for any double words you’ve used.
Jump straight into the action. In pitch decks and creative treatments, people feel like they need to ramp up into the action. They’ll write things like, “We open the video by seeing a shot of a woman riding a motorcycle fast.” They should simply write, “A woman rides a motorcycle fast.” That sentence jumps straight into the action, and helps the reader imagine it without having to push aside all the other words.
Use short sentences. The student drummer plays a simple beat, because that’s all she knows. The amateur drummer plays a complex beat, because she knows complex techniques. And the professional drummer plays the simple beat once again–but with feeling! There’s a bell curve of complexity in the journey of every creator. Writing is the same. Amateur writers weave complex words together to form long sentences because they know how. But professional writers craft short sentences with boldness, because they know how to cut to the heart of the reader.
Avoid common expressions. Expressions and figures of speech are shortcuts to explain things. Asking an employee to “get their ducks in a row” as a quick shortcut in conversation is fine. But not in writing. We’ve all heard “get your ducks in a row” so many times that it has lost its true meaning. We aren’t picturing ducks or rows when we read this. Everyone has a different association with that phrase, depending on how it was used around them. Instead, craft a phrase that speaks to your audience in a way that’s vivid to them.
Keep the editor’s voice out of your mind as you write. But invite the editor in once you’ve finished the writing. Before you publish, if you can remove qualifications and double words, jump straight into the action with short sentences, and create your own expressions, everyone will be complimenting you on how well you write.
