Break The Rules // Copywriting Tip

Big top tip for writing better copy.

This is a fun one. Daring even.

Break the rules.

So often I see writing which isn't readable. And by that I don't mean you can't understand it. I don't even mean it's necessarily badly written. 

When I say it isn't readable, I mean when I start reading it, I quickly lose interest in going any further. The likelihood is very few people will read on.

One of the big reasons why this happens is because the writing sounds too much like writing. If I'm reading something and I'm consciously aware of the fact that what I'm reading is writing, then it has failed at what it is supposed to do.

The main purpose of copywriting is to communicate a message.

One way to do this is to break t’ rules. The rules that you learnt at school about what constitutes 'good' writing, are often not that helpful.

Sure, there are some unbreakable laws and foundations of the English language that cannot be broken. But there is also a lot of stuff that you can kind of just throw out.

Nobody is marking your work anymore. The only grade you're going to get given, is; did they read it or not.

Break the rules. The boundaries are gone. The gates have swung wide. Be yourself.

It's been said a thousand times before that you should write how you speak. (I’m not saying that anything in this blog is particularly revolutionary – I’m just relaying it to you, who has hopefully never heard it said like this before.)

I think writing how you speak means breaking the rules. Because the reality is, we don't speak how we were taught to write.

When we read, we read in our own voice. The words shouldn’t just exist on the page but jump off it, into our brain. The message transmitted. The words themselves forgotten.

When we struggle to read something it's usually because we struggle to read it in our own voice. We’re far too aware of the words getting in the way of the message.

So how do we break the rules?

Well, you kind of do what you want. That’s the fun thing about it.

Use your words, not the ones you found in a thesaurus. (Although I do love a good thesaurus - there's a time and a place.)

But the problem is, long fancy words tend to just scream ‘Hey, look at me, I’m a fancy word!’… And you’ve lost the reader.

Speak informally. Use the first and second persons. You're speaking to a person after all.

Start sentences with and and but (see above). Use ellipsis. Short paragraphs. 

White space… 

Be different.

Yes, you've got to do it well. I'm not saying that quality and structure and rhythm don't matter. Of course, they do. A lot of thought still has to go into what you’re writing. That’s where the whole writing like you speak thing falls down. Writing is an entirely different process to speaking and is far from instantaneous. 

The point is, it’s got to read as if it is instantaneous. So, if it communicates the message and reads well out loud, go for it. 

Remember nobody's marking your work. All that’s going to happen is they ignore it or they take notice.

This is my invitation to you to break the rules.