Keep it Simple

Writing is first and foremost a communication tool. What you say matter, but so does how you say it.

Your writing should be approachable. Friendly. Digestible.

Copywriting is a craft, not an art, but it has one thing in common with poetry. Every word has a job. Words that clutter your sentences and make them longer for no reason need to be cut.

Write like you talk, only better. Because we can slow down and edit, writing gives us the opportunity to communicate more articulately than when we speak. But some writers, especially beginners, overdo it. They use too many words. They aim for formal instead of relaxed, and their sentences are inelegant, awkward and at times incomprehensible.

If you can take some words out without breaking the sentence, take them out.

If that’s not enough, if you find yourself staring at a convoluted or constipated mess, ask yourself: what are you trying to say? Don’t look at what you’ve already written. Close your eyes and answer the question like you’re explaining it to a friend over coffee. Say the answer out loud, then write down what you just said. Chances are, it will be clearer than whatever you started with.

And break up your sentences into bite-sized paragraphs.

If you flip through some novels written in the 19h century, you’ll notice that entire pages go by without a single paragraph break. Some of those blocks of text are big enough to kill a human being. Even literature professors groan when they see them nowadays.

Hardly anyone writes that way anymore, but still, the more paragraph breaks you can squeeze in the better. It’s a bit counter intuitive, but if you break 500 words into eight paragraphs instead of six, the text looks shorter even if your readers have to scroll farther down the page to get to the bottom.

And shorter text is inviting. It asks to be read. It can be scanned. Long sentences and even longer paragraphs are off-putting. They look like homework assignments. Like chores.

Writing may be a chore, but if your web site visitors glance at what you’re written and think reading it will be a chore, they won’t read it.

Don’t be afraid to murder your darlings, as William Faulkner once put it. When it’s time to edit, scrutinize what you’ve written with ruthless objectivity. You may find that some of your favorite passages have to be cut if they bog down your work or take readers off into tangents. It may hurt a little (or even a lot), but sometimes it has to be done.

Lastly, if your final draft isn’t shorter than your first draft, you’re doing it wrong. As Blaise Pascal once said, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”