2. Keep It Short

It is quite common to have a lot to say, but most people do not have much time to listen – or read. So the first rule of copywriting is: keep it short. Remember that you are not a novelist; your audience is not asking you to give them something to read on the beach. Instead, think of your copy as a journey that the reader has to undertake to arrive at the message you are trying to pass on. No matter how interesting (and it should be interesting), your readers will want to get to the end in the quickest possible time, so help them by providing the most direct route. Get rid of any detours and use short cuts where possible.

The ‘keep it short’ rule applies to words, sentences and entire texts. In your copy, every word should count. There should be no padding, no dross. With everything you write, look to see if you can cut the number of words you use and still retain meaning. Do this once, twice, as many times as you can. What you will find is that every time you cut words, your message becomes more direct and more powerful, because you are stripping away excess to reveal the core of what you want to say.

Let’s take an example. Here is a fairly straightforward commercial message:

‘The reason why you should buy my book, which is called How to Set Up a Freelance Writing Business, is that it will help you to become a better writer and make more money.’

At 34 words, you might think this is pretty succinct. But watch:

‘The reason you should buy my book, How to Set Up a Freelance Writing Business, is it will help you to become a better writer and make more money.’

We have taken out five words without changing the meaning of the sentence at all. What were those words doing? Just taking up space and time – and preventing the reader from progressing quickly onto the next important point. If you look carefully at any text, you will usually find there are words that simply sit around without contributing to the meaning of sentences. The word ‘that’ is a good example; it can usually be replaced by ‘which’, or taken out altogether.

Now let’s see if we can cut away even more. How about:

‘Buy my book, How to Set Up a Freelance Writing Business – it will help you to become a better writer and make more money.’ (24 words)

Or even:

‘Buy my book, become a better writer and make more money.’ (11 words)

Notice how each time words are taken away, the message becomes more direct and thus more powerful. How far can we go with this process? The core message in this example might simply be: ‘Buy my book’ – just three words, or less than nine per cent of the original sentence.

Don’t just keep sentences short. Try to break up long paragraphs and words, too. Your aim should always be to minimise the number of syllables, or even letters, in your text. If in doubt, it is preferable to have a string of short words than a single long word. Better still, break up your long words and then rearrange each sentence so you get rid of some of the shorter words you have just created.

Watch out for unnecessary punctuation, too. In essence, if punctuation marks can be taken out of a sentence without changing its meaning or making it more difficult to understand, then get rid of them. Consider the following:

‘Chief executive, Alan X, says: . . .’

And:

‘Chief executive Alan X says: . . .’

Notice how the commas in the first line are not adding any information or clarification to the sentence. So they have to go. Notice also, however, that the commas would be justified if Alan X’s name were being mentioned in a subordinate clause, as in:

‘Company Y’s chief executive, Alan X, says: . . .’

In a similar vein, leave full stops out of common abbreviations like ‘Mr’ or ‘mph’.

How long should sentences be?

As a general rule, unless you are writing for a particularly highbrow audience, no sentence of commercial copy has any right to be much longer than about 50 words. For an intro, the first line of your text, you need to hook the reader with a short, sharp statement, so try to stick to 25 words or fewer. Keeping to these word counts will make your text easier to read. It will help you in other ways, too, for example in forcing you to clarify what you are trying to say and making you break your message down into small, bite-sized chunks of information.

Note that these word counts are for guidance only and will depend on the exact project you are working on. Be particularly wary of long sentences (and paragraphs) if you are writing for electronic media (because it is difficult to scan long lines of text on a screen) or direct mail. For advertising, where your intro is usually a headline, 25 words of copy is far too much. Aim for a dozen words maximum in your headline but remember the name of the game is to write as little, rather than as much, as possible. If you can summarise your ad in one word of copy, then do it.