Do you have once-a-year books?

Philip K. Dick.

In the writing game, I feel that you need to consume more than you produce. That is, writers should really read more than they write. Busy lifestyles command more of our time in ever thinning slices, but reading should be a top priority for anyone who communicates in a professional setting. How you divide that time is up to you: some prefer magazines, others prefer non-fiction. I maintain that a variety of styles and sources is best for a well-rounded “education” on writing. I think reading deeply is as important as reading widely. The path to mastery is not one, but many. I try to read the most pertinent in my collection at least once a year, to remind myself of certain facts and certain perspectives.

Non-fiction

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

I’ve mentioned this book on the blog before, but it’s more relevant than ever. Those scratching their heads at how the US populace could elect a Reality TV president, this book written 30 years prior gives insight other commentators merely skirt around. I mean, we already had the Reality TV war (Iraq) and the Reality TV terror attack (September 11), was a Reality TV leader of the free world that far-fetched? Postman shows us a media culture obsessed with “feel-good” over “facts,” and the biases of our mediums that conspire to keep it that way.

Language in Thought and Action by Samuel I. Hayakawa

The “popular” text on General Semantics and language studies, a must for those who want to discover their own semantic biases and the biases of others. It too delves into logic games, multi-valued orientations vs. two-valued “absolutisms”, poetry and the advertiser, what words really “mean”, and much more. An essential book for those working in communications.

Fiction

Nineteen-Eighty Four by George Orwell

This book was one of the first I’d read in high school and has stuck with me ever since. I think I’m attracted to the linguistic element of the book, Newspeak, and the narrowing of our experience as Big Brother eliminates complex ideas. “You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words,” says Parsons, our protagonist Winston Smith’s co-worker in the Ministry of Truth. Reading it sends a chill down my spine each time. Compare “Ministry of Truth” to “Social Justice” or “Fake news.”

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

One of the first ever books I’d read of Philip K. Dick, and one that demonstrates the power of words to craft an alternate reality. The mention or non-mention of certain phrases and passages turns a world on our head, as does the revelation and suppression of certain bits of information. It’s a philosophical tome, a book about running out of time, and much more.

Do you have once-a-year-books?

Spare Me The Details

“Tell me all the details!” is a well-worn piece of dialogue from romcoms and sitcoms – usually as two women in pyjamas hold wine and sit down on a couch. Being the word nerd that I am, I often wonder – what if the storyteller took what she said literally?

The sometimes physicist, sometimes wizard Robert Anton Wilson once wrote that creating a map of a territory – let’s say my hometown of Melbourne – with perfect detail would require a map so large it would be identical to Melbourne itself. It would contain trillions of moving parts, right down to those fast food wrappers blowing about Flinders Street Station.  “Perfect detail” is impossible, for our brains cannot comprehend it.

An incomplete, but still useful, map.

So, communication is imperfect and subject to distortion on the way from sender to receiver. Many businesses bog themselves down in the detail, believing that more detail is better. Heaping more “detail” on with words about your product or service increases the chance of distortion. So the model you present to the world is now:

• Not representative of the whole, and;

• Possibly incorrect once it reaches the person you’re showing it to.

Politics wonks bury themselves in the detail, sometimes reams and reams of it. Apathetic types may bemoan the “soundbite” culture of politics, but politicians are savvy enough to realise detail is unimportant, because detail is incomprehensible. Elections are won and lost on getting the amount of detail wrong. Just look at former Liberal opposition leader Dr. John Hewson lose the 1993 “unlosable” Federal Election getting bogged down in – you guessed it, detail.

The days when the 6.30 shows actually meant something. Not the crap that is on now.

How much detail is enough?

So how much detail is enough? Why is detail a bad thing? Of course, it’s neither good nor bad, but most effective when applied with forethought. For a business, too much detail can end up dead on arrival to your intended audience (which is another amorphous blob that contains too much individual elements to get right.) So whatever you end up communicating is incomplete, but useful.

Take my 1:1 map example. A 1:1 map doesn’t help me navigate around Melbourne. However remove most of the detail, shrink it down into a two-dimensional representation, and I can still make my way from Flinders St. to the Town Hall up Swanston in the form of a map. The connection between map and territory is more useful, even with many details left out.

For some, the more you look the less you see. Do you ever feel frustrated by detail?

Are You Too Far Away to Persuade?

First off, thanks to all who attended my BBN Seminar at Sandringham Yacht Club on Monday, 9 May. I very much appreciated it! One of the more resonant pieces from my talk was about distance and wordiness. Wordiness - adding too many words for the sake of adding words - creates more distance between yourself and your audience.

The thing about wordiness is this: it creates more flaming hoops to jump through for your reader. If your reader has to sit there, his or her eyes scanning the page waiting for crucial information to leap out at them, they will eventually give up. If people can’t understand the value of your product or service, it may as well have no value.

I had a client that was all into arts and crafts – her business was making custom greeting cards, candles, gifts, that sort of thing. She knew her website content wasn’t working, so I looked through it. Her writing seemed stilted and impenetrable. I didn’t understand what she was selling or why she was selling it. As part of my usual process, I conduct an interview with my clients to get information on the business. It allows me to get to know who they are as people, so I can better express their unique point of view. The person I talked to was such a departure from the “person” on the website, I was almost beside myself. Jamie, or Freckles as her friends call her, was colourful, bubbly, friendly and her website was grey, static, lifeless. It didn’t make sense!

Freckles didn’t play to Freckle’s strengths. Freckles made a craft corner in her bedroom into a hobby business, which is now her full time business. She had that playful, youthful energy about her, and it wasn’t anywhere on the website. That’s because her copy didn’t cut to the core of what Freckles was about – making custom candles and gifts for you is your gift to her. It didn’t come through because there were just too many wrong words on the page for people to get a sense of her.

A lot of writing is cutting. Stephen King said it best – writing (or any creative endeavour) is all about “murdering your darlings” – cutting the unneeded words, sentences, paragraphs. However, the process of writing as writing isn’t thought about as talking onto a page. That’s kind of what it is – we’re substituting our ears for our eyes. What we can't hear we see, and what we're told to see, we imagine. We want to lead our reader down a path toward understanding, familiarity and above all, trust.

It works with business, it works with dating, it works with any human interaction - if you're writing, just be yourself first! It closes your "credibility gap" from page to person.

What do you think? Does wordiness turn you off?

A Word Sparking Star Wars and Real Wars

Star Wars: The Force Awakens drowned us this summer, with merchandising ranging from mascara to oranges on store shelves. Once I saw the new film, I wanted to see the original theatrical versions, undiluted by George Lucas’ meddling. Lucasfilm insists they no longer exist. Of course, legions of fans took it upon themselves to reconstruct the films using a variety of sources. The most controversial change in the first film takes place in the Mos Eisley cantina scene. (spoiler alert – but really, you should’ve seen Star Wars by now!) Green gilled and bug-eyed Greedo corners smuggler Han Solo. Han’s a marked man and Greedo’s itching to collect. In the original version, (after stalling and Han drawing his blaster) Han shoots Greedo “in cold blood.” Here’s what the shooting script says:

“Suddenly the slimy alien disappears in a blinding flash of light.  Han pulls his smoking gun from beneath the table as the other patrons look on in bemused amazement.”

Later revisions show Greedo shooting first, then Han and Greedo shooting at the same time. “So what?” you might think. This visually insignificant change is one that contains multitudes.

It’s supposed to inform viewers that Solo isn’t so trustworthy. Ben and Luke have put in their lot with this low-life braggart. We’re supposed to feel uneasy about this hasty alliance. It changes the tenor of the film. Han could have sold Ben and Luke if captured by the Imperials, left them for dead at any time, etc.

Another far more tragic example of subtle changes having long reaching effects was during the last gasp of World War II. Japan, threatened by invasion from the United States and fast running out of resources, was determined to fight until the last man. The “Big Three” (United Kingdom, Soviet Union and the US) issued an ultimatum for surrender to the Japanese. The Japanese responded in the negative, but suffered from mistranslation. A word – mokusatsu – has two meanings in Japanese. The first being “ignore” and the other, “refrain from comment.” It was the difference between “let us think about it” and “We refuse!” If the message was translated as “no comment,” the Japanese and US may have arrived at a surrender deal, preventing the twin atomic horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This misinterpretation struck consequences far beyond the imaginations of its writers and readers.

It’s a chilling lesson for clarity and precision in communication. We may think that subtle differences make no difference, although we're proven wrong time and time again. If you believe that words are your ally, do – keep in mind words might turn on you without provocation. Remember always: "Expect to misunderstand and expect to be misunderstood."

The Pointy End Podcast now up!

Tom Valcanis is a journalist, copywriter and political scientist. He believes that words can explode! Well, only if you get the right words. If you can, they won’t just explode once, they'll go on exploding forever.

A month or so ago, I was humbled to be a guest on Active Elements Radio The Pointy End podcast, hosted by Dr. Leslie Fisher. Dr. Fisher is a good friend and colleague of mine, and we've had many long conversations about a variety of topics during our meetings at the NAB Village. The Pointy End is his podcast series looking at "the pointy end" of what people in small business do, in probing and insightful detail. It's a relaxed but no less informative talk...I hope!

It was a great privilege to guest "star" on the podcast, which you can hear above. We talked about the "pointy end" of copywriting, its relation to journalism and media culture as a whole. About 40 minutes - let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Write a Book? You probably have already

I've been copywriting for one of my dearest clients, Savvy Finance, for over a year and a half. Like every business reliant on technology, I back up. Everything. Once to the cloud and again on an external hard drive. Looking all the content I've written for Savvy, I've chalked up 330 articles at the time of writing. Without giving too much away, that's 138,600 words. That's over ten times as long as my master's thesis. The U.S. National Novel Writing Month sets a 50,000 word benchmark - and that's an entire novel. In essence, I've written 2 and a bit books' worth for that great company, and I'm happy to have done it.

So why can't we all write that book? Or at least, something of equal or greater length. It seems that I've already written a few "books" since I started my business all those months ago. Speaking from my own perspective...well, it's all about perspective.

Writing isn't a "supertask" but it can sure feel like it

Writing a book or a long-form piece can feel like a task that will take the better part of your life to complete. It's a supertask - a task which takes infinite time to complete. Sort of like writing down the history of your life in pinpoint detail. It can't be done.

Writing a book can, especially if you break it down into chunks. Or, don't even think about it like a book. A book I'm currently reading, Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard.  It's based on his boyhood, growing up amid World War II in Shanghai. Delving deeper, it reads like a series of vignettes tied together by a common theme. Unconventional, but it works. It won him the James Tait Memorial Prize and a Man Booker Prize shortlisting for his efforts, too.

In your mind, talking is a form of action

Have you ever caught yourself thinking about sending a reply text to someone only to realise you haven't actually done it? Talking about doing things is a form of action in and of itself, although it produces nothing of value. Even subvocalising is a form of "action" for some people. A little less conversation and more action. In fact, this blog post is a product of that - I didn't just think about writing this blog post - I actually did it!

Writing long pieces is what other people do

What's the difference between you and a novel writer? The novel writer was once in your position, now they're published.

Writing isn't it's own reward

If you're writing for the celebrity and the riches, don't. Writing creatively is one of my "rewards" for a day's job well done. It's up there with exercising, cooking a tasty meal and hanging out with friends. Writing should be its own reward. Doing it for others seldom yields good results.

What is your experience with these sorts of writing tasks?

Meditations of a Copywriter

Ever since high school, I've turned to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius lived almost 2,000 years ago. He was a great Emperor, general and statesman of the Roman Empire.

Whether at governing home or locked in the horns of battle, he wrote little reminders to himself based on the stoic philosophy.

So profound were these aphorisms they were bound up into twelve books known as the Meditations. I recently "upgraded" my dog-eared floppy of the Meditations for a hardbound book.

It's been the companion of many high-flyers since their wider publication centuries ago. I too have some meditations on copywriting i've inked over the past year and a bit, and I'd like to post them here for my own and others' reference.

Meditations of a Copywriter

1. This isn't God's work. You're not a "word wizard," a "verb herder," or anything remotely like it. You're a copywriter and you seek to improve your craft every day. There is no end to your apprenticeship. Total mastery is sailing on a ship of fools.

2. Passion sells. I find myself enlivened talking about my work unlike ever before. I talk for hours about it with clients and colleagues. This is your advantage. Use it.

3. If you can't help, add or improve, walk away. Some people turn to me for advice and new words when they don't need them. It is not my place to sell people words they don't need.

4. Cut always. There's rarely a good piece of work that could be great with a few choice edits. Edit always; cruelly and judiciously.

5. Best is the enemy of truly good. If you find you could've phrased something better or wittier months after the fact, let it be. If you didn't slouch about with the time allowed and did the best you could do, take comfort.

6. Let things settle. Words don't improve with age, but an editor's eye does. Take the time to embrace the process. Draft, draft again and finish the journey.

7. Improve yourself when distracted. Sometimes the mental tank will empty. That's fine. Don't read rehashed listicles, faff about on twitter or endlessly scroll Tumblr. If you need a distraction, read or do something of substance.

8. Rhetoric is eternal. Rhetoric and persuasion has been around since the time of Marcus Aurelius himself, even before. Don't be fooled by newfangled "silver bullets," and "super sales words," because they aren't. You and your clients will be left wanting.

9. Miracles don't happen behind a desk. Get out of the house and expand your route. You'll be surprised at what you can find. The world will enrich you in one way or another.

10. Simplicity is key. No one cares if you rattle off $10 words in $100 lots. People aren't impressed. People are impressed when you flip the mundane into something profound.

11. Look at the bright side. You're doing what you love, every day. When things get tough, push harder. Persistence will pay.

Do you have meditations? What are they?

Brevity: The soul of what (where, why, who, how...)

I've a confession to make. I have an addiction. I'm not at all ashamed, despite the dramatic opening. I'm finding myself engrossed by brain training apps.

Many of them are heinously expensive. Paying three figures for glorified Tetris isn't quite worth it. Though I make do with what I have. One app that's made the grade (once I'd exhausted all others) was Elevate. Simple and stimulating. That's not to say they're completely effective, as science suggests.

What struck me immediately was the breadth and depth of the "writing" portion of the "course." One of the portions fortifying the mind was brevity, or omitting needless words. Old Strunk and White may recommended judicious grammatical choices in their masterwork The Elements of Style. Were they actually improving our brainpower?

Perhaps not. The inverse may be true. They could be conserving others' brainpower. In my view, half the battle's won if you're aiming for clear, concise and effective communication.

One side-effect of the academic experience is contracting superfluis verbis; using too many words.

Those privy to the humanities may (fondly?) remember writing essays of pre-determined length. 2,000w, 4,000w, and so on. Why these arbitrary limits? Moreover, why must students learn habits of ineffective communication in preparation for the wider world?

In my view, the academy seeks to conflate "intelligence" with length. If one's professor has trouble navigating Byzantine sentences and concepts, then surely the student has promise. Peppering one's speech with $10 words must indicate a person of higher learning. What nonsense!

Once the student approaches the marketplace, they soon find their unruly and overgrown sentences are in dire need of pruning. It takes many years to unlearn what our student has imbibed.  Co-workers, clients and people in general needn't exert mental effort deciphering your prose. It should flow into them as a river does the ocean. Books I find too clumsy or unwieldy seldom go read. Perhaps you do, too.

My best way to counteract bloated prose? Keep writing. If people have trouble understanding your writing, keeping it simple is best. It's one of my (many) philosophies on copywriting.

Enter the Internet to keep one honest - Hemingway App is a free app to help achieve brevity and clarity in your writing. You can mess around with your settings in Microsoft Word, but Hemingway app is so austere and novel I feel our dear Earnest could settle for it over his old Corona No. 4.

What's your take? Is brevity the soul of good writing?

How do words explode a thousand times?

Hiring others is more than getting someone with a skill you don't have to complete a task for you.

I realised earlier this week that writing words isn't just a service, but an investment.

Copywriting and content is an investment that pays dividends over and over again. Like the great Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin said many years ago: "Books are of the same chemical composition as dynamite. The only difference is that a piece of dynamite only explodes once, whereas a book explode a thousand times."

In a business sense, your words are written once and potentially convert hundreds, thousands - even millions of readers into customers. Think of your favourite book. How many times have those words been read by millions, even billions of people?

Think of slogans like "Just Do It" and "I'm Lovin' It." It's almost impossible to think of those three words and separate them from their brands. These precious little words "explode" in the mind, impossible to ignore.

How do you get your words to "explode a thousand times?" If you aren't content with doing it yourself, you hire professional and practical copywriters in your stead. It's a form of short-term business building and long-term investment.

Hiring external contractors to write your copy not only saves time and effort on your part, it's also:

• A form of passive income. Good copywriting increases web traffic. Great copywriting converts them into customers.

• Gives your brand identity. A consistent tone and voice sets your brand apart from the rest. It's vital for all businesses to lend familiarity and consistency in their dealings with customers.

• Forms part of your overall marketing strategy. Consistent blog posts and other marketing materials increases your reach and potential customer base.

If you or someone you know is willing to make an investment in words that attract, engage and convert, contact me today! I'll make sure your words "explode a thousand times," too!

The Word on Words: Once read, twice remembered, thrice quoted

Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy remarked, "Mobilised the English language into battle." But how did he achieve such a feat? One of the many rhetorical devices Churchill effectively employed, and often, was the Tricolon. The tricolon, derived from Isocolon, is a figure of speech using three parts, or cola, balanced in structure, weight and rhythm.

It's more simply known as the "list of three." Referring to an impassioned defence of his homeland during the Battle of Britain in August, 1940, he said ""Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." The last part is a perfect tricolon.

So powerful is this rule, history incorrectly remembers Churchill talking of "blood, sweat and tears" after his appointment to the prime ministership. In actuality, he said "blood, toil, tears and sweat." Which is an example of a less memorable tetracolon.

Sources: Historywow.com and The Elements of Eloquence, by Mark Forsyth