2 ways to be a better copywriter

Recently someone approached me via Linked In to get my advice about how to be a better writer. Naturally I was very flattered. But, to be perfectly honest, I was even more surprised. I certainly don’t consider myself to be any kind of teacher – especially when it comes to writing.

In fact, I began my career in advertising as an art director. So the fact that I ended up becoming a copywriter probably says more about my art direction abilities (or lack thereof) than it does about my writing skills.

However, I have been writing for a very long time. In fact, almost as soon as I figured out how to read (and I was a late starter in that area), I was writing stories. Most of those stories were very poor copies of the books I was reading at the time; Enid Blyton (The Famous Five, The Secret Seven), Franklin W. Dixon (The Hardy Boys), Robert Arthur Jr. (Alfred Hitchcock & The Three Detectives) and others like them. But occasionally, very occasionally, there would be a little glimmer of originality, a nice turn of phrase or a surprisingly good piece of description. And, as you would expect, I found that the more I read and the more I wrote, the better I became.

And this would be essence of the advice I would give to any wannabe advertising copywriter.

If you truly want to be a good writer, you need to read and you need to write.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? But the problem is, many so-called professional copywriters don’t do nearly enough of either.

Let me explain my thinking on this.

1. The importance of reading.

Before you pick up a pen or open a Word file, read.

Read all the time. Reading gives you the input that will eventually influence your output. It will over time help you develop your grammar skills - almost subconsciously. Personally, I can’t articulate the formal rules about grammar, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, split infinitives (whatever they are) and so on. But, because I’ve spent my whole life reading, I know how writing works and what makes sense without necessarily knowing the technical reasons why it works.

So, spend less time on Facebook or Linked In or Candy Crush and more time reading via a book app or, better still, a real, live, honest-to-God paper book.

Read fiction rather than non-fiction. Fiction writers have to suspend disbelief in their readers as well as tell a damn good story, so copywriters can learn a great deal from them. My personal favourite authors are:

Stephen King for his uncanny ability to pull you right into his story and make you miss your bus stop or train station. He’s written an excellent book on writing called, appropriately enough, Stephen King: On Writing. Every writer should read it.

Dean Koontz for the way he adjusts the length of his sentences and chapters to build and release tension and the way he crafts his books page by page, almost as if they were sculptures. If you were to compare his work from even just 5 years ago to the way he writes today, you would see a marked difference, development and improvement.

James Lee Burke for his amazing powers of description, dialog and character development. When he describes a scene you don’t only picture it in your head, you can hear, taste and smell it. If you can read one of his descriptions of an ice cold beer inside an ice cold glass and not want to grab a beer of your own, you have far greater will power than me.

Michael Chabon for writing the most perfect, gorgeous sentences you will ever read.

Robert B Parker whose prose is as precise, impactful and powerful as the bullets and punches his classic private investigator hero Spenser dishes out.

And of course the incomparable Ray Bradbury, whose imaginative powers were exceeded only by the deceptive simplicity, elegance and power of his writing. After I read any Bradbury story I want to get open my laptop and start writing myself.

Check out George Orwell. He wrote an essay in 1946 called Politics and the English Language that should be prescribed reading for any would be (or practicing) advertising copywriter. You can find it here: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Next, read and learn from the advertising masters. I’m not talking about the David Drogas or the Dan Weidens of today. I’m talking about the guys who genuinely revolutionized advertising thinking way back in the 1960’s.

Check out The Bill Bernbach Book by the late Bob Levinson and What’s the Big Idea by George Lois. You’ll probably have to buy them on Amazon but they are well worth the investment.

Look beyond the limited fonts, low DPI resolution and B/W images of the layouts and study the precision and contrariness of the thinking behind them. Levinson and Julian Koenig’s prose for the ads in the The Bill Bernbach Book coupled perfectly with the radical and brutal simplicity of Helmut Krone’s layouts to create campaigns that were completely different from anything that had gone before.

Study the thinking and sheer ballsiness of Lois’ work in What’s The Big Idea. This guy was doing viral campaigns long before the planners who coined that dreadful term were born.

One more book that should be in every copywriter’s collection is D&AD’s The Copy Book, where the world’s leading advertising wordsmiths tell you in their own words how they go about pursuing their craft. They’ll give you a lot more useful information than I ever could.

Obviously the World Wide Web is a vast source of information. (Arguably too vast.) I would recommend that yo check out the following blogs:

Dave Trott’s Blog: www.davetrott.co.uk

The master. In the 1980’s this guy had major UK talent taking huge pay cuts to work for and learn from him. Some of the world’s leading creatives got their start with him. And with this blog you can learn from him too and even interact with him. Study not only the precision of his thinking, look at the way he presents his thoughts and his style of writing.

Bob Hoffman’s Ad Contrarian blog: www.adcontrarian.blogspot.com

Before you get suckered into the latest, coolest digital and social media trends, check out what Bob Hoffman has to say and the way he says it. Cranky, contrary (like it says on the tin), argumentative, frequently very funny and always thought provoking, you'll learn lots here.

George Tannenbaum’s Ad Aged Blog: www.adaged.blogspot.com

Tannenbaum covers a lot of ground, from musings about the advertising of past and the challenges the ad business faces today to personal anecdotes, stories and social commentary. His blog is very well written too.

Richie Siegel’s Round Seventeen Blog: www.roundseventeen.blogspot.com

Usually humorous, often cranky, Siegel offers a considerable amount of information and food for thought about the current state of our industry.

Mark Fenske’s blog : http://markfenske.com/

A former award-winning copywriter, Fenske is now a professor at VCU Brand Center, teaching his students how to write for advertising. By all accounts his blog is almost as good as the full time course.

Linds Redding’s blog: http://www.lindsredding.com/2012/03/11/a-overdue-lesson-in-perspective/

Read this tragic but ultimately very powerful blog by the late Linds Redding and learn the most important lesson about your advertising career.

2. Write, write and then write some more.

As Stephen King says in the aforementioned Stephen King: On Writing, “The writer writes.” So write every day.

Start a blog – if you don’t have one already.

Create spec work if you don’t have a job.

Look at current campaigns that you like but had no part of and reverse engineer and write the creative strategy and rationale behind them.

Write anything and everything.

Factual articles. Short stories or novels. Poems. Radio scripts and screenplays. Write letters (not emails).

Just write and write and write. (When you’re not reading.)

If you really want to develop a career as a copywriter you need to get a full-time role. In Singapore there are no shortage of roles for freelance writers. And it’s fun. You get to work in different agencies with different kinds of people and different kinds of accounts. But, while this can be very useful and the freedom and relatively stress-free life of a freelancer is undoubtedly very attractive, it ultimately does little to develop you as a writer.

Most of the freelance creatives I’ve worked with over the years, be they writers or art directors, have stopped growing and developing. I’ve found that, no matter how long they’ve been in the business, they've remained at the same relative skill level they were when they began their freelance careers.

There are a number of reasons for this. Freelancers don’t have responsibilities for learning and developing a business or client. They don’t face the same expectations of improvement and growth that a full-time creative does. And they don’t get the investment of time and mentoring from a more senior creative figure like a group head or creative director. As a result, their standard of work remains functional but static.

So do what you have to and get into an agency. Make it a point to work with people a lot better than you. Get your ass kicked regularly. Be astonished. Be jealous. Be angry. Be determined to do much better.

Ask for opinions about what you have written from anybody (not just your CD or group head) and listen carefully. As a creative, your first instinct is to defend your work. And as a writer you are naturally well equipped with the words to do so. But that doesn’t necessarily mean your point of view is right.

Ask for as many different assignments as you can handle and teach yourself to write in different styles. While you will naturally have your own ‘voice’, your job is to communicate to different groups of people and you need to talk to these people in the language that they will best understand. For example, the way you write about financial services and the way you write about beauty products will obviously have to be very different.

I have worked with writers who continually use the same turns of phrase no matter what they are writing about or who they are writing to. These are the people who end up freelancing permanently because their ‘style’ is so stymied and predictable.

One approach that I’ve found very useful to help me write in a style that is markedly different from my normal ‘voice’ is to read the magazines and periodicals that my target audience would read. For example, if I am writing an ad for a skin care product targeted to women, I would read as many women’s magazines as possible, focusing on the editorial material rather than the ads. After a while, I find I can synthesise the correct tone of voice that I need so that my writing becomes, for lack of a better word, more “feminine”. The same principle can be applied to any new writing style required of you: read the relevant publications that your target audience reads and practice your mimicking skills.

The good news is that, because of there is a dearth of good copywriters in Singapore, it’s not that difficult to get a job as a writer.

The bad news is that to be a good writer you’re going to have to work very hard at it. But then, if you really love writing, that’s hardly bad news, is it?