If you pour sap straight from a sugar maple onto your pancakes, you'll regret it. But boil 35 gallons down to one, and you'll have syrup to die for.

It's like good copywriting. 

You already know, I hope, that long copy outsells short. But there's long and there's l-o-n-g. Self-indulgent rambling sells nothing.

When I write copy, I print and pore over it, red pen in hand, until it resembles a battlefield. Then I revise, reprint, and re-pore. I do this four or five times before I'm happy. As a result, the copy ends up short, punchy—and right.

I just wrote a newsletter article. After putting it through the above-described process, I was in love with all 1,650 words that remained. Then I dumped it into the layout. Oops. 1,310 words too long. Cutting another 80 percent of my beloved words hurt like the dickens. Besides, I was tired. But when I finished, I had to concede that the remaining 20 percent truly wielded power.

The ability to excise all you can without sacrificing meaning, tone or content is a gift. Covet it. Like syrup, the more you boil down copy, the tastier it gets.

Steve Cuno
 


Comments

John Bradfield
10/19/2009 08:13

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John Bradfield
10/19/2009 08:16

As a fellow copywriter, I agree.

in my line of work, I have very limited space, but lack the time to boil things down as much as I'd like. Too many projects on my plate.
But I agree with you completely.

I wish I could take more time with my work. Wasn't it Mark Twain who said, I didn't have time to write you a short letter so I wrote you a long one?

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