Dear Chase,
As much as I love copywriting and using words to sell products for myself or my clients…
I really just enjoy the art of writing. Whether I'm selling or not.
Just the idea of sitting down with a blank page and writing something inspiring.
Although copywriting is an entirely different beast from storytelling or writing an essay, doing one will make you better at all of them.
And I've been thinking over these last few days about some simple tips that I could write to you about.
These aren't particularly groundbreaking, but they're a helpful reminder for anyone who wishes to publish something they're proud of.
Tip #1: Whatever it is, make it more visual.
The thing I think that makes writing great is how it makes me feel. And words alone on a page don't really make me feel anything.
It's only when the words I read inspire some sort of visual imagery that I feel strongly about it. When I read the right words, they make me stop reading and picture something in my head.
This tweet from my friend Ben Bader went platinum a few months ago.
The contents of this tweet are not exactly original. It's not like Ben is the first person to ever state that a normal life is boring and that we could all be doing more.
It's because Ben went above and beyond when explaining exactly what this life looks like. People were able to picture exactly what he's talking about, and he hit a nerve in tens of thousands of people.
That's the impact of visual writing.
When you're describing something, go deeper into detail. And pull details that aren't cliche.
If you're writing about someone who hates their job, don't just say stuff like:
"His boss is an a**hole, and he hates waking up to an alarm every day."
That's cliche. People gloss right over that.
What does his boss say EXACTLY? What does the alarm sound like? Why is it so excruciating? What does it actually FEEL like to wake up that early in the morning and run off 5 hours of sleep every day for years?
Get imaginative. Go further down the rabbit hole.
Tip #2: Edit out the BS, then edit it again.
I know. I get it.
Whenever some writing guru tells me to do this, I get annoyed. It's such a tedious tip. It sounds like filler.
But I can promise you, after writing professionally at a high level for almost 5 years now, that this is really make-or-break for most writers.
People's attention spans are so brittle. It's so easy for someone to read one single line that makes them uninterested and then check out immediately.
ESPECIALLY if you don't have a brand and a reputation behind you.
Some writers can be as boring as they want until they get to the point. 99.5% of writers don't have any such luxury.
You have to be concise. You have to make sure that every single line is entertaining.
One day, it'll require much less editing for you to produce a quality piece of work. You'll instinctively know what the audience won't care for, and it won't even pass the filter before you put it to the page.
Do your best to try and get rid of 10-15% of the words you've written.
One way to practice this is by writing Tweets.
Twitter gives you essentially unlimited characters when you're a premium member, but I still always try to limit it to the 280 characters that actually show on the timeline.
It's a fun little challenge. On such a small scale.
What can you remove or abbreviate to make it more readable, more platform-friendly, and more impactful?
Tip #3: More than one day off is not good for you.
This is a simple one.
The best writers are writing every day, or almost every day.
Around summer of last year, I took quite a bit of time off from writing. Months.
And when I came back, it's like my ability had atrophied. It was very strange, considering that being a decent writer was part of my identity. I worked hard to get it back. But I wasted a lot of time in doing so.
If you really value being a high-quality writer, you'd abide by this. And why wouldn't you value that?
Why wouldn't you want to be able to manipulate people's emotions with just words on a page?
Why wouldn't you want to be able to get people to do whatever you want?
Why wouldn't you want to build an audience of people who admire and respect you so that you can have some sort of lasting impact?
Why wouldn't you want to look to master the skill that has created and destroyed entire empires?
People truly underestimate the skill of writing, Chase.
But I believe that those who follow these 3 tips and continue to read this newsletter will have no problem increasing their skill level so they can write their way to abundance.
Yours truly,
Alex.
Sent from my Cartier Pen
P.S. Make sure you buy Chase's new Client Acquisition Course tomorrow!
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