If pay attention to the way I write, you will notice on simple bit. I use sentences of various sizes to control how fast or slow you read this book. Go and look. I'll be here waiting for you to come back.
Done? Good. Keep reading.
Good advertisements (and books, magazines, etc.) have a rhythm. Just like your favorite piece of music, they follow a certain beat. Your job, as a copywriter, is to control the beat. Why? To control the eye movement and data processing as people read the adversiment. If you write too long sentences their brain will experience a stack overflow.
Poems are the best example of rhythm there is. In poems, you paint images in the mind of the reader by controlling the poem rhythm. If you wish to talk about sad things (like most poets seem to do), you slow it down. Break every emotion into one line or even one word.
I'm going to write a poem for you. Read it and weep. But pay attention to the rhythm.
It did not compile.
by orangethirty
On that fateful day,
the code I was paid to write
somehow did not want to work
it did not compile.
I searched and searched
to no avail.
My code. Oh my code!
It would not compile.
Angry!
Disappointed!
Ashamed!
All these feelings found a way
into my mind
just because
the code I had just produced
would simply
not compile.
Of course, that poem is not a very good one. But you get the point. If I had written it without any rhythm, then the emotion would have been lost. The point of the poem would have been also been lost. You do not want the point of your ad to be lost. Do you?
You may not have realized it, but computer programs also have rhythms. When you write one, the focus is to make it readable. Not stack too much stuff into a given space so as to not make it seem like a spaghetti bowl. In programming, rhythm is mostly controlled by whitespace and comments. But coding style also plays a part.
Let's use Python and PHP to convey this point.
In Python, whitespace counts. Your programs end up looking tidier than with other languages. Thus, it forces you to have a program rhythm right from the start. Not so with PHP. It forces you to use your own style, which can either be very easy to read (have good rhythm), or just awful. But the syntax of the languages play a big part. In PHP you would write:
public function checkUserStatus ()
{
return $this->status;
}
Look at that rhythm. All the braces and words make it harder to read. The rhythm thus is not really comfortable. You spend too much time reading the syntax.
Note: this is not a stab at PHP. Put down the pitch forks.
Let's see how the same code in python looks:
def check_user_status(self):
return self.status
I know what you are thinking. What does this have to do with writing ads? Simple. If you write an ad that ends up looking like a bowl of spaghetti, guess what? People won't buy anything. But if it is easy to read. Not confusing. Uses short sentences. Varies the reading rhythm from sentence to sentence. Then people. Your buyers. Will buy. More.
Rhythm techniques.
- Vary sentence length. Don't be afraid of using one word sentences.
- Use whitespace at will. A long ad may use white space to reduce how people perceive its length.
- Use punctuation at will. Exclamation points are free! Are interrogation symbols too? Change the pace at will with these.
- Vary paragraph length. Please, no one sentence paragraphs. They are hard to read.
####Exercise
Write a paragraph using the following structure:
One short sentence (up to 4 words). One medium sentence (up to ten words). One long sentence ( > 10 words). Another medium. A short one. Long. Medium.
Now write a paragraph another paragraph composed of long sentences (same subject).
Which one was easier to write, much less read?