Brevity
Pic by a shadow of my future self.
I may be making this up, but I recall a wonderfully utopian bike-sharing scheme descending on Ipswich many years ago. Bikes were bought, sprayed green, and left around the town at dedicated bike parks. No fee necessary; no deposit required. Take a bike, ride it around, and leave at any bike park when you’re finished. The scheme would create more healthy people and reduce traffic in and around the town. Brilliant.
Of course, as soon as the free bikes were available, they were all nicked.
Theory and reality are two very different things.
Same with copywriting. I read books on my craft, and they’re chock full of advice on cutting out words. Less is more, they cry. And who could argue? Brevity, after all, is the soul of wit.
Yet many clients don’t like brevity. They like pompous jargon – it’s what they used to. To them, copywriting is the art of ‘flowering up’ their words. So when I rip the flimsy petals from their beds of waffle, they don’t like it much. So the hogwash goes back in and their smiles return.
Which is fine, of course. Clients put food in my fridge. They can have whatever words they want.
So my brevity fix stays hungry. Twitter stories are fun: 140 characters leave little room for flannel. But six word stories? I’m having some of that.
Please miss the next train home.
That’s all.