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Poetry in Motion
Active prose is like Viagra for copy
Tired of limp, flaccid and ineffectual copy? Want to get some led in your pencil? Creating vivid and memorable copy that draws a reader in and evokes an emotional response is the biggest challenge when it comes to writing copy.
What's the cause of most lifeless copy? Not realising the difference between 'active' and 'passive'. Let's look at a very simple example:
Passive:
"Wizely was embarrassed by the lack of get-up-and-go."
Active:
"The lack of get-up-and-go embarrassed Wizely."
What I've done is moved the subject of the sentence (the lack of get-up-and-go) to the start. It's easy to confuse the subject of a sentence – you may have thought that it was Wizely? Not so my friends…
The subject of a sentence 'does' an action. The object of a sentence has the action 'done' to it. So, in the example above Wizely is in fact the object.
Moving the subject to the start offers another advantage – it eliminates cluttering words. In the example above I could trim out 'was' and 'by the' which served only as clarifiers and got between the subject and object. See it now?
Here's another 'real-life' example:
Passive:
"Another advantage is offered by moving the subject to the start."
Active:
"Moving the subject to the start offers another advantage."
See how the 'active' version (which, of course I used!) is more direct, less cluttered and easier to read? Imagine converting all your copy into active prose.
Here's one last example that could be limply hanging around on your site:
Passive:
"A good website design can improve the effectiveness of a site."
Active:
"Get more customers with our award-winning site designs."
See how much better that is? Why wouldn't you make your copy active?
In the last example I combined several other techniques to make the sentence active:
• I moved the subject to the start of the sentence
• I made the subject matter to the reader ('What's in it for me?')
• I gave the reader 'ownership' of the subject (it's no longer just a website).
• I eliminated the conditional 'can' to be more assertive
• I added how the reader's business is improved (i.e. 'Get more customers')
• I changed the weak 'good web design' to 'award-winning web design' to show a concrete reason why the designs are good.
• I added 'our' so the reader knows your designs provide the benefit – it's not just what happens with any design.
Hopefully you can see there's a lot of work going into even the shortest of sentences.
e-motion
Web pages offer all sorts of opportunities for interaction. Great you say, and quite rightly, there couldn't possibly be a drawback could there? You won't be surprised to hear me say it has a detrimental effect on copy.
Your site's static copy can seem just that. More than in any other medium, web copy must be active and in motion or be overwhelmed by a web page's other elements. How can static text be in motion? Well I'm glad you asked…
Here's some of examples:
Passive and static:
"To reach the full potential of your web design use more effective copy"
Active and moving:
"Effective copy unleashes the potential of your web design"
Passive and static:
"Good quality design improves the ROI of websites"
Active and moving:
"Boost your website's ROI through our high quality designs"
Passive and static:
"SEO services will create more traffic to your site"
Active and moving:
"Drive traffic to your site through our visitor-grabbing SEO services"
As well as the previous methods – what else is going-on? Strong verbs that imply a physical motion (unleash, boost, drive, grab) create the impression of motion, helping bring flat, static prose to life. Strong verbs work best right next to the subject of a sentence.
Can cluttered copy, in reality, ever be effective even when it's in an active form and not in a passive form?
Oooh that hurt to write that! Clutter is the enemy of vivid, active and effective prose – it suffocates your message, stifles your voice, slows the reader down, creates confusion and conveys an amateurish image. Some judicious weeding is needed.
Weeding-out clutter
Before you go massacring your prize roses, let's take a moment to identify some particularly invasive 'clutter weeds':
• Repetition – repeating yourself by saying the same thing again more than once. Redundancy – unnecessary words that serve no function.
• No 'sherbet' Sherlock – statin' the bloomin' obvious!
• Filters – words that put a barrier between the subject and the object of a sentence.
• Hyperbol**ks – Over use and doubling-up of hyperbole.
• Clarifiers – overusing words to clarify what's happening (usually due to poor sentence structure).
Be warned – these tricky devils can be more subtle than you think. Let’s dig into some examples (as always slightly exaggerated to make a point):
Repetition:
"Our low cost designs aren't expensive and won't cost you much." – alright, alright!
"Our beautiful designs are designed to look good." – shame about your copy!
Redundancy:
"We will accurately fine-tune your design." (you can't inaccurately fine-tune something!)
"We help assist you in delivering a good website." (help assist? Really?)
No 'sherbet' Sherlock:
"Our low-cost services are cheaper than the rest and will save you money."
"Our standards-compliant designs adhere to web standards."
Filters:
"Our clients have noticed that our designs give them much better ROI."
"When a client contacts us for help we will immediately respond."
Hyperbol**ks:
"Our designs are like the most amazingly stunning ever."
"Every day we offer clients once-in-a-lifetime offers."
Clarifiers:
"The right design and copy are important, especially the copy, although the design is also useful."
"We meet the needs of large corporations and small business by giving large corporations a strong brand and listening to the needs of small businesses."
Green Finger Fever
My copy must be succinct and clutter free you say? Right… how about this then?:
"I am an experienced web designer. Improve your site's ROI with my designs. Contact me for a quote."
Avoid pulling-up your roses when weeding-out clutter. Effective prose is active, persuasive, descriptive; it conveys personality and style, it flows, it leads the reader on and engages a response… Balance is needed.
In this article, through subtle weaving of concepts, you've been subliminally exposed to lots - things we've covered and things we're going to be covering very soon such as rhythm and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).
Be careful when writing vivid, active prose - too much and it seems contrived and pushy. It's all about balance. We'll look into this more when we take a look at 'copy writing to sell'.
As the series progresses I will show you the most important skill when it comes to all this - knowing when and how to break the 'rules' effectively. Sorry, but first you have to master it!
Don't worry we'll be discussing all these points throughout the series. But we're going to be loading-up your toolbox as we go. Next we'll see the importance of rhythm in 'Part 7 – An Ear for Copy'.
This post has been edited by wizely: 22 February 2010 - 03:25 AM
