On startups, writing, and writing for startups

a famous writer, I can’t remember who at this point, once advised that you stop writing — either for a break or for the day — not at the end of a thought, but in the middle. the idea is that it’ll still be there when you get back (despite your fears otherwise), and when you do get back to it, you’ll start in the middle of something. no staring at a blank screen wondering what to do next, and no writers block. just the continuation of flow, and even from session-to-session and day-to-day, a good rhythm.

why am I passing this along? not just because I think it’s good advice, but because I think it highlights a point about good copy: you need rhythm. all good speeches have it. all good comedy has it. all good poetry has it. all good novels, even, if they’re well-edited, have it. and more than anything, all good copy needs to have it. rhythm.

rhythm isn’t just about saying the rights things, it’s about saying them in the right order (and at the right time). it’s about communicating ideas in an easy, effortless, and attractive way. get it wrong, and the reader has to work for what you’re communicating (if they understand it at all). get it right, and the reader not only effortlessly receives your point, but gets it with the thrill that only great communication and understanding can bring.

in other words, good rhythm not only helps someone understand your idea, it helps them become an advocate of it. for startups, new tech startups especially, that’s important.

most writers (and most hacks, for that matter), are taught to use powerful words. words that wow the reader. words that are beautiful, and replace other, less desirable (and presumably) less effective words. one example: love replaces like. simple enough, and used enough, especially when you read poetry (or novels, for that matter).

but here’s the rub. in copy, we aren’t shooting for beauty; we’re shooting for effectiveness (they’re not the same thing, though they’re often synonymous). we aren’t trying to wow the reader; we’re trying to be honest. many times, in this case, the “less powerful” word (though that distinction is obviously pretty fucked), is more effective. take an intro paragraph for example, and the love v. like comparison. “we’d love for you to look around the site” sounds disingenuous to me. it sounds whimsical, idealistic, and fake. “We’d like you to look around” sounds better. it sounds real… like the real people behind the site actually mean it. the word like may be less powerful, but when honesty outflanks beauty, like outflanks love.

make sense? if not, here it is simply: for effective copy, dial down your vocabularly. write like you’d talk. to a friend.

Good writing is authoritative. It knows what it wants to say, and then it says it. simple as that. Bad writing, on the other hand, winds, dips, and dives through various, disconnected thoughts… never getting to a point, and never giving anything of actual value to the reader.

What does this have to do with writing rules, and knowing the rules of writing? Well… putting top-quality words to page isn’t all that different to putting formal fork-and-knife to filet mignon: you may want to break the rules (like using that smaller fork because it works better for this course), and you should if it feels right. But you want to know the rules to start with too. If you know the rules, you can use them - and break them - with some authority.

What’s my point? You gotta know the rules of writing to write good copy. And no, that doesn’t mean you have to make flash cards out of your high-school English text book. But it might mean you should take a peak. Or at least take a copy of Elements of Style out of the Public Library. Learn what a semi-colon actually does (and doesn’t do). Learn when to use a parentheses, and when to just use a comma. Learn other stuff. Learn to write with authority.

Then, find your natural voice.