Now this is prevalent in copywriting, but it applies to ALL impactful writing. And impactful writing? That’s a big part of how I make my money. So it matters to me.
Wait…
…this isn’t the best way to start this. Let me rewind for a moment.
Starting over.
Have you ever wrote something, like a title or a sales letter or even a poem or a piece of fiction, it could be anything…
…and somebody said to you something like:
Classic title!
Or
Great example of a villanelle!
Or
Dude, that sales letter copy was golden!
Or really any number of compliments that focus on your WRITING and not what you are writing ABOUT.
While these folks mean well…
…they are really sending you a red flag. They are telling you that THEY were not so interested in what you were talking about…
…that they didn’t recognize what you were writing. You were not invisible.
The writer’s equivalent of smelling your own farts. Do you like to smell your own farts? I know I don’t.
Gary Halbert said in The Boron Letters:
“The best writing goes unnoticed.”
You don’t want people recognizing that you are writing well. You want them to engage with and be interested in what you are writing.
That’s not just copywriting either. That is any piece of writing that you would like to be impactful.
If I’m writing a poem, I don’t want you to pay attention to my structure.
If I’m writing a sales letter, I don’t want you paying attention to my marketing angles or my Johnson Box.
If I’m writing a piece of fiction, I don’t want you complimenting me on my “classic plot device.”
Now…I know there are those among you who might say, “Well, actually Kam poets do use the structure of the poem as a literary device and the reader is meant to perceive it as a form of expression…”
And to that I would say, you are right, and you are wrong.
Yes the poet uses the structure of the poem as a form of expression to add to the poem itself.
But also, it is done as a way to pull the reader further into the art.
If the reader is “appreciating” the structure…
…then there is a very good chance that they truly haven’t been pulled into the piece the way the poet intended.
And I take a special point to speak on poems in particular here because they are in fact one of the least impactful forms of writing today.
And you’ll know this by how hard it is to sell a volume of poetry if you are not a celebrity.
People say all kinds of sh*t…
…but they vote with their wallets. And not many people are buying poetry these days.
That is a good indication that the work is not truly impactful.
Perhaps, lost in a sea of structure and “smelling its own farts.”
Now don’t get me wrong. I love poetry and the folks who write it today. I’m just saying, impact is something else.
But the question then arises:
How does one be impactful then?
I’ll tell you how.
You need to adopt the principles and philosophies of the greats that came before you, yes…
…but you can’t imitate them. You have to figure out how to it in your own way.
Why?
Because everybody already knows their work. And when you imitate them, they see their work in your work.
That pulls their attention out of your work, and now focuses it on your technique and style.
It’s the thing that nobody wants to here.
You have to find a way to be original.
But you know what? It’s easier than you think. God put you on this earth as an original. All you need to do is remember how to be yourself.
Do you need to educate? Sure you do.
Do you need to study the greats that came before you? I would recommend it.
Do you need to KEEP doing those things like some kind of perpetual high school student that never graduated? Lol…yeah that sounds about right to me…unfortunately.
However…
Whatever you learn from the greats…
Just remember…
…you aren’t them. You can’t be them. You can only be you. And nobody can be you better than you can.
You know what the secret to impactful writing is?
It is to be genuine.
Have an AWESOME f-bomb Saturday!
That is all I got.
Kam
P.S. I wrote this with Purple Rain by Prince pinging around in my brain. I have no idea how it got there. I haven’t listened to that song in years. But there it was, just the same. Let’s go out on that one…
“I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted one time to see you laughing
I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple ra…”
I mean…Purple Rain is a classic 💪 I hear ya, Kam- God didn’t create duplicates. Be original. Be genuine…smelly farts and all.