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For exactly that reason. The job of a copywriter is to find the 'essential truth' in an image that could as banal as a five year old playing with a washtub. Th

For exactly that reason. The job of a copywriter is to find the 'essential truth' in an image that could as banal as a five year old playing with a washtub. That essential truth has to be something that a large number of people can 'get' within two seconds on reading it and require no further context or explanation. And it has to be patently non-obvious or cliched. It's not enough to say 'they grow up fast.' There are also tricks of the trade in the way he has structured the sentence that you're probably not even consciously aware of - such as the punchline of 'capture it' being left to the end of the sentence so you have to read the whole thing to understand it. Or the simple, evocative 'The joy of being five', which brings to mind all sorts of associations and sets the context for the punchline. 'Imagine what it's like being a child' doesn't have the same impact, does it? If that sounds simple - try doing the same with a random image from Google Images or something you've seen in the news. You'll find that it's not easy. Copywriting is an art like any other.

mcculley 10y ago
Is there a good book on copywriting that you could recommend?
- kristianc 10y ago
  I love 'Comedy Writing for Late Night TV' by Joe Toplyn which is a 'behind the curtain' look at writing for late night TV and what makes certain lines 'work' and what doesn't. It's writing to be funny, but the principles you write to be funny are actually fairly similar to those you just use for good copywriting generally. I liked his 'Surprise Theory of Comedy', used by the line above in fact. https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-Short-Form/dp/0615953891 https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-S... A lot of great writers end up writing for comedy shows - if you end up in a writing team you get both the promise of a regular paycheck and a constant creative challenge creating lines around new news stories. The 'magic' of copywriting is really knowing maybe twenty really useful mental tools inside out, and executing on them the best way possible. What you tend to find with copywriting is that everyone recommends the same seven books - Cialdini, D&AD etc, I guess like with programming where everyone suggests you read Code Complete - but a lot of them are quite long in the tooth, and have an annoying tendency to just hold lines up and say 'here, this is great copywriting', rather than really break down what makes lines work. That said if you're really brand new to it I'd recommend Hey Whipple, Squeeze This as a good starter for 10. Online, ComedyWire is probably one of the best examples I've seen both for seeing great writers at work and practicing yourself. It's kind of like Hacker News for Comedy - people submit lines in response to news stories and the best ones get upvoted.

mcculley 10y ago

Is there a good book on copywriting that you could recommend?

kristianc 10y ago
I love 'Comedy Writing for Late Night TV' by Joe Toplyn which is a 'behind the curtain' look at writing for late night TV and what makes certain lines 'work' and what doesn't. It's writing to be funny, but the principles you write to be funny are actually fairly similar to those you just use for good copywriting generally. I liked his 'Surprise Theory of Comedy', used by the line above in fact. https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-Short-Form/dp/0615953891 https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-S... A lot of great writers end up writing for comedy shows - if you end up in a writing team you get both the promise of a regular paycheck and a constant creative challenge creating lines around new news stories. The 'magic' of copywriting is really knowing maybe twenty really useful mental tools inside out, and executing on them the best way possible. What you tend to find with copywriting is that everyone recommends the same seven books - Cialdini, D&AD etc, I guess like with programming where everyone suggests you read Code Complete - but a lot of them are quite long in the tooth, and have an annoying tendency to just hold lines up and say 'here, this is great copywriting', rather than really break down what makes lines work. That said if you're really brand new to it I'd recommend Hey Whipple, Squeeze This as a good starter for 10. Online, ComedyWire is probably one of the best examples I've seen both for seeing great writers at work and practicing yourself. It's kind of like Hacker News for Comedy - people submit lines in response to news stories and the best ones get upvoted.