Sterling Terrell

smart ideas from books

In Praise Of Short Chapters

In Praise Of Short Chapters

In praise of short chapters?

In praise of all short writing.

Because blathering on and on is easy.

Short impactful sentences are hard.

And like I have said before – a certain chapter or a certain blog post does not have to be the end-all-be-all treatise on what I think about a given issue.

I mean, I have written about short blog posts before. And here.

The hilarious part is that this passage below is the entirety of chapter 26.

Ha!

LATELY READERS HAVE begun to complain about my short chapters, although in my opinion there is no particular reason why a chapter should be long. Does one complain to Rimbaud because of the brevity of his verse? In fact I am old and there are very many subjects about which I have something to say—just not much.

-Larry McMurtry, Hollywood (Amazon)

17 Copywriting Tips

17 Copywriting Tips

These 17 copywriting tips are just 🔥. No lie.

#1
Write with your eraser You get 100 bucks for every word you rub out from your title:

#2
Don’t exaggerate An honest line always feels warmer:

#3
No one cares what you can do Everyone cares what you can do for them.

#4
Avoid the passive voice It’s indirect and awkward:

#5
Don’t kill your personality The best brands feel “real”:

#6
Find the tension “Pleasant” gets forgotten. Conflict creates interest:

#7
Write how you talk Casual. Colloquial. Full of pronouns:

#8
Avoid “contained” titles Write something that pulls the reader down your page:

#9
Avoid “landing page words” Unlock, unleash, enhance, empower, supercharge, etc. Real people don’t use them.

#10
Write scannable copy:

#11
Kill adverbs. Kill adjectives. They’re flowery. They’re vague. They try too hard:

#12
Stories make you memorable I couldn’t list The Ten Commandments. I could tell you what happened to Adam and Eve:

#13
Fence sitters don’t buy Go to the edge:

#14
More periods, fewer commas Periods mean short sentences. We like short sentences. Commas mean long, painful sentences, which New Yorker writers think are clever, but real people find torturous, because they wind on and on without actually saying anything.

#15
Think slippery slide Every line of copy should lead to the next:

#16
Your first line is crucial If people don’t read it, they’re not going to read your second line either. Keep it short:

#17
Copywriting is selling Don’t romanticize it. The goal is to inspire action:

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