What Happened to the Happy Side of Halloween?

Raise your hand if you miss those big, toothy grins. On pumpkins, that is. When I was a child, Halloween was about just four things: silly costumes, candy, jack-o'-lanterns, and orange UNICEF collection boxes. It was a happy children's holiday marred only by the occasional over-enthusiastic young ghost terrorizing a younger trick-or-treater and apocryphal tales of Bad People handing out poisoned lolly-pops.

Now, walking around my neighborhood in late October, I see tacky fake cobwebs stretched over long-suffering bushes, lawns planted with fake gravestones, skeletons galore, and maybe a plastic faux jack-o-lantern or two. It's all so . . . ugly. And this doesn't even take into account the various zestfully gory Halloween accouterments that kids can buy at the drugstore.

Now, I realize that the Day of the Dead is a traditional celebration (on November 1 in Mexico) that honors the dead with flowers and food, including sugar skulls. Dressed-up skeletons (catrinas) are part of the festivities. But the grim display outside so many American homes has little to do with folkloric custom. Store-bought "tombstones" and "skulls" are about marketing, not cultural meaning. Letting children buy stretchy pseudo-fabric made in China to mimic cobwebs teaches that the ersatz is preferable to the real, that buying is better than making.

More seriously, turning your lawn into a "graveyard" trivializes the awful finality of death. How are young children supposed to process the distinction between jaunty R.I.P. tombstones -- trotted out in October, packed up in November -- and the real one that forever marks the grave of a grandparent?

While the distant history of Halloween in America was truly scary, a night of pranks (trick or treat) that often turned dangerous or nasty, by mid-century, the holiday had reverted to the child-friendly one I remember. One of the nicest things about it was that -- like Thanksgiving, but even more so -- it wasn't about religion. Everyone could celebrate it.

The biggest thrill was figuring out what you would come as, and how you would assemble your costume from stuff around the house. I remember a friend of mine whose father was a creative director at at an ad agency deciding, perversely, to dress as a ghost. Dad was horrified at this blatant lack of creativity, probably deliberately intended to annoy him. Those were the years when my mother would pounce on my bag of goodies, ostensibly to claim a few choice pieces of candy for herself but actually to check on the edibility of my loot.

Carving the pumpkin was the ultimate challenge, particularly difficult because you were never able to practice. We didn't live in the country, so the pumpkin would need to be purchased. There was just one, and you had to bravely hack away at it, hoping the teeth wouldn't cave in, as they did the year before. Sometimes an expert would materialize, proposing the wisdom of drawing possible tooth outlines with a pen before making the first decisive cut.

Funny how a holiday devoted to tooth-rotting candy had so much to do with the creation of plausible teeth. But even a toothless pumpkin looked wonderful with a candle inside, the flickering yellow light that turned an orange husk into a magical object.

Ah, where are the pumpkins of yesteryear?

When good enough isn't

Experienced editors working know that there is never enough time to perfect every sentence of every lengthy document. And even if there were, people are fallible. Give a roomful of experienced editors a year to edit any piece of writing, and it's likely that they would still overlook some embarrassing error.

But in recent years, I've seen a downhill slide toward "good enough," which is sometimes more like "barely OK."

There are several reasons for this. One is the tyranny of speed. A job done as fast as possible has become more desirable than a job done at reasonable pace with fewer errors. Another reason is a growing cadre of People Who Don't Read Good Writing. If you don't read the good stuff, you aren't likely to write even passable stuff.

Volunteering, nonprofits, and the democratic fallacy

After years of working with nonprofits, and volunteering for several, I've come to understand how they work — or don't. A notion much beloved in the nonprofit world is that it's always important to listen to everyone.

Whether the issue is large or small, the prevailing belief is that a decision should not be made before asking for advice from all stakeholders. Decisions are postponed in the interest of compiling questionnaires and tabulating results. People who have no particular expertise related to the task -- whether developing competitive taglines or determining a chain-of-command structure -- are earnestly requested to weigh in.

And who doesn't love rendering an opinion? Our Web culture has emboldened people to feel qualified to deliver rants and raves about subjects they know next to nothing about. So a board member will remark that his nephew could write a better tagline. Or a committee member will protest that the old way is the best way. And each objection will be duly discussed . . . over hours and days and weeks.

The problems with this level playing-ground approach are that it wastes valuable time, is incredibly frustrating for those who do have expertise, burns out key players and consultants, and results in stagnation or watered-down plans of action.

A typical pacifying tactic is to ask for advice but already be committed to a particular course of action. This is unwise, because people soon realize that their opinions will count for nothing. A better approach is to carve out a limited area in which advice and opinions are requested.

All other types and levels of decision-making should be reserved for the nonprofit executive in charge, and not open to a vote by the board, or this or that committee.

If the executive has been well-chosen for the job, his or her decisions will be generally sound. And if they are not, the nonprofit surely has sufficient checks and balances in place that allow for a change of course -- whether simply a different decision, or a change of direction, or new leadership.

Happy Birthday, Boring!

I'm scanning the greeting card racks for the perfect message, the one that will acknowledge your growing accumulation of birthdays with a unique combination of wit, charm and quiet good taste. Instead, I see grade-school "humor" and saccharine sentiments.

So I turn to cards featuring attractive, contemporary cover artwork, only to read a stupefyingly dull message inside.

It's your day, so enjoy your cake! It's your day, so live it up! It's your day, so here's to you! It's as if the upscale card companies spend all their creative energy on professional design and let their IT people write the copy.

Maybe the problem is that a birthday is so generic (comes every year, everyone has one) that it inherently lacks personality. To mark the occasion, adults tend to do the same sort of things -- eat cake, drink (too much), get presents, feel regretful.

But greeting-card writers need to take this dreary reality and infuse it with fantasy and fun. One of the best cards I've seen lately (and sent to two people) features a grinning little boy prancing in his birthday suit on the cover. Inside, the copy reads, "Birthdays make me feel good all over!"

Stuck in Twitter's echo chamber

OK, I admit it. I've yet to join the Twitterati.

One reason is the echo-chamber effect. You know, the one that appears at the end of any popular article posted on the Web. The usual array of misspelled, angry comments is bad enough, but the tweets are inherently annoying. Who wants to read a long list of almost identical summaries of the post you just read? The effect is like watching a row of those novelty dolls that constantly nod their heads.

I guess the reader is supposed to be impressed that so many tweets have traveled the ether, to be re-tweeted ad infinitum. Maybe this show of Mass Tweetery is intended to function like a town parade. We are powerful, say the Twitterati. Look how we march in unison! Don't you want to join us?

Or maybe those repetitive website tweets are simply the waste products of tweeting — like spent bullet casings or carbon dioxide and water in aerobic respiration.

I say contemporary life is crazy enough without the ya-ya-ya-ya's of the 140-character birdcall.

Standing up for self-deprecation

It always amuses me when a cultured and accomplished English person is interviewed by the American press. Inevitably, the writer marvels at the person's self-effacing remarks. "So-and-so is incredibly modest, despite having written three world-famous plays and won the Man Booker Prize for his most recent novel," the writer burbles. "He claims it was all beginner's luck."

In fact, self-deprecation is an English trait. You are never supposed to brag about your accomplishments, and when they are mentioned, you must pretend that, really, anyone could have done the same thing.

Americans of a certain age may remember that we also were schooled to act like this. It was considered rude to "put yourself forward." Let your deeds speak for themselves, we were told. It is not necessary to remind people of your achievements.

But in today's more hard-edged social realm, the self-deprecator is liable to be taken at her word. If you smile and explain that you were able to deliver a certain lecture because you were the conference organizer's "thirty-ninth choice," your listener will frown. Obviously, you are a hopeless failure, chosen out of sheer desperation. Never mind the improbability of having thirty-eight other potential speakers turn this person down.

Surely no one likes a braggart. But the sensibility attuned to the nuance of self-deprecation appears to be as antiquated as a Henry James heroine. It seems that you now need to state your qualifications in all-caps bold, or risk being entirely misunderstood.

Hello? Paging a client.

I just e-mailed you the project you hired me to write. I even managed to finish it a few days before the deadline we set.

A day goes by, and I don't hear from you. Sure, you're probably too busy to sit down and read all the copy just now, even if you said you were desperate to get it. But couldn't you at least send me a quick "Got it, thanks" message? Because when I don't hear from you, I think, uh-oh.

As in, uh-oh, my e-mail got snagged by your ever-vigilant spam detector. Or as in, uh-oh, you're out sick or taking a vacation, and by the time you get back my e-mail will be buried under bushels of Very Important Messages from Colleagues.

So now I feel I must call you to follow up, even if you are one of those people who always lets the phone ring to voicemail unless your boss is on the line. Maybe you are one of those people who don't even listen to your voicemail. (Why do people have voicemail if they don't listen to it? Surely there's a Zen koan in there somewhere.)

Admittedly, there is more to this than the simple reassurance that my words are reaching your eyes. I've enclosed my initial invoice along with your copy, and I'm naturally keen to know that this little document is on its way to Accounts Payable.*

In larger terms, client communication is the glue that can hold a project together over the weeks and months it takes to obtain sign-offs, do user testing or deal with Legal.

Yes, yes, everyone's busy. But if a project is worth doing in the first place, it's worth putting on your calendar for regular base-touching by e-mail or conference call. Have an agenda, move briskly through it, clarify current impediments and (if necessary) reconfigure the deadlines. Keep us informed, and you keep us on your side.

----------

*If you've only ever had the sort of position that comes with a paycheck at regular intervals, the concept of Waiting for Payment from Clients to Pay Your Bills might seem rather alien. I once had to explain to a foot-dragging nonprofit client that the check I hadn't received was not some sort of fun extra for me but (embarrassing to have to be so dramatic) "the money I live on."

Want to Survey Your Customers? Don't Do This.

How are we doing? We're dying to know. So we'd like to take just 15 minutes of your time (until you give up in disgust) to ask you a whole bunch of questions we haven't thought through very well.

From the U.S. Post Office (which recently sent a four-page, 29-question survey to its business customers) to membership organizations and consumer call centers, everybody is increasingly eager to find out if you're happy with their service.

But they don't make it easy. Here's what's wrong with these questionnaires:

> Too time-consuming. OK, you have a lot on your mind. But what are the top three to five issues? If you want a decent-sized sample, your initial survey should not take longer than five minutes to complete. (You could always return to the responders with more detailed questions, or ask for their e-mail addresses to continue the conversation.)

> Too complicated. Don't make me think too hard! And don't give me too many choices. Do we really need to differentiate between Strongly Agree and Somewhat Agree?

> Not enough options. No place for the user to indicate that s/he has no experience with the service item in question ("Have not used"). This is not the same as "Don't Know," which strikes me as an unwise option. ("Yeah, I'm just a know-nothing.) How about "No Opinion" instead?

> No place for user input. What if there's something I'm dying to tell you about your service, but none of your questions deals with it? Always leave space at the end for this if your format allows.

> Format glitches. If you're using Survey Monkey or a similar application, do a thorough dry run of the completed questionnaire to catch any problems. I recently gave up on a survey that left a space for "Other" that could be filled in but refused to let me proceed unless I checked one of the other boxes. And don't ask a question that obliges the user to keep clicking back to the previous page for vital information.

> 'Creative' questions. I'm a member of an online small-business panel for a web host. They recently asked us to imagine an electronic device for businesses that would be created in the year 2040. People who are not in creative professions tend to clutch when asked to imagine something. What you get is a hazy description of whatever gadget these folks saw in the last sci-fi movie they watched.

> Self-serving questions. Did we deliver world-class service today? Is the sky blue?

Websites Need QC

The other day, I typed the URL of a website for a high-tech company that I wrote a year ago, with the idea of showing it to a potential client. The site’s launch was delayed for various reasons, and by that time I was immersed in other projects. So I had never taken the time to look at it in its public (live) state.

When I finally checked it out, my heart sank. Somebody had awkwardly rewritten the Home page. Other pages were rife with grammatical mistakes and clumsy, extraneous verbiage I’d never seen before.

Actually, this was far from the first time website copy I wrote that was approved by the client had appeared online in sadly altered form. We’ve probably all seen surprisingly stupid mistakes everywhere online, even on the sites of major corporations.

Why and how does this happen? I think there are three key reasons:

Impatience. It takes so long to design and program a sizeable site that companies tend not to want to wait even a few days longer for someone to proofread all the content and then make needed corrections.

Cost-cutting. Websites are so expensive to create that proofreading probably strikes most companies as a dispensable “extra.”

Ignorance. Many people don’t understand the “domino theory” of writing. Careful writers assemble sentences and paragraphs to introduce concepts in a clear and logical way. Eliminate or rewrite as little as one word or one sentence, and the entire structure falls down.

So what can be done to improve this situation?

> Site designers and web producers: Build in time for the writer/content provider to take a careful look at the site before it goes live. Realize that this helps ensure a polished finished product . . . surely worthwhile after all the effort you put into it!

>Writers/content providers: Include in your estimate a line item for site review. Even if you don’t consider yourself a proofreader (as I do not), this is the only way you can try to preserve the approved copy, minus last-minute client add-ons, line-break glitches, inadvertently repeated copy chunks and other website plagues.

>Clients: Please keep your hands off the copy you approved! If something comes up that requires a factual change, ask your writer to make the fix.


© Cathy Curtis 2010

The 'Sample of One' Problem

In my newspaper days, it usually happened on Mondays. Bursting with enthusiasm, an editor would announce a major feature story to be assigned ASAP. This groundbreaking piece would inevitably be based on something that gave him an "aha" moment over the weekend.

Such as Lawns.

“Uh, lawns?” we said. (What next? Flypaper?) “What about them?”

The editor sighed. (Jeez. These reporters must all be city kids.) “I was tossing a Frisbee with my kids on Sunday, and it hit me. Lawns are the center of the suburban experience. There’s so much to say about them. But I leave the digging (heh heh) to you.”

The Lawns story was written (thankfully, not by me). And rewritten. And heavily edited. And rewritten. And re-edited. It seemed that no approach to this topic could give life to the springy, bright green Unformed Thought in that editor’s mind.

When a rather dull story about lawns and their care was finally published, the editor disowned it. Not what he wanted. (Whatever that was.)

Most of us tend to think that just because we were bowled over by something, everyone else will be equally smitten. Even when we can’t seem to explain what was so great about it.

The opposite holds true, too: If I don’t like it, no one will like it. (Even if I can't really tell you what's wrong with it.)

A good friend of mine calls this the “sample of one” problem. It has a way of dominating the conversation and stomping on reason and practicality.

>If the target audience of a website is 11-year-olds, should it matter if the 40-year-old who is designing the site doesn’t find it compelling?

>If a client keeps rejecting prototypes for a new project simply because they don't "feel right," does this demonstrate a discriminating mind at work or the actions of an insecure person overly worried about keeping her job?

>If a copywriter who hates jargon removes all the technical words from a project description, will it be appropriate for its target audience of specialists?

The moral of this story is twofold:
1) If we feel strongly about something (pro or con), we need to be able to articulate clear-cut reasons.
2) These reasons need to make sense within the context of this specific project and its intended users.

Around and About

In a recent Advertising Age article about AOL’s projected hiring of hundreds of journalists, one sentence reads: “As an example, the Life network will include sites such as Kitchen Daily and Stylist; Family will include content around parents, kids, tweens, teens and pets.”

Why do so many writers use around in this sloppy way when there’s a simple and appropriate word — about — that begs to be employed instead? “Content around parents . . .” incongruously suggests that parents, kids, tweens, teens and pets are separate islands in an imaginary Content Lake.

For some reason, prepositions — the simple linking words we’ve used all our lives — are taking a beating in print today. They are constantly ignored, overused or confused with other members of their extended family.

Writers use to when they mean from (“My conclusion was different to hers”) and of when they mean with (“I am bored of this”).

Poor little two-letter on is often scorned for the grander-seeming (but usually unnecessary) upon.

At and of, on the other hand, have long been popular favorites, tacked on for emphasis where they aren’t needed. (“Where’s he at?” “I paid too high of a price.”)

Of often goes slumming with off. (“It fell off of the table.”)

Sometimes, a needed preposition goes AWOL, as in “He wrote her to explain” and “She graduated college.”

Meanwhile, around has become the workhorse of the preposition world.

The English language is in constant flux, of course, New usages are always creeping into formal writing, whether grammarians like them or not. But I wonder what it is about around that makes it so popular. Do people instinctively prefer its vagueness? Or its spatial quality?

It's a mystery to me.

The Reluctant Blogger

I think a blog entry is supposed to be like a letter written to a friend.

Unfortunately, a long career of writing professionally has made me think of a blog entry as an essay. With a beginning (make it catchy!), middle (say something memorable!) and end (leave 'em with something to think about!). As a result, I have written quite a few blog entry Beginnings that never get published here, because they lack Endings. Or because their Middles go on so long that I've lost the point I was trying to make.

It's also odd to be writing for no one in particular, in the sense that this form of "publishing" doesn't necessarily mean having readers.

Some days, the thing I really want to write about has nothing to do with with copywriting or or graphic design or clients. Or I can't seem to find an appropriate tone for the content. One of the best bloggers I've read, recently, Dominique Browning (SlowLoveLife) manages to find the quotidian poetry in just about everything she encounters. Bad days don't disturb the essentially even keel of her outlook.

Ultimately, I think it's better to think more and post less. So often, the stuff I read would have been much improved if it were shorter, clearer and more concerned with the world than the self.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

It's less common now than it was before the Great Recession, but some companies can't resist telling the world how much fun their employees have.

I first encountered this syndrome years ago, when writing copy for the website of a high-end residential architecture firm. The principals not only wanted to stress the fun of working at this firm, but they also insisted on including information on the sport each of their athletic staff members pursued. Rather than the usual mug shot, a staff photo would show the employee skiing down a mountain or lobbing a ball on a tennis court.

This struck me as peculiar. Surely someone paying megabucks for the design of a dream home would be indifferent (or even hostile) to the idea of architects having fun.

A client tends to be pretty self-centered when it comes to getting what he or she wants. It could be reassuring to learn that the staff has degrees from renowned universities, has won significant home design awards, and/or has designed homes for famous people (indicating the ability to placate major egos).

But it goes without saying that we expect people in the professions to enjoy what they do. And what they do in their off-hours is their business. Maybe a client in the sports world might be attracted to the idea of a sports-loving architect. But in general, this strategy seemed to be a massive ego-massage that had little to do with selling potential clients on the firm's approach, ability and track record.

A potentially awkward issue in corporate websites is the tension between appealing to a prospective client and appealing to potential employees.

The "employment" section of the site must position the firm as a great place to start or advance a career. Because this section often contains mostly entry-level jobs for recent graduates, it's important to demonstrate that the firm's culture fosters teamwork, encourages questioning, rewards innovation, and so forth. Young potential employees may be attracted by free pizza on Fridays, a casual-attire office, or the notion that everybody is having fun.

The message to clients is necessarily somewhat different — client-centered rather than employee-centered.

Bottom line: Tell potential employees that working at your firm is lots of fun (if it really is; a buttoned-down environment should not be promoted this way), but keep the message for potential clients focused on what you can do for them.

E-Mail Exchange: Do I Answer You or Not?

Let's say some materials you promised to send just landed in my In basket. Do I respond with a brief thank-you e-mail?

Or maybe you're sending me batches of material throughout the day. Do I thank you for each one?

What if we've been exchanging e-mails about a particular subject, and your last response was something along the lines of, "Let's do it" or "Let's not do it." Do I reply "Great" or "OK"?

A few years ago, I would have said Yes to all three questions. But now that the volume of e-mail cluttering our In boxes is just short of unmanageable, a new strategy seems to be called for. So I now tailor my level of — let's call it "e-mail persistence" — to the personality of the recipient.

It seems clear that many busy people dislike the bother of opening an e-mail containing a response that was expected, whether "OK" or "thank you." So I respond only when my correspondent might be wondering whether I agreed or would take the step we discussed.

Exceptions to the rule

On the other hand, I do work with people who make a point of responding to every e-mail I send. So I answer all their messages, however brief or trivial. This is an instance of the mimicry that makes for good client-consultant relationships. (Similarly, adopting your client's posture — hands on table, hand supporting chin, etc. — can help foster productive interaction at a meeting.)

People with weighty positions also merit the "persistent" treatment. If you are corresponding with the CEO or the executive director, the appropriate response is to answer every e-mail. Let the client be the one to bow out of the exchange.

And when you're not sure what to do? My strategy has been to forestall any uncertainty by telling my recipient how I'll handle the situation — for example, that I will not respond individually to all the documents she sends today, but will let her know at the close of business* that I've received all 20 of them.

*I was introduced to COB (close of business) by a staff member in a government office. Since then, I've also encountered EOD (end of day). Both are useful shorthand, assuming that we're all working with the same 9-to-5 (or thereabouts) notion of a business day.

We're Supposed To Have (Informed) Opinions: An Imaginary Dialogue

Me: If our client wants an approach we feel is inappropriate, we’ll have to tell them that this is not in their best interest.

Designer: Oh, no, we should never dictate to them. We need to listen to what they want.

Me: Sure, it’s our job to listen, and listen carefully. But we’ve been hired for our expertise. So often, clients know (or think they know) what they want, but they don’t understand what their audience needs. So we must explain — in a friendly way — why a different approach is better suited to the project.

Designer: We can’t afford to offend them. They call the shots.

Me: Look, all we can do is present our point of view. In the end, they can get whatever they want — if not from us, then from someone else they hire. But we need to consider ourselves as consultants, not simply as order-takers.

***

I don’t know whether this is a personality issue or a professional niche issue (do other copywriters feel the same way?), but I often find designers to be extremely hesitant to stand up to their clients.

Much has been written in recent years about a key shift in the world of graphic design from “making” to “thinking.” Not that there isn’t a lot of thinking involved in making. But many in the profession have called for a renewed emphasis on the designer as conceptual thinker, engaging his or her client on a macro level. To my mind, this means acting like a consultant.

And if we are to be treated as consultants, we must act as such from our very first client meeting. If the client has already pegged us as merely obedient servants, we’ve lost our professional leverage.

Designers will stand up for client-proposed infringements of specific design rules. If the client doesn’t understand why an extra two pages can’t be added to a catalogue, the designer can fold sheets of paper to show why the minimum additional page-count must be four. If the client wants to clutter a website home page with numerous bits and pieces of information, the designer will explain why this is ill-advised.

But when it’s a matter of discussing how people are likely to perceive something — when we move into a realm with no set rules (or no rules that have been learned in design class) — opinions tend to be withheld or muted.

I believe that this is a form of misplaced deference. Let's be judicious and thoughtful. Let's base our opinions on solid experience. Let's be matter-of-fact, never dictatorial. But for heaven's sake, let's speak up!

© Cathy Curtis 2010

Can We Focus, Please?

Boasting about having a short attention span has become a weird competitive sport. Rather than apologizing for their lack of concentration, people are happily broadcasting their inability to spend more than a few moments focusing on any one thing. It's as if this personal quirk is proof of full-fledged membership in the multi-tasking universe.

Well, count me out. I happen to be one of those people who is happiest when deeply immersed in a project. Psychologists call this state of mind "flow." Being "in flow," can mean being so involved in the activity that you lose your sense of time, forget to eat a meal or fail to hear the doorbell ring.

Most of the time, even when I'm in flow, I'm perfectly capable of coming up for air when a client calls to ask a question or sends an urgent e-mail. (What is difficult for me is to literally shift gears — to get in the car and drive. When my mind is filled with ideas, they become more real than the road in front of me.)

But I think the social imperative of multi-tasking has skewed our priorities. We may believe we are staying ahead of the game by trying to do several things at once, or giving each thing a brief blast of attention. In fact, studies have shown that true multi-tasking is a form of self-delusion. Rather than really doing two things at once, we are constantly toggling between one thing and another.

I suspect that the more fragmented the attention we dole out, the longer it takes to accomplish our goals. And rather than feeling in control — one of the great gifts of being in flow — we are always on the defensive because we can never win the battle against Time.

We would get more things done more satisfyingly if we appreciated the virtues of sustained focus on what we're doing. People would pay more attention to the subtext of what their colleagues and friends are saying, avoiding many misunderstandings. Prioritizing would replace a panicked attempt to do it all. Projects would be completed in a more thoughtful way, with fewer careless errors and increased openness to creative solutions.

Above all, a deeper feeling of achievement and sense of self-worth would suffuse our lives. And that has to be a good thing.

©Cathy Curtis 2010

How the Web Made Me a Better Copywriter

[first published in Voice: AIGA Journal of Design]

In 1999, when I left a staff job at a newspaper to start my own copywriting business, I never even thought about writing for the Web. A decade later, most of my work consists of Web projects. It struck me recently that this medium has led me to develop a different way of writing — tighter, simpler, more transparent. The results, I believe, are greater clarity and persuasiveness, and a speedier, more user-friendly read.

A different mindset

In my journalism days, newspapers were still thick with ads. There was plenty of room for long stories that “jumped” from page to page. Like any writer who wants to be read, I took pains to craft a compelling opening sentence (the “lede”). But I wasn’t terribly concerned with the mechanics of keeping readers interested throughout the story.

The novelty of the Web, on the other hand, made me question every move. During my first few years, I treasured the free online advice offered by Jakob Nielsen and other pioneering Web specialists. I became fascinated by theories about how users absorb information online. Everyone seemed to agree that the Web user was, above all, impatient.

Everybody’s a scanner

It’s one thing if you’re writing a blog with a devoted following. But a corporate, nonprofit or e-commerce website doesn’t come with a readymade group of friends. If users can’t immediately find what they’re looking for, they move on.

Web users tend to scan information rather than reading it closely. One reason is physiological. Research — by Nielsen, Stanford University/The Poynter Institute and others — has shown that reading pixels on a screen makes eyes work harder than reading ink on paper.

Another impetus for scanning, I believe, is the Web’s seemingly limitless content. It’s like being unable to enjoy yourself at a party because you might be having a better time at someone else’s house. Add the growing mania for speed (“This #%&* site is taking 20 seconds to load!”), and it’s clear that Web writing has to pick up the pace.

Subheads built for speed

To make copy easier to scan, I break it up with multiple subheads. They act as visual skipping stones — an eye-friendly break from blocks of copy.

Ideally, the subheads can also convey the main points of the story all by themselves, so they can’t be too cute. And they must speak to the general reader, with no insider terminology that would cut the conversation short.

The em-dash is my friend

That little horizontal line is probably the most useful form of punctuation on the web. Commas, semicolons and colons don’t do a good job of visually breaking up information, and they’re hard to see on the screen. Parentheses have to be used carefully, because the words they enclose are understood to be less important than the rest of the sentence.

But the mighty em-dash is easy to see, and democratic in the way it treats words on either side of it. As with everything, you don’t want to overuse Mr. Em. (You’ll note that he doesn’t make an appearance in these two paragraphs.) But he is the strongman of the longer Web sentence.

Bullet points have their limits

When I founded my business, Crawford Kilian had just published the first edition of his indispensable guide, Writing for the Web (1999, Self-Counsel Press). One of his virtually unbreakable rules is that no paragraph should be longer than 60 words. But I’ve parted ways with him on the issue of bullet points.

Kilian saw them as the standard eye-friendly solution for sentences that contain multiple statistics, goals, activities and so forth. Up to a point, I agree. But bullet points that march down the page like buttons on a jacket are tiring to read. Back-to-back bulleted lists are visually numbing.

When I bullet information, I try to organize it so that there are no more than seven points. (Graphic designers have taught me that odd numbers are more reader-friendly.) Often, though, I prefer to write sentences that group the items into logical clusters. Topped with a subhead, these “chunks” are easier to read because their rhythm is flowing, not staccato.

Simple words for the average reader

My first newspaper editor told me that I should pitch my writing to someone with eighth-grade reading skills. But as a lifelong bookworm, I was proud of my extensive vocabulary. With the assurance of youth, I protested that I didn’t want my ideas dumbed down.

Years later, a piece I wrote for an early information portal (about how to seek a second medical opinion) was rejected because it wasn’t written for the “average” user. I still hadn’t learned.

Writing simply is a skill

Eventually, it dawned on me that conveying complex ideas in simple terms is actually a skill —one that I was proud to finally master.

Today, I’m comfortable with the idea that writing for the Web generally means using only words that are widely understood. It’s not only a question of education. Many websites are intended to reach an international audience unfamiliar with typically American expressions.

Transparency is powerful

Voice is another big issue. As many commentators have noted, writing for the Web works best when it speaks directly to the user. That’s why websites are ideally written in the first (“we”) and second person (“you”).

This approach has made my writing much friendlier. Stripped of big words, complex phrases and unnecessary adjectives, copy becomes increasingly transparent — spare and frill-free. Lacking the distracting imposition of a writer’s ego, copy becomes a more powerful tool of persuasion.

Polishing every word

As my Web writing grew more compact, it felt as though a spotlight shone on every word. I started reading my copy out loud to catch unintended repetition and awkward phrases. I also began using a larger font to keep my eyes from skating mindlessly over the words I’d written on the screen.

Even so, I’ve always found it necessary to print out every page. Whether due to my near-sightedness or sheer force of habit, editing copy with any degree of precision requires the crisp contrast and tactile immediacy of a hard copy.

Helping refine web architecture

Writing a news story or essay involves placing facts or opinions in a logical sequence. But a reader-friendly website is organized in a visually logical way. This concept was new to me.

“Think like a user” may be a Web cliché, but it is the key to producing effective writing in any medium. Much of what I learned about hierarchy came from paying attention to my own navigation — bumpy or smooth — through content-heavy websites written by other people.

Eventually, I took issue with the expectation that a Web writer’s role was simply to add content to predetermined slots. From the outset of a website project, I began suggesting that illogical or unwieldy aspects of the site’s architecture be modified. The resulting back-and-forth with designers and developers has led to an increased awareness of how people process information.

I also learned that turf battles can be reduced by making a sincere effort to understand and accommodate the technical issues faced by other Web specialists — another version of “thinking like a user.”

Sex, lies and plain talk

By now it might seem that everyone can see the benefits of a plain-spoken, streamlined approach. Unfortunately that’s not true.

Some clients expect a swirl of adjectives around each product. Others believe in perpetuating the empty boasts and vague promises of the traditional “mission statement.” People in certain fields tend to worry about leaving out the less important details of a complex program or procedure.

Trying to effectively counter these objections and explain how the Web works best has been a challenge. But — as with all the other aspects of writing for the Web — it has made me better at what I do.

© Cathy Curtis 2009

The Thing You Said You Wanted, or Why Consultants Can Be So Maddening

For years, I admired the tall, slender eugenia that screen the front of my house. I silently thanked them for hiding traffic, passersby and the ugly new houses built on the hill across the street. But after several heavy rains, two of these members of the myrtle family were no longer their old, upright selves. One had pitched forward to lean weakly on my front porch.

I knew I needed expert help. But as a homeowner, I had never been able to find a contractor or handyman who will: (a) listen carefully to what I want done; (b) not insist on bundling unwanted services into the estimate; and (c) do what I said I wanted, in a professional and efficient manner.

All I wanted was to find out if the fallen tree could be saved, and if so, have it and a couple of its neighbors staked.

One arborist spent more than an hour walking around my small property, explaining what was wrong and what should be done.

“I just gave you $150 worth of free advice,” he said at the end of his information-packed tour, punctuated by amusing, elbow-flapping pantomimes of trees that lacked sufficient room to grow.

So now I was supposed to feel so guilty that I would be compelled to hire him to perform various other services I never asked for? Hey, it was his idea to spend his time this way.

Another arborist embarked on a lengthy discussion of how I could find out the name and treatment of the disease that was blistering some of the leaves of my trees. When I finally was able to get a word in, I told her that I already knew what it was, and had been told not to worry about it.

“I appreciate all your information,” I said. “But what about the tree that’s leaning on my house?”

In marketing communications, the same sort of consultant-client miscues often occur.

You probably feel that you know what kind of marketing communications you need, and why you need it. And maybe you’re in a particular hurry to have it produced — for a convention or a fiscal year-end deadline or the incorporation of your new business.

It is reasonable to expect that I will quickly give you a quote specifically for The Thing You Said You Wanted.

But first, I need more information — about the materials you already have (what don’t you like about them?), how you intend to use the new piece, and the identity of your primary and secondary audiences. I need to know how your company sets itself apart from the competition, how it is currently perceived by your customers and how you wish it were perceived.

You and I need to devote some time to this information-gathering activity. We also need to talk about design, which is not some kind of frosting on the cake, but a key ingredient.

[A quick note for those who still believe that a good template is all you need: High-level copywriting and design work together to reinforce your professionalism and promote and sustain your brand identity. Which is just a fancy way of saying that they enable the public face of your company to convey its unique personality in an advanced and systematic way.]

Finally, I’d like to know your ballpark budget, so that I can explain what I can do within your range.

After these questions are answered, I might suggest something other than (or in addition to) The Thing You Said You Wanted. And now that you’ve looked at the bigger picture with me, you may agree.

* * * * * * * * * * *

So I decided to go with the guy who spent so much time looking at the big picture of my garden. He convinced me that I needed more done than The Thing I Said I Wanted — but he also staked my eugenia. His price was reasonable for someone with the right credentials. And he did a great job.

©Cathy Curtis 2010

When Famous Slogans Die

The headline for a JC Penney ad in The New York Times reads, “Full Spring Ahead.” It doesn’t make sense unless you know that the original phrase is “full steam ahead,” a relic of the age of steam-powered ships. But I would bet that this fact sailed past 99.9 percent of the ad’s target audience.

We copywriters assume that our audience has access to a huge cultural warehouse of buzzwords, maxims and slogans, ready for the tweaking. In reality, many age-old sayings no longer, um, ring a bell.

I’ve noticed that when young singers cover old songs, something often gets lost in translation. While I was shopping before Christmas last year, I heard a rendition of “Winter Wonderland” in which Parson Brown (“In the meadow we can build a snowman/ Then pretend that he is Parson Brown”) was transformed into the meaningless “person Brown.”

For those who are still confused, the conceit of the song (written in 1934) is that the snowman is a minister who can marry the singer to his sweetie.

Today, of course, we have new sayings that just about everyone knows: Just do it. Have it your way. Got milk? But they were all dreamed up by copywriters, not by somebody’s great-great-grandma, Ben Franklin or folks down on the farm.

So what does this mean for copywriting?

I think we need to remember who our audience is before trotting out a hoary maxim that no one is likely to recognize. Sad but true. (No, I am not referring to the Metallica song.)

© Cathy Curtis 2010

"Collaborate? But We Hired You To Do It!"

You have a zillion demands on your time. That’s why you’ve hired a communications expert to handle the marketing materials you need. If you and your team weren’t so busy, you’d be writing these things yourselves.

Somewhere on your desktop is the questionnaire your expert sent you weeks ago. Now she is asking you to sit down with her for a couple of hours that you simply can’t spare.

Why can’t she just use the business synopsis you sent her?

Because nothing takes the place of having you talk about your business.

> First, the writer needs to listen to you. Listen for the big ideas that drive your approach. Listen for the assumptions that underlie the big ideas.

> Then she needs to ask follow-up questions. It’s the only way to elicit the key information you’re leaving out simply because you know your work so well.

> She may also ask you to collaborate on a creative brief. One of the best ways to capture the way you actually view your company is play a consultant’s version of 20 Questions. Except that this isn’t a game — it’s a way of unlocking powerful differentiators you may never have thought about or expressed.

What you gain

A good writer will take you beyond your insider’s perspective to help you understand how your company is viewed by people with no vested interest in it.

Your materials will avoid overused marketing-speak, the kind that today’s customer just tunes out.

Instead, your materials will reflect your company’s uniqueness and communicate urgently to your target market.

And the few hours you’ve spent answering questions — even the ones that seemed off-the-wall at the time — will prove to be well worth the effort.

©Cathy Curtis 2010