Writing a Damn Good Scentance

8/13/2019 Writing a Damn Good Scentance

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by DEMIAN FARNWORTH88 COMMENTS

5 Ways to Write a Damn

Good Sentence1.5kTweet473+1505Like453Share107Pin

Average copywriters write average sentences. You, Im guessing, dont want to beaverage.

You want to be great. You believe you can be remarkable.

That means you need to write damn good sentences without even thinking aboutit day in and day out.

Do that and youll become an unstoppable writing machine. Youll become akillercopywriter.
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See, everything you write every blog post, every landing page, every email, shortstory, or Google+ post begins and ends witha sentence. Bone up on yoursentence-writing skills and those pieces of content will only get better and be morewidely shared.

Want to learn how? Follow me

More than mastering freshman English

The skill it takes to produce a sentence, Stanley Fish said, the skill of lining events,actions, and objects in a strict logic is also the skill of creating a world. In otherwords, sentences are the engines of creativity.

Take this sentence for instance: Moses fed his muffuletta to the woolly mammoth.

There is a mountain of meaning buried in those eight words. Sure, change thesequence and you change the meaning, but as long as you dont screw with thatframework, people will stay with you (unlike themisguided James Joyce).

But as a copywriter its not just about mastering freshman English. Theres more to it.Eugene Schwartz has the answer:

No sentence can be effective if it contains facts alone. It must also contain emotion,image, logic, and promise.

Heres a great example: Baby shoes: for sale, never worn.

Thats Ernest Hemingway, and that little six-word story is possibly his best (his ownestimation, not mine). Why? Its a storyselling a pair of shoes shoes with anintense emotional connotation.

See, your sentences dont have to say much. They just have to say the right things.Our imaginations will fill in the blanks.

So, when you are trying to get people to respond to your requests,subscribe to youremail newsletter,or donate to your cause you need to write seductive sentences,and you need to do it naturally.

Heres how its done.

1. Insert facts

This is nothing more than basic subject and verb agreement: Moses ate amuffaletta. Logical and consistent. The building blocks of a story.

You insert facts by thinking through the 5 Ws: Who, What, When, Where, Why.Thinkspecificandconcrete,but how you say it matters, too.

Compare On thefirstday of winter Moses fed his muffuletta to the woolly mammothto On thelastday of winter Moses fed his muffuletta to the woolly mammoth. The
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significance is heightened in the first sentence, minimized in the second. All by oneword.

And notice how your sympathies change when I write, On the first day of winter,Moses fed his muffuletta to the three-day oldwoolly mammoth.

Those new facts heighten the emotional appeal of that simple story. Its the samesort of feeling you get when you read Baby shoes: for sale, never used.

2. Create images

Its not a coincidence that the root of imagination is image.

Imagination is the capacity for people to see the world you are trying to paint.Intelligent people like to use their imagination. Dont insult their intelligence by over-explaining, but also dont abuse their intelligence by starving it.

Use active verbs and concrete nouns and you will naturally create images. Thebuzzard bled. Introduce one, two, or all of the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste,and sound), and youll enhance those images: The screaming buzzard bled.

Use phrases like imagine this or picture this to signal to your reader you are aboutto paint a picture. Thats how I opened up the10 Productivity Tips from a Blue-CollarGenius:

Imagine a fifty-something man in a blue long-sleeve shirt, the cuffs unbuttoned, his

knuckles thick and coarse. Hes on the side of the road, quibbling over a stack ofused cinder blocks with a merchant.

In those two sentences you learn the color of the shirt, the state of the cuffs, thecondition of his knuckles. I tell you where he is and what he is doing in concretelanguage.

I use very precise language to tell you what he was doing: he wasnt talking, he wasquibbling. Something entirely different than chatting.

3. Evoke emotion

You can naturally get mood into your sentences if you follow the two steps above,but as a copywriter you dont want emotion to be an afterthought. You must carefullyplan and manufacture emotion.

This starts by asking: what is the dominantmood of your reader or customer? Whatproblem is he or she trying to solve? Is it fear over losing a job? A spouse? Ascholarship? Pride of donating to a good cause? Joy for finally getting musculardefinition in his calves?

You must know what keeps your ideal customer up at night. What makes him get upearly? What are his hopes, dreams, and fears? And then you must insert thatemotion into your sentences.
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In a post introducing thebenefits of our Authority membership site,I wrote:

How often are these little tragedies repeated in your life?

You write something clever, but everyone ignores it.

You hear about a new opportunity, but dont pursue it because you dont havethe skills or confidence to attempt it.

You get overlooked by everybodyincluding your bossbecause the guy inthe next cubicle seems to know everything about SEO, email marketing, orcopywriting.

You hear about all the new clients your peers are picking up but none areshowing up at your door.

I identified the relevant pain andagitated it so the solution was a no-brainer. In otherwords, if you can identify with those conditions, then the solution is probably a goodthing for you.

But notice those four conditions are all aboutrejection.Yet I didnt use the wordreject, or a derivative, once. I didnt tell you the emotion you should feel. Isimplyshowed it to you.Big difference in the quality of writing.

4. Make Promises

But as a copywriter you arent merely interested in heightening peoples emotions forthe sake of heightening emotions, otherwise youd be a novelist or screenwriter.Entertainment is not a copywriters bread and butter.

Getting action is.

So, you need people to see hope in your sentences:

What promises are you making to the reader in this sentence? What advantages will the reader gain? What pain will they avoid if they obey you?

In the opening toThe Dirty Little Secret to Seducing ReadersI wrote:

Im guessing you want to write copy that sells. Youwant to write copy so irresistible itmakes your readers scramble down the page begging to do whatever it is youwant when theyre done reading whether its to make a purchase, send adonation, or join your newsletter.

The promise is that you can learn how to write in such a way people cant resist yourwords. And thats compelling for the right people.

5. Practice, practice, practice

Writing great sentences takes work.
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At first it may feel mechanical, wooden. Thats okay. The goal is to get to a pointwhere you unconsciously blend these elements so they feel natural in the sentenceand cant be pulled apart.

Sort of like when a golf instructor stops your swing to adjust your mechanics. That

may feel mechanical and unnatural, but eventually your swing becomes natural andhe stops interrupting you.

Here are some exercises to help you improve your sentence writing:

Copy great sentences:Hand-write 100 great first sentences. Memorizeportions of great sales letters. Dissect killer lines.

Opening and closing paragraphs:Its arduous to consciously think abouteach and every sentence you write in a 500-hundred word article. However,you can pour energy into every sentence inside the opening andclosingparagraphs.

Headlines:Your headlines wont be complete sentences, but they offer youan opportunity to focus closely on what you are writing.

Subject lines:Unlike headlines you can use your subject line in anunconventional way. Write complete, robust sentences. Thought of you whileI was at the steam bath. Whos not going to open that email up? Measureresponses, adjust, and test more ideas.

Tweets:Twitter is theperfect mechanism for perfecting your sentences.Youare forced to say a lot in 140 characters. And you get feedback. People eitherrespond or they dont. Check for retweets, favorites, and replies. And if youdont get a response, try sharing it again.

Your turn

Each sentence in a 500-word landing page may not be great, but the more you payattention to the fundamentals above and practice the techniques, the closer you aregoing to get with each draft.

Dont give up. Keep plugging away.
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