<ol><li>Reduce your message to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form.</li><li>Make it fun. Or sexy or interesting or informative.</li><li>Don’t assume people will love your writing because you do.</li></ol>

Learn to Write Intensely Powerful Copy

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words…for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

<figure><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/500/1*RLOHshytdQjelDjNeZX4SA" width="785" height="525"><figcaption class="im in cz cx cy io ip ce b ga cg fi" data-selectable-paragraph="" dir="ltr">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@doctype?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" class="ck iq" rel="noopener nofollow" dir="ltr">Aleks Dorohovich</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/television-commercial?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText" class="ck iq" rel="noopener nofollow" dir="ltr">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure>Before Steven Pressfield became a household name with The Legend of Bagger Vance and The War of Art, he wrote TV commercials for New York agency Benton and Bowles.While Pressfield now loathes advertising, he admitted in an <a href="https://tim.blog/2021/02/27/steven-pressfield-transcript/" rel="noopener nofollow" dir="ltr">interview</a> on the Tim Ferris Show how writing commercials taught him the single most important lesson of his career:<BLOCKQUOTE>“Nobody wants to read your shit.”</BLOCKQUOTE>It’s nothing personal — people just hate being sold.We skip commercials. Skim past ads in magazines. Unsubscribe from emails, scroll through social media, and ignore CTA’s.As a writer, you’re constantly facing an uphill battle. Your work has to be so damn compelling that it changes someone's mind to give you a minute of their day.If it sounds insanely challenging, you’re right. Copywriting has never been easy and it’s only getting harder.But there’s also something liberating about such obstacles. Through the process of overcoming them, you learn your craft.And this is exactly what turned a nobody adman into a legendary novelist. Below you will find three of my favorite lessons pulled from Pressfield's journey copywriting at B&amp;B.These suggestions are intended to work in tandem, focusing on respecting your audience and their time.Enjoy.<h1 data-selectable-paragraph="">1. Reduce your message to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form.</h1><BLOCKQUOTE>“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words…for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” — William Strunk</BLOCKQUOTE>A 30-second commercial cannot go over 60 words — two words per second — because anything more would make the actor’s dialogue too fast. Early on, Pressfield struggled to grasp this concept.He would bring a piece of copy to his boss and they would say,<BLOCKQUOTE>“Get out of here. This is way too long. Go back to your cubicle and cut it down.”</BLOCKQUOTE>Pressfield would spend hours cutting it down. He’d bring it back and they’d say,<BLOCKQUOTE>“Cut it down again…”</BLOCKQUOTE>If you’ve read any of Pressfield's work, brevity is a massive compliment to his style and pacing.<h2 data-selectable-paragraph="">The priceless lesson</h2>You can say in 25 words something you used to say in 250 words.<h1 data-selectable-paragraph="">2. Make it fun. Or sexy or interesting or informative.</h1>When you gain the self-awareness as a creator to understand nobody wants to read your shit, you develop empathy.More importantly, you realize writing is a transaction. The reader/viewer is giving you an invaluable commodity — time, energy, attention. You’ve got to give them something valuable in return.Think of copywriting like opening a restaurant.People aren’t going to come in and buy your food simply because you exist. You’ve got to come up with something where consumers think, “I need to go in there.”That’s where your creativity comes in.<h2 data-selectable-paragraph="">The priceless lesson</h2>Whatever you release into the world has to be so good and so interesting people will have no choice but to give you attention.<h1 data-selectable-paragraph="">3. Don’t assume people will love your writing because you do.</h1>You need a bit of ego, swagger, and confidence to be a great writer. It’s how you pitch work and pound out zesty articles.But you can’t get lazy and assume readers will fawn over something because it came from your precious fingertips.No, perspective and the ability to separate your own point of view from the target’s point of view will steer you away from “Clients Disease.”<BLOCKQUOTE>“There’s a phenomenon in advertising called Client’s Disease. Every client is in love with his own product. The mistake he makes is believing that, because he loves it, everyone else will too.”</BLOCKQUOTE>No matter how much you love a product/article/piece of art, the client/reader/consumer has no idea what you’re selling. Look at every word through the eye of the skeptical reader and make it about them.Learn to ask yourself with every sentence and phrase:Is this interesting? Is this fun or challenging or inventive? Am I giving the reader enough? Is she bored? Is she following where I want to lead her?<h2 data-selectable-paragraph="">The priceless lesson</h2>If you want to be a better writer, get the hell out of your own way.<h1 data-selectable-paragraph="">Parting Words</h1>I could add a dozen more lines of advice from Pressfield.But as a current copywriter trying to make it, the ones listed are the most applicable. Especially because they’re directly pulled from Pressfield’s pre-novelist days as a struggling TV writer.So seriously, cut out the fluff. Have fun and be interesting. Don’t fall in love with your work and think everyone else should too (aka avoid being an egotistical asshole).Your sole purpose is to make “the dull exciting and the unlovely beautiful — and to make the beautiful-but-overlooked gorgeous too.”And if you really want to apply these lessons, buy the <a href="https://stevenpressfield.com/books/" rel="noopener nofollow" dir="ltr">War of Art</a> or peruse through Pressfield's <a href="https://stevenpressfield.com/blog/" rel="noopener nofollow" dir="ltr">blog</a>.

Before Steven Pressfield became a household name with The Legend of Bagger Vance and The War of Art, he wrote TV commercials for New York agency Benton and Bowles. While Pressfield now loathes…

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Before Steven Pressfield became a household name with The Legend of Bagger Vance and The War of Art , he wrote TV commercials for New York agency Benton and Bowles.

While Pressfield now loathes advertising, he admitted in an <a href="https://tim.blog/2021/02/27/steven-pressfield-transcript/">interview </a>on the Tim Ferris Show how writing commercials taught him the single most important lesson of his career:

“Nobody wants to read your shit.”

It’s nothing personal — people just hate being sold.

We skip commercials. Skim past ads in magazines. Unsubscribe from emails, scroll through social media, and ignore CTA’s.

As a writer, you’re constantly facing an uphill battle. Your work has to be so damn compelling that it changes someone's mind to give you a minute of their day.

If it sounds insanely challenging, you’re right. Copywriting has never been easy and it’s only getting harder.

But there’s also something liberating about such obstacles. Through the process of overcoming them, you learn your craft.

And this is exactly what turned a nobody adman into a legendary novelist. Below you will find three of my favorite lessons pulled from Pressfield's journey copywriting at B&B.

These suggestions are intended to work in tandem, focusing on respecting your audience and their time.

1. Reduce your message to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form.

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words…for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” — William Strunk

A 30-second commercial cannot go over 60 words — two words per second — because anything more would make the actor’s dialogue too fast. Early on, Pressfield struggled to grasp this concept.

He would bring a piece of copy to his boss and they would say,

“Get out of here. This is way too long. Go back to your cubicle and cut it down.”

Pressfield would spend hours cutting it down. He’d bring it back and they’d say,

If you’ve read any of Pressfield's work, brevity is a massive compliment to his style and pacing.

You can say in 25 words something you used to say in 250 words.

2. Make it fun. Or sexy or interesting or informative.

When you gain the self-awareness as a creator to understand nobody wants to read your shit , you develop empathy.

More importantly, you realize writing is a transaction. The reader/viewer is giving you an invaluable commodity — time, energy, attention. You’ve got to give them something valuable in return.

Think of copywriting like opening a restaurant.

People aren’t going to come in and buy your food simply because you exist. You’ve got to come up with something where consumers think, “I need to go in there.”

That’s where your creativity comes in.

3. Don’t assume people will love your writing because you do.

You need a bit of ego, swagger, and confidence to be a great writer. It’s how you pitch work and pound out zesty articles.

But you can’t get lazy and assume readers will fawn over something because it came from your precious fingertips.

No, perspective and the ability to separate your own point of view from the target’s point of view will steer you away from “Clients Disease.”

“There’s a phenomenon in advertising called Client’s Disease. Every client is in love with his own product. The mistake he makes is believing that, because he loves it, everyone else will too.”

No matter how much you love a product/article/piece of art, the client/reader/consumer has no idea what you’re selling. Look at every word through the eye of the skeptical reader and make it about them .

Learn to ask yourself with every sentence and phrase:

Is this interesting? Is this fun or challenging or inventive? Am I giving the reader enough? Is she bored? Is she following where I want to lead her?

If you want to be a better writer, get the hell out of your own way.

I could add a dozen more lines of advice from Pressfield.

But as a current copywriter trying to make it, the ones listed are the most applicable. Especially because they’re directly pulled from Pressfield’s pre-novelist days as a struggling TV writer.

So seriously, cut out the fluff. Have fun and be interesting. Don’t fall in love with your work and think everyone else should too (aka avoid being an egotistical asshole).

Your sole purpose is to make “the dull exciting and the unlovely beautiful — and to make the beautiful-but-overlooked gorgeous too.”

And if you really want to apply these lessons, buy the <a href="https://stevenpressfield.com/books/">War of Art </a>or peruse through Pressfield's <a href="https://stevenpressfield.com/blog/">blog </a>.

Learn to Write Intensely Powerful Copy From an Adman Turned Famous Author

Learn to Write Intensely Powerful Copy

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