The Descending Copy Ladder to Hell

For my first Writing entry for Inkspiller, I want to address a plague across the world of copy.

I see it everywhere:

first drafts posted to subreddits and forums asking for critique,

landing pages for copywriting courses,

and especially on LinkedIn.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

You may already know what I mean.

This.

This self-important, faux-inspirational shortcut to Good Writing™.

This Descending Copy Ladder to Hell.

No one on Earth naturally writes like this,

and they certainly don’t like reading it.

Except for one group of people.

Copywriters.

And not just copywriters.

Copywriters writing for other copywriters.

Know who you're writing for

The entire point of making a living as a copywriter is to convince people who are not copywriters but need copy written to pay you to write their copy for them, and their audience is not copywriters. It’s mass transit commuters, or Gen Xers who want to improve their heart health, or middle class shoppers who need a new pair of shoes, or pet owners with disposable income.

You know, regular people with regular needs because they lead regular lives. People who have better things to do than hopping on your copy ladder and riding it down to hell.

Our job as copywriters is to resonate with the right audience in the right way at the right time, but most of the time, our copy interrupts something else the audience would rather be doing. A phone call, a meme, a thought about what they want to eat for dinner. We’re asking others to stop thinking about their thing, and to start thinking about our thing. We inherently begin on the back foot.

People want to know that what they're paying attention to will be worth it for them. If you expect them to devote more than half a second to you before you'll even tell them what it is they're paying attention to, you will lose them every time.

Stop doing it.

Unless, of course, you have one very specific audience: aspiring copywriters you intend to scam into forking over three grand for a copywriting course. The Copy Ladderers I see are overwhelmingly copywriters selling copywriting courses to other copywriters. Those copywriters will then use the knowledge gained in that copywriting course to sell another copywriting course to other copywriters, who will then use the knowledge gained in that copywriting course to sell another copywriting course to other copywriters, who will use the knowledge gained in that copywriting course to sell another copywriting course to other copywriters, who will etc etc etc.

At least with a normal pyramid scheme, you end up with a bunch of skin lotions or candles or cutlery you didn’t manage to sell.

Sure, The Descending Copy Ladder To Hell is easy—so easy that even as I was satirizing it above, I subconsciously fell into it. It’s much harder to come up with a message, construct an outline, write it out, and cut word count until there is zero fat left. It’s even harder to deliver that message in a webpage, or an email, or a post, or a headline, or a slogan. Writing, rewriting, reviewing, and editing takes time and focus, which a lot of the “make six figures while working from home” people don’t want to admit.

But it makes for much better copy.

Write with rhythm

Read this, then save it somewhere so you can read it again later:

Gary Provost was a writer and instructor who wrote 23 books before his life was unexpectedly cut short in 1995. He wrote biographies, fiction, satire, true crime, and, yes, even some books on freelance copywriting. He wasn’t a novelist, or a copywriter, or a content creator—he was a writer, who engaged in that craft in a number of ways. He knew what he was talking about.

He’s spot on about varying the length of your sentences, but I’d like to touch upon something else he’s doing well: paragraphs. Whole paragraphs! He couldn’t have known at the time how profound this piece of writing would become simply for using paragraphs, because the Descending Copy Ladder To Hell hadn’t been invented yet.

Now read this:

That’s a whole lot of copy and screen space to say something that the actual booth did better with a single sentence, a compelling visual, and the right context:

“The Subaru Forester is a Consumer Reports Top Pick for 10 consecutive years.”

It’s worth pointing out that Mr. Provost’s example above has plenty of space to work with. It isn’t a headline, or an ecommerce product description limited by character count. It’s written on a blank page with as much room as it needs to prove its point. You will rarely have so few limitations in your professional writing.

But that doesn’t mean your professional writing won’t have its own rhythm. All writing has rhythm, because all writing has a reader, and all readers have expectations based on the context of their reading. All writing has a writer, and all writers have a way they want the reader to feel after reading it.

The Descending Copy Ladder to Hell has a rhythm, too.

It starts with an idea,

pauses for a beat,

then finishes it.

And it does this for its entire excruciating length.

That is, technically, a rhythm, but it’s a very limited one. And right now, it’s extraordinarily overused. Any rhythm in writing can be used to serve any purpose for any audience; it all comes down to writer, reader, and context. But this rhythm, with its over-usage, has come to serve one specific purpose: empty online hype. It’s the rhythm of LinkedIn maniacs and cold-email hustlebro grifters. It only attracts the easily-swayed and turns off anyone with anything better to do.

(If you feel “easily-swayed” is an unfair representation of you, well, that means you’re probably easily swayed by this style of writing. You should start trying to spot it, because you may be unknowingly surrounded by people who are trying to part you from your money.)

Learning how to write with rhythm for any context will make you a better writer. If you have no rhythm to your writing at all, then sure, learn the Descending Copy Ladder to Hell. It’s somewhere to start, but there's much more to learn after that. It's shallow, overused to the point of abuse, and rightfully dismissed.

This isn’t complicated.

It isn’t high science, it isn’t magic, and it certainly isn’t poetry.

It’s messaging, and it’s existed since the dawn of communication itself.

Get off the ladder,

and start writing like a normal person.

(I’m doing it again, aren’t I?!)

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If you made it down this far, wow. Thanks. You deserve a little bonus reading, as a treat. I'm really excited for big fruity drinks this summer. I have half a watermelon and two pineapples in my fridge ready to be blended with a little Agave nectar, lime juice, and a mountain of ice. Serve 'em up with a Malibu floater in a fancy glass. Mmmmm.