Following is a “secret” to creating tighter, more pithy, more engaging, and, dare I say… more ruthless writing.
Not just for emails and sales copy-related purposes.
But also for any and all other kinds of writing you do, too.
Frankly, what I am about to show you (I won’t obnoxiously just tease it, gonna tell you exactly what to do) is something that has dramatically improved my own writing in probably every single email I pound out, every single sales letter I write, every single bullet I fire off, every single book I author, every single Twitter post I brain fart, every single video or audio bit I record for the BerserkerMail YouTube channel (and, starting tomorrow, inside the BerserkerMail Facebook group we are launching, ooh…), and every single customer service reply I respond to… as well as every random text sent to friends & family, and even every piece of fiction I write.
Are you ready?
Are you set?
Are you sure?
Okay, then here goes — Stefania as my witness:
I recently finished the screenplay adapting my Zombie Cop novel. And while writing it (during October and November) I worked on it all morning, and again a couple hours before bed while Willis took his bath. I couldn’t not work on it. It was (still is, I just this week re-adapted the screenplay which was adapted from the novel back into rewriting the novel to make it much better — I call it “reverse osmosis content creation”) in my head, and I legitimately lost sleep sometimes because I was so anxious to get back to working on it the next morning.
Yes, it’s fun to adapt my own IP.
But that is not the only reason it’s so fascinating to me.
Another reason is the process of writing a screenplay has easily been the single best power lesson in pithy, tight, “action-only” writing (ideal for copywriting — long form, short form, emails, whatever it is) I’ve ever gotten. The last time I got this kind of power education in writing was when I learned Paul Hartunian’s method for writing press releases. I probably learned more about the mechanics of “pithy” and downright ruthless writing from banging out lots of press releases via his system than any other writing, copywriting, or email source.
But writing screenplays has taken even what I learned there to a whole new level.
Every word must count in a script.
You cannot meander or have even a single punctuation mark of fluff.
And it’s like a game to eliminate as many lines and pages as possible, while making the story better, more engaging, more likely to be read by some low paid script reader looking for reasons to toss the script out and get through the giant pile of scripts he has to churn through each day. You also cannot cheat margins, font size/type, or anything else. (Has to be 12pt courier font, strict margins, etc which is very important for producers and directors to calculate projected screen time, budgets, etc)
Frankly, if you want anyone to read it, it has to be way shorter than you want it to be.
To give you an example of what I mean:
The first draft for this screenplay was a whopping 174 pages! On the second pass I had it down to less than 120 pages. Now that it’s done after 10 passes (as per my Copy Slacker methodology, incidentally) I got it down to 103 pages and it’s probably 103xs better than it was at 174 pages, which is why I spent all week rewriting the novel based on the screenplay.
To do that, it’s just cut, cut, cut…
Every nibble of fat trimmed.
Every corner smoothed down.
Every dangling mite zapped.
Every bloated description pared down to its core image/idea and every bit of dialogue ruthlessly curated, and the list goes on.
Overkill?
Well, maybe, but realize this:
Years ago, screenplays — especially from new writers — would not even get looked at if they were over 120 pages. Now it’s much worse. They have to be around 90 pages due to lazy script readers and bean counters wanting a movie to be played more times each day to increase ye olde box office gross. This, and the shyt product Hollywood has been putting out over the last few years is just one of many reasons I believe the entire Hollywood system as we know it will crash in the next 10 years or so, and maybe earlier… with whole new opportunities rising from the ashes.
Immoral of the story:
Writing that screenplay forced me to become a better, more pithy, and more discerning and, yes… ruthless writer. Ruthlessly cutting, editing, re-writing, thinking how to say more with less words, and use more imagery and Vision than cold descriptions and facts. Not to mention being more ruthless about knowing what I leave out can often speak far more loudly than what is left in.
Which brings us back to your business:
This one tip alone — writing a screenplay — is a writing technique that can serve your emails, sales copy, and other writing quite well and radically transform all your writing in ways you cannot possibly fathom until you’ve done so.
All right, on to the business.
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Ben Settle
