Do you write anything in longhand anymore? Does your marketing communications writer?

Could be something to it.

Freelance writer Lexi Rodrigo posted a list of her favorite copywriting tools, among which are pen and paper. She writes:

When you find an example of an excellent piece of copywriting, copy it entirely, word for word, by writing the entire thing by hand.

Don’t ask me how this works, but great copywriters swear by this method, and it’s one way I learned myself. There’s something about the act of handwriting that hard-wires the words into our brains.

That’s pretty novel advice, particularly in an era in which keyboards, touchpads and texting are turning longhand into a dying art.

I know that my brain works differently when I have a pen in my hand – I can feel it – but my handwriting is such an aesthetic affront to me that it gets in the way of creativity. Anything longer than a grocery list just grosses me out.

The best writing I’ve ever done was either in longhand or on a typewriter, a machine halfway between handwriting and a computer keyboard. It’s much more annoying to fix a mistake when using a pen or a typewriter – have you ever noticed how often fast typists hit the backspace key on a computer keyboard? – so I think things through before committing them to paper.

It’s better writing.

Getting help for tibiwangzi

But the problem for us Westerners pales by comparison to the problem for Japanese and Chinese youth. Whereas we need remember how to write only a couple dozen different alphabetic characters, writers in Asia must remember how to compose thousands of pictographic characters.

Recognizing these characters for reading is a completely different matter from pulling them out of your memory and putting them on paper, and tibiwangzi, or “take pen, forget character” afflicts millions of mostly young, mostly electronic-input-oriented Asians. The pervasiveness of this “character amnesia” prompts young Chinese to fear for the future of their ancient writing system.

What would it take for you to resume your childhood use of pen and paper? Would you use it for copying excellent text, as Rodrigo suggests? Can you imagine writing a creative brief or a press release in longhand?

If, as a marketing manager, you discovered that you wrote better in longhand, would it justify the additional time to transcribe your handwritten copy on a computer?

John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”

photo credit: Marquette La

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Jean, a marketing manager for a new client, sent me a creative brief for some Web copy. As I was finishing the copy, she sent another short paragraph for review.

“I tried to update the existing copy myself,” she explained, “but it doesn’t feel quite right to me. Can you have a look and send me any suggestions?” I agreed and she sent me the copy with her changes.

The original text must have been written by a comatose monk. Jean’s version was an improvement, but it wasn’t as catchy as Web copy could and should be. I started in on it and learned (re-learned, really) Lesson 1.

Lesson 1: Editing is harder than writing from scratch.

This is understandable, but it bears repeating, because many marketing managers lose sight of it. To edit your text, I have to suppress the way it makes sense to me to express the same idea. This is like simultaneously pushing air into a bottle of soda and sealing it with a cap; a single-function machine can do it very well, but most writers are not single-function machines.

So, I decided I’d do Jean one better: I’d clean up the copy she sent me, and then I’d also rewrite it from scratch and let her choose between the two. I know the subject matter well and couldn’t resist the temptation to impress a new client.

Enter Lesson 2.

Lesson 2: No good re-write goes unpunished.

“Why did you rewrite it?” Jean asked me on the phone. “I just wanted you to look at my text and make suggestions.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I cleaned up yours, the way I thought you wanted, then tried a completely different take on it, given what I know.”

“The problem is that there’s a lot you don’t know about this topic,” she said rather sternly. “Besides, there are political strings attached to the original copy, and I have to live with them. I can’t drop a re-write on them as if it were a birthday present. Don’t do this anymore, because it frustrates me.”

This drove home Lesson 3.

Lesson 3: Writers don’t write. They suggest.

Everybody likes options, right? Well, not really.

It takes time and mental energy for marketing managers to weed through options. It’s unlikely they’ll prefer A over B and C just like that; more likely, they’ll prefer A, but can we take a little bit of B and the last point in C and put them into A, then take out the sentence in A that doesn’t fit now, then…

Sometimes the marketing communications writer is a one-stroke wonder, who nails the concept succinctly and delivers copy that yields only a few requests for change. More often, the writer’s job is to:

1. absorb information from topic experts
2. suggest in print how the topic should be explained (a.k.a. write a draft)
3. incorporate seismic changes from the experts

It’s easier for marketing managers to decide how to add, edit or delete when they are dealing with a single draft (or suggestion).

Writers are better off impressing a new client by doing their homework and suggesting something solidly consistent with how they understand the product or service. Launching multiple arrows at the target may seem more artistic or generous, but it burdens the client with an unwanted decision.

It also punishes your hourly average.

John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”

photo credit:U.S. Army

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1. Your Marketing Writer Takes One Final Look

“Ketchup on fries” is the fast-food equivalent of putting personality in your writing. Does your company want that or not? On which pieces?

White papers and position papers are notoriously devoid of personality. “Get the facts down, persuade the reader to see things in a new way, make him or her pick up the phone.” Not much room for personality in that recipe.

Direct mail letters do roughly the same thing, but they’re absolutely dripping with personality. Robert Gilgamesh (“You can call me Bob”) writes an effusive direct mail letter telling you everything about his boyhood, if only you’ll download the demo from the Web site, or send in your $19.99 for the set of knives.

Long-time marketing managers may know to tell the writer how much or how little personality they want in a given piece, but if they don’t think of it in advance, the writer may invest a lot of time in a piece that will be completely off-target.

We’re launching a new software product (development platform, really) with a stem-to-stern overhaul of user manuals, technical guides, references and knowledgebase. I forgot to tell the writer whether I wanted personality in the writing, but she came back with a well paced piece capped with a pretty good title: “Who Let the Docs Out?” People will read that. Maybe even engineers.

One writer told me that in her work for a financial services software provider, they love it when she puts personality into her writing. She also does work for an unnamed maker of personal computers (that are not PCs) and personal electronic devices over which consumers are positively gaga, and they make it clear that she can leave personality at the door, thank you very much.

So as you’re whipping up a creative brief for your next set of content (I’m sure you all do that, the same as I do), remember item #8 and tell your writers whether you want ketchup on the fries or not.

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