The Three Personalities Of Exceptional Copywriters
December 17th, 2007 by CourtThree Personalities Of Exceptional Copywriters
Photography by SuperFantastic
To write effective copy, you will need to develop three distinct writing personalities: planner, creator, and editor.
Planner
Photography by Jurvetson
The planner personality should come out when you first decide to write about a topic. In order to plan effectively, you need to go through a 2-step process:
- Do your research. You will usually need to research your topic to make sure you’re covering it well. For some topics you may already know what you need to know.
- Make an outline. Creating an outline will help you during the creative phase, and will help you to see whether you’ve completely covered the topic.
Creator
Photography by Ryanrocketship
Once you have planned what you need to write, you will unleash your creator personality. During this phase, you don’t care about spelling, grammar, or anything else that could slow you down. Your research is already complete, so you will be free to write anything you like.
After the creator phase, you will edit your copy. This means that during the creator phase there isn’t any reason to worry about how things are said. Anything you type out that doesn’t apply can be altered or deleted later.
Almost all of my best ideas come out during the creator phase of writing. If I didn’t remove all limitations with the other two phases, this wouldn’t be possible.
Editor
Photography by Al Fassam
After the creator phase, I would recommend taking a break. The transition from creator to editor is very abrupt - you need to come back from your break as a completely different person. You now have to learn to act like someone else wrote the document you’re going to edit. You need to bring out the brutal dictator in yourself.
As the editor, you are responsible to make sure that the document can be easily understood by everyone that reads it. You need to make sure that it’s presented well. Your duties as an editor will include:
- Checking for mistakes with spelling and grammar.
- Adding graphics and images that help to better portray your message.
- Formatting the document to make it easy to scan and visually effective.
Implement, implement, implement.
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December 17th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
“Writing exceptional copy isn’t simple”
This is so true! Writing is hard! I am always amazed at some bloggers ability to write so well. You definitely fit into this category. I someday hope to aspire to your abilities as a writer. Thanks for comunicating so well!
December 17th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
It would be great if all these personalities planner, creator and editor came rolled into one person, but that is rare. Which is why if you have a good team in place, you are on a winning pitch.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:25 am
The Three Personalities Of Exceptional Copywriters
Want to learn to be a better writer? This post will give you a simple process that you can follow to improve. Exceptional copywriters all go through this process and you should too.
If you will follow these three simple steps, you will get a much bett…
December 18th, 2007 at 3:01 am
The point about taking a break between creator and editor is a very good one, Court.
When you take an extended break, you come back to the desk and you forget how each sentence should be read. Because of this, you read the post exactly how your blog visitors will.
I’ve often looked at my forum posts from previous weeks, months or even years. I often struggle to read them. At the time I wrote them, I knew how each sentence was supposed to be read because I had only just created it. However, had I taken a break before posting it on the forum, I would have realised that it didn’t quite read properly. In fact, I’m going to guess that this comment doesn’t quite read as well as to you as it currently does to me.
A break is good. If it’s possible, make sure you use it!
Good post, Court!
December 18th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Hi Court,
Great write up on the qualities of a good copy writer. That first drawing up top looks a lot like my notes. LOL
I call it my creative scribbles.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Good stuff Court. A lot of times now, I will just write a title and save as draft, and comeback and write content to the title. All these points are good. I think a lot of people if they took a little more time to think about what they were writing after they wrote it, would improve their content and technique.
December 18th, 2007 at 8:11 am
While not taking away the importance of the three step process, which is logical, I would like to add the problem one, Selection of the Topic as being the most time consuming. To be unique, the topic has to be fresh, interesting enough to get visitors to read, provoke thought and comment on and keep coming back for more of such experiences.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Great post as always!
Also, I just noticed the buy me lunch link. That is by far the best donate link i’ve found on the internet to date.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Court the first time I read one of your post and mmmm I feel horrible.
mmmm where do I fit lol next post Court, how a post should never be written and link to any of my post.
LOL
As always Court thanks.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Hi Court,
Thanks for another great article. Reminds me of the three faces of Eve. Taking on each personality is a challenge, and resting after the first two phases, is a really good idea. I can read copy over and over and still miss a mistake since I “know” what I wrote. Reading copy out loud is another good habit.I guess the three implements at the bottom of your copy works out to one implement for each personality, otherwise it would be redundant.
Nick
December 18th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
[…] a method that they can use to get better at writing. If you missed the post you can find it here: The Three Personalities Of Exceptional Copywriters. After publishing the post, I got a few emails from people who were really worried about their […]
December 18th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Court,
Great writeup!
The one suggestion that I have been really trying to follow is to take a break between writing the article, and reviewing the article.
After I write it, I can be kinda loopy with excitement, or chances are I’m just tired.
By taking a break from seeing what I have written, it gives me a chance to clear my head before I go into edit and proofreading mode.
I also sometimes will read it out loud to “hear” how it might sound to someone else.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Great post here Court. A lot of times I think I skip over parts of the creative process just in the interest of getting a post done. This will definitely give me more to consider.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Nice tips Court! planner, creator and editor. i will remember that.
just like 1, 2 and 3.
May 10th, 2008 at 6:16 am
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