How To Avoid Waffling

You’re living a roguish life as a bank robber in the Wild West…

You drift from ramshackle town to ramshackle town ‘sticking up’ the local bank and then drifting on…

You’re damn good at it too.

Just yesterday you moseyed on in, stuck your gun in the bank teller’s face and said your usual ‘this is a stick- up’ line.

The teller knew the score straight away and handed over the bag of swag. You moseyed on out.

But you have a secret past…

Your secret past as a Wild West bank robber

You weren’t always that good. You used to get yourself in some real scrapes, almost getting caught by the Sheriff every time you tried a stick-up.

What changed?

Well, back then you’d mosey on in to the bank and it would go something like this…

“I am known as the Wild Man of Wyoming. I’ve travelled for many days and I have arrived upon your town…
Already someone has sneaked out of the bank and has run to the Sheriff’s office.

“I have entered your bank and intend to leave with the contents of your safe…

“You can see here I have a gun and I will use it if required…

“I don’t want to have to use this gun so please take this empty bag and fill it with the contents of the safe I mentioned before. While you do that I will…”

You see the problem with your old approach, you said too much.

Your new line – “this is a stick-up” – says everything your previous approach did but it does it in just four words.

With copywriting, the principle is the same…

So many people make the mistake of ‘waffling’.

Years of testing has proved that ‘long’ copy works well – long letters and adverts that take the time to argue and prove the case for a product or service are effective…

But too many people confuse ‘writing’ a lot with ‘saying’ a lot.

Just because you write a lot doesn’t mean you’re saying anything more than if you wrote less.

Take Hemingway’s famous and often cited six word story… ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ Just six words but it ‘says’ so much more.

So how do you avoid ‘waffling’ and make sure you’re saying what you need to say as effectively as you can?

Good news is, it’s not difficult… you’ve just got to be strict with yourself.

Start out as normal. Write as much as you want. Waffle on.

But then when you’re through waffling, forget about it. Walk away.

Leave it a few hours, even a day and then go back to what you’ve written.

Keep in mind the point you’re trying to make and re-read the piece. Anything that doesn’t refer to your original point in some way, get rid.

As I say, be strict and ‘if in doubt’ take Hemingway’s advice and ‘cut it out’.

What you’ll be left with is a much more effective piece of writing that is easier and more enjoyable to read.

By practicing this technique you’ll start to write less and less waffle that first time round and you’ll see that your first draft will become much tighter and require less editing.

OK. To save me from waffling on, I’ll leave it there for today.

Category: Copywriting