Truly scary stuff

We’re well into the winter holiday season, which to my mind kicked off with Halloween–this is a typical time for first snow in my region, after all. Since I spend a lot of my time reading and thinking about good writing, my social media feeds fill up with ads for the latest novels and novel-writing supports.

Now, I’m all for a lightweight paranormal romance. They’re fun, they’re silly, and I can usually read one in an hour or so. I also love a good mystery, and especially one that’s cozy and spends an inordinate amount of time describing baked goods. (Side note: love a good Bailey Cates, and she’s local to me–if this sounds like, ahem, your cup of tea, that’s my reading recommendation for the week.)

I don’t even know that I would call this the worst author ad I’ve seen this season, and I’m motivated enough to slog through to the end. Nonetheless, I keep looking for a copy of the elusive style guide or marketing manual telling everyone to write ad copy in these staccato, rapid-fire sections. I understand and appreciate that most of us have short attention spans–especially for unsolicited attempts to sell us things–but that advice needs to be applied on a macro rather than micro level. This ad is both too long and too short.

See, what happens when you limit yourself to no more than two sentences or, say, 15 words for each paragraph, is your rhythm becomes unpredictable and we can’t get into a groove. I love jazz, but it’s typically more brainwork than listening to a pop song; if I’m scanning something unsolicited in my social feed, I don’t want to work for it. I’m most likely to move on after about two breaks–and if I don’t know what you’re trying to sell me by that point, I’m not going to keep looking for it. 

Instead of limiting each paragraph, set your limit in terms of your entire piece. Think Twitter, think LinkedIn status update, think photo caption rather than a full story: 100 words is great, 100 characters is better. Now, that’s not a lot of room for describing what you’re offering, and you’ll probably need more: but you don’t want to leave us with a bunch of squiggly snakes to wade through. Give us something simple, solid, and steady.

Only use line breaks when they’re really, truly necessary. Rather than aiming for the jazz riff of a broken sequence, aim for a single short unit–something we can easily learn to hum. To check which mode you’re using, take a highlighter or pen or even your finger, and just run it down the right side of the page. If the line you’re tracing gives you carpal tunnel, your eyes are also going to be working too hard.