Write Like Jesse Pinkman Talks
StackHacks: Copywriting in a couple of minutes
I’ve been reading some copywriting books lately.
A couple were referenced from an article in The Economist titled “What to read to become a better writer. Five texts that explain how to write simply and well“. Three of the books are:
Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. By Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup.
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. By William Zinsser.
Politics and the English Language. By George Orwell.
They pound home the idea that we should use the most simple and basic words in our writing.
Would Jesse from Breaking Bad say: “At the present time we are experiencing an extreme snowfall event”? No, he'd say: “It’s snowing, bitch”?
In his “Politics and the English Language“ book, Orwell proposes six rules we should learn:
The first five boil down to preferring short, everyday words and the active voice, cutting unneeded words, and striving for fresh imagery. The sixth—“break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous”—displays the difficulty of pinning down something as protean as language. But this has not stopped others from trying.
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Orwell says: Of the tensed transitive verbs in “Politics and the English Language”, at least a fifth are in the passive voice. Indeed, one rears its head in the second paragraph:
Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.
It would be easy for Orwell to write this sentence in the active voice:
Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which one can avoid if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.
Jesse would say “Don’t copy shit writing, yo”!
Thanks for looking. Peace!