Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Clever doesn’t cut it

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As you might have noticed, I've been digging int0 some of my pappy's old stuff lately, for inspiration and moral backup. I have a book of memos from his days as creative director for Detroit ad agency Campbell-Ewald in the 1960s, I ran across this letter of Mar. 28, 1966, thanking a Kenneth B. Walker, for some ideas:

While some of them are quite amusing, I refer you back to my letter of several months ago in which I told you that it's fairly easy for most of our writers to coin a phrase or use a pun, but rather difficult for them to solve marketing or product problems that are usually the assignment. Keep in mind, Ken, that many of our writers have been or are novelists, gag writers for comedians, greeting card writers, movie writers and so on. So it is very, very easy for them to come up with something like, "A SUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE OFFICE!" As a matter of fact, we have books in our library filled with puns that could easily be applied to our product, if we felt this could result in meaningful advertising. All this by way of saying please don't expect us to fall backwards at a few well-turned phrases.

Dad let him down easy, concluding,

I have been busy with a new reorganization and haven't poked my nose out of the office for several months, but would always find time for a talk with you about advertising, islands, or women.

The man knew how to handle it.

A writer is an inventor; a headline writer is a salesman

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Copyblogger just came out with a good primer on headline writing, its importance underlined by a statistic that says eight out of 10 people will read a headline, but only two out of 10 will read the story.

That must be the stat on bad headlines.

A good headline is almost irresistible. Once I was an editorial director, and one of my writers asked me how it was that I wrote such good headlines.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe because my dad was an advertisting guy."

"Oh no," she groaned. "My dad is a lawyer."

Most writers are bad at writing headlines for their own pieces for the same reason that inventors are bad at selling their own inventions. They think the thing will sell itself, and they forget that people have gotten along perfectly well without it for thousands of years, and would be happy to do so for thousands more.

Same with goes for the article you just worked on for a month.

So what? says the reader.

Here's what, Dummy, must say the headline.

At the risk of actually teaching something on my blog—one doesn't want to be a union scab—here's a suggestion

If you have to write headlines for your own stories, do this: Scan your world for the one Philistine you know who is incurious enough to be utterly uninterested in the subject.

Write a headline to convince her to read your piece.

That way, you might—might—be able to summon the salesman's heart sufficiently to sell your story.