How to make your writing instantly more conversational
If you spend any time at all on copywriting LinkedIn, you’ll get pounded with posts talking about writing conversationally—ie, the way people talk.
The opposite of conversational writing is academic writing. You know the type: it’s something you’d put in a term paper, or maybe a Wikipedia article, or something formal where you’re trying to look uber competent and put together.
It’s flat and boring. Not something you’d actually say out loud to your friends.
In other words…it makes people fall asleep.
In marketing (and in life), you don’t want to bore your audience—yet shaking the stiffness out of writing is one of the hardest things to do.
I don’t know what it is. Maybe we’ve all just spent too much time in formal school systems that make you think you need to come off a certain way in order to be an upstanding citizen.
Well, my friends, it’s time to loosen up your writing—and this is how you do it.
Always use contractions.
Read these sentences out loud:
You are not writing conversationally enough.
You’re not writing conversationally enough.
How do they feel? Can you detect a difference in sound or tone?
To me, one feels harsh. Mean. A bottle of pure criticism. I picture a stiff-browed middle-school teacher staring down at me like I broke a rule.
The second one isn’t pleasant, but you can feel some sass. It could be sarcastic, it could be playful, or it could be intense.
Contractions themselves immediately make the sentence feel lighter, faster, more informal.
Now think: which of these would you say out loud to someone you know?
“It is that way” or “It’s that way” ?
“We are going to brunch” or “We’re going to brunch” ?
See how it changes the vibe?
A lack of contractions makes the sentence feel sharp, pointy. Swapping them in brings a rounded, softer feel.
Change your tone by changing the length of a sentence.
Speaking of softness, the length of your sentence can completely change your tone.
Take, for example, the long, meandering sentence, one that dips in and out of different thoughts and pulls you along on a literal journey, slowing things down, making you drag. It’s calming, contemplative.
But short sentences? You know. The quick ones. Stabby. They speed you up. They feel urgent. You’ve got places to go and things to do; this puts on pressure.
See what I mean?
In both paragraphs, I used a mix of short and long, but can you see how each usage set the tone?
Go ahead—break grammar rules (sometimes)
I’ve got a confession: I don’t know many grammar rules. I think I learned to write proper English via osmosis; I just know how things work through feel.
Maybe that’s why it’s easy for me to find a phrase like “I’ve got” totally natural. But it’s also the #1 most edited-out phrase in anything I’ve ever written.
But pay attention when you talk—I guarantee you say “I’ve got” or “you’ve got.”
In fact, we rarely ever speak with perfect grammar. We end sentences with prepositions. We use “me” when we should use “I.” We leave the “ly” off of adjectives. We occasionally use incomplete sentences.
The trick is to scatter rule breakage in artfully, not constantly—otherwise you risk looking like you don’t know how to write at all. It’s a weird game of proving that you know the rules well enough to break them.
Use colloquialisms and references.
Nothing screams human like a well-placed reference or bit of slang.
As English speaking humans, we have weird tendencies to do things like moosh words together (think words like “wanna” or “gonna,” or the lesser-know “gotchu,” one of my faves).
Don’t be afraid to play around with these—it immediately adds human voice to a sentence.
And references? Well, I love a well-placed reference, whether direct or indirect.
What do I mean by that? I’m going to turn to a classic reference-laden show that I point to a ton in these situations: Gilmore Girls.
Direct reference: “God! You’re like Ruth Gordon, just standing there with the tannis root!” (Rory to Dean, Season 1 Episode 1). A line pulled from and very directly referencing Rosemary’s Baby, said after Dean scares her in the school hallway and hovers over her.
Indirect reference: “I wasn’t supposed to look like I was up all night playing quarters!” (Lorelei to Sookie, Season 1, Episode 2). Lorelei had to put together an outfit from the depths of her closet to take Rory to her first day of school, and was forced to take off her coat in front of the headmaster. When she finally gets home and changes into more professional clothes for work, she references this common drinking game.
Both are pop culture, but one’s pulled from media, one’s pulled from a movement.
Either way, they both paint a very human picture and make it feel like you’re talking to a friend.
Keep your word choice simple.
If there’s one thing that’s gonna make or break conversational writing, it’s word choice.
There’s a big difference between, “Let’s start!” and “Let’s commence!”
Between “He used the brush” and “He utilized the brush.”
Between “Practice makes perfect” and “He cannot hope to develop mastery all at once.”
Are you giving a dissertation to a PhD panel, or trying to sell a candy bar to a bored mom in a checkout line? I bet you you’d talk to these audiences in a very different way.
Don’t pick words that make you feel good about yourself and your SAT scores—pick words that register quickly and hit home.
Like this take? Dig into these resources.
If you want to be a better copywriter or marketing writer, you can’t always learn from marketing resources. You need to learn from the greats.
You need to learn from the writers.
Look, writing for marketing isn’t all about art and beautiful sentences—but knowing how to make art and beautiful sentences will absolutely make you a better marketer.
I’ve listed out some of my favorite writing books for you to check out below.
“Your First Novel” by Ann Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb: I can’t count the number of times I’ve picked this book up. It’s all about how to actually write and finish a novel, but the first half of the book is a close read on successful novels—everything from first lines, to sentence structure, to pacing. It’s one of my absolute favorite writing resources. Also, Dennis Lehane’s forward is something that touched my soul like a bolt of lightning.
“Behind the Short Story” by Ryan G. Van Cleave and Todd James Pierce: A collection of short stories I had to read in one of my writing classes in college—the book that introduced me to my favorite short story of all time, One of Star Wars, One of Doom by Lee K. Abbott. Each story is followed up by a lesson from the writer in which they talk about a certain element of writing that was essential in bringing each piece together.
“Reading like a Writer” by Francine Prose: This book teaches you how to close read and tear apart text in a way that makes you a better writer. Not in an English major “tell me what you think this means” analyst sort of way, but a “why does this sentence work, this punctuation work, this word choice work” sort of way.
“The Art of Fiction” by John Gardner: Similar concept to the Francine Prose book above, but this dives more into the psychology and purpose of good writing. Now we’re starting to get aligned with the purpose of marketing. A favorite line: “Nothing can be made to be of interest to the reader that was not first of vital concern to the writer.” And this is why we ask all those touchy-feely questions in our onboarding meetings—we need to care.
And last—an actual marketing book, a copywriting book, and probably my favorite ‘business’ book of all time:
“Hey Whipple, Squeeze This” by Luke Sullivan and Edward Boches: This book is thick but it’s one of the easiest reads of all time—I read it on the beach and loved every minute of it. I laughed. I cried. I felt seen. I learned so much. If you’re a copywriter, this is required reading.
