Erasure: One Step to Better
Copy
by Heather Reimer
The Roman poet Horace said, "You must often make erasures if you mean to
write what is worthy of being read a second time." Two thousand years
later, those words still hold true.
If you're responsible for the content of a website or newsletter, then erasures
- editing - can make your words worthy of being read a FIRST time. Erasures are
one thing you can do (or rather undo) to raise your content and your
promotional materials above the mediocre writing that dominates the net.
A composer once observed that sublime music is determined as much by the rests
as by the notes themselves. And so good copy can be made better by the words
you don't see on the page.
I'm sure you've come across sites and publications that were so full of
padding, you wondered if the point would ever materialize out of the fog of
verbiage. A lot of content writers substitute long copy for compelling copy,
quantity for quality.
For example, one webmaster wrote a 3000-word home page stuffed with incredibly
repetitive keywords and phrases to please the search engines. He may have concocted
some yummy spider food but I'm sure his would-be customers never bit off more
than the first 500 or so words. The missing ingredient? Erasure.
The article you're reading originally opened with a lovely little anecdote that
became an early victim of erasure because it wasn't focused tightly enough on
the subject at hand. It wasn't easy to make that sacrifice, believe me.
Slash and Burn
Erasure is never easy. It requires you to be brutally honest with yourself and
your writing style. It requires slash and burn techniques that may reduce your
epic forest to a few lonely (but pertinent) pines waving in the breeze.
If you don't have the stomach to murder your darlings, you may want to consider
a professional "eraser". Blockbuster authors like Stephen King, John
Grisham and Tom Clancy wouldn't be where they are today without editors who, you'll
notice, are always praised profusely in the forewords of their books.
Not everyone was cut out to be a best-selling writer. But we can all take
advantage of erasure to make our online copy easier to read, more persuasive
and ultimately worth reading... maybe even a second time.
(If you'd like to learn more about editing your own content, read
the article Navel Gazing: How to Edit Yourself at:
http://www.thewritecontent.com/editself.html)
Suspect your e-content is not working hard enough? Want to boost traffic and
revenues? TheWriteContent.com delivers action-inspiring web content, sales
letters, newsletters, press releases and more. Editing/proofreading also available.
To get a FREE content analysis report on your site, visit:
http://www.TheWriteContent.com