When NOT To Be Creative …
By Mindy Tyson McHorse

All this week, we’ve been talking about how essential creativity is to life as a writer.

We’ve covered everything from how to rejuvenate your neural pathways to boosting creativity when you’re pressed for time to unusual ways to get your creative juices flowing.

There’s just one thing left to talk about …

 … and that’s when NOT to be creative.

One of Michael Masterson’s well-known maxims for writing well is this:

Good writing is a single idea, clearly expressed.

Too often, writers lose sight of their goal to communicate. Instead, they try to make their copy cute and clever.

But fancy metaphors aren’t the secret to charming prospects. The secret is presenting information they want in a manner that’s easily understood.

Your goal, as legendary copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis would say, is to “be a great communicator.” Your goal should be to express, not impress.

Always choose clarity over creativity. Explain product features and benefits simply. Use details. Make sure everything you write is both meaningful and understandable to your prospect.

Most of the time, research is the key to both. When you truly “get” all the ins and outs behind the product or service you’re writing about, you’re primed to write clearly and creatively.

Let me give you an example.

Paul Hollingshead, an AWAI co-founder and six-figure copywriter, tells the story of how he got one of his best ideas for a headline with a very creative approach. It made for a wildly successful sales letter that brought in $3 million in less than two months.

At first, he struggled with the project. He was writing about a very complicated, highly technical financial advisory service. Coming up with a clear yet unique way to communicate the value of the service seemed impossible.

So he kept digging.

After weeks of reading everything he could get his hands on that related to stock prediction through quantitative analysis, he had dinner with the editor of the service. Paul peppered him with questions, digging further.

That’s when the editor compared the stock tracking system of the service to the same technology used by weather forecasters to predict hurricane paths. Paul capitalized on the connection, and his headline became “The Technology That So Accurately Predicts the Path of Hurricanes Can Also Tell You Where Stock Prices Are Heading Next.”

It was a very creative way to explain the service and made a complicated concept easy to understand … but it was only possible because Paul had done enough research to clearly understand the point he wanted to communicate.

So remember, clarity comes first. Once you’re clear on what you need to express, then you can work on how to express it creatively.

If you’d like more instruction on how to find the best writing ideas and clearly express them, I highly recommend you look at the Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting. That program, along with AWAI’s Accelerated Program Live Companion Series, has been the single most effective launching point for scores of successful writing careers (including mine).

Look into it today.