Evolution and the Em Dash
August 26, 2009 at 5:52 am 1 comment
I’ve been working on some copywriting workshops I’m giving in September and I got to thinking about how my writing has changed over the years. At one time, I was really enamoured of the em dash. I used that sucker everywhere. And I had no problem writing reams of copy, happily using my repetoire of adjectives and adverbs to spice things up.
But the older I get, the shorter my attention span gets. (With all the media bombardment on a daily basis, it’s not surprising that I’m showing signs of ADD.) All this has meant that I’m writing shorter. Less fluff. More tachlis. And I’ve almost cured myself of my addiction to the em dash—almost.
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Mac Bull | August 26, 2009 at 7:01 am
Hello,
First time visitor to your blog. The first post I read was this one
and I found that I am in agreement with you. The bombardment of today’s media and things flashing by you at 900mph just cuts your attention and patience down.
That being said, I find that there still is a place for the long, direct mail style wrtiting of sales letters and metalogs. Or maybe I just hope there is…
I was on this one website promoting a copywriter’s (I can’t recall his name) product of how to write whitpapers and he said they should/onlyneed to be 2 pages or so. Yet he still spoke of the high fees that one would aquire for a much longer whitepaper.
Things are changing.