VersaQuill

Advice on Writing from a Copywriting Addict and Methodology Geek

Why do certain techniques, words, layouts, and visuals consistently work in copywriting?

Why do some deliriously pretty or scintillatingly clever angles fail?

How can you know what will work, if the ghost of David Ogilvy isn’t whispering in your ear?

The VersaQuill blog discusses the principles behind copywriting. But why would you want to hear what I have to say about any of that?

Voracious reader of copywriting books

My name is Dianne Durante, and I am an addict. I find it difficult to resist reading books on copywriting, advertising, and marketing. I spend a lot of time reading master copywriters and marketers such as Ogilvy, Schwab, Caples, Bly, Sugarman, Fortin and others. (See the current list.) The ideas that I accept and discuss here are those recommended as best practices by people who’ve made a ton of money writing copy.

Methodology geek

Of course, reading voraciously doesn’t qualify someone to teach. An effective teacher obsesses over how to present his material: what points are essential and what order they should be taught in. Then he figures out a framework that will help his listeners retain the knowledge he’s presenting. Any teacher who doesn’t think long and hard about such methodological issues ends up creating lists of random rules and tips. And we all know what happens to random lists: as soon as the exam’s over or the deadline’s past, the lists are forgotten.

I’m a big fan of methodology. I love not only writing copy but figuring out how to write efficiently. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to give my copy more impact, and at the same time how to make the process of writing less stressful and time-consuming.

The book I developed from this methodological geekdom is called the VersaQuill Copywriting Workbook. It’s a sort of Joy of Cooking for copywriters. The Workbook doesn’t guarantee great results—ultimately those depend on your knowledge, motivation and effort. But the Workbook does break the process of writing down into a series of logical, manageable steps. That makes success much more likely. In this blog, I’ll talk about the principles behind the steps in the writing process.

Ayn Rand’s Philosophy

Principles … How abstract. How philosophical. My one college philosophy class left me with the conviction that philosophy was irrelevant to real life. Kant’s noumenal world, Cartesian dualism, Hegelian dialectics: what use are they when the electricity bill comes due?

Then I stumbled onto Ayn Rand. Rand explains why it’s crucial to think long term and in principles, which means: to have a philosophy. Most people know Rand for the best-selling novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. I love her fiction, but it was her nonfiction works on philosophy that made me a better thinker and a more effective communicator. My favorites among the nonfiction books are The Virtue of Selfishness and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, both of which are directly relevant to copywriting. (More on that in future posts.)

Writing credentials

At age seven I won my first writing award: a 3-foot-long fire truck with an ear-splitting siren. Since then I’ve earned most of my college tuition, a four-week trip to Greece, a week-long Caribbean cruise, and many mortgage payments by writing. My copywriting niche has long been rare books—I’ve written descriptions that sold books priced at over $100,000. I also lecture on art and home-school my 17-year-old in writing and other indispensable subjects.

In all those years of writing, I’ve never, ever had a brilliant idea appear on a sheet of paper in the perfect words, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. Writing is hard work. Writing effective copy is very hard work. I love doing it, and I love thinking about how to do it better. If you’re interested, read on.

Best regards,

Dianne Durante