Reverberation (doubt)
Whether you’re writing for a newspaper, a magazine, for the web, or pretty much anyplace else where you’re writing to an wide and varied audience, there’s a few things that always remain true:
- Know what you’re trying to say.
- Say it succinctly and clearly.
- Don’t lie.
- Above all else, make it relate to the audience
I have written professionally for newspapers, magazines the web and a few other outlets, and can pretty much guarantee you that those four simple rules will carry you far.
In other words, don’t tell me the laptop computer you’re trying to sell me has a one-gigawatt flux capacitor core. Tell me it will let me do what I want to do so quickly I can be done yesterday, and get back to watching “America’s Next Top Model,” like I wanted to be doing anyway.
And don’t lie to me. Ever. The goal here is to build trust – you should be entering into a mutually beneficial relationship – your audience can trust you to help them do their thing better, faster, more bionically. And you can take their money. Don’t ruin that by lying.
To illustrate the point, a story found on Kim Klaver’s blog:
One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building
with a hat by his feet and a sign that read:“I am blind, please help.”
A creative publicist was walking by and stopped to observe.
He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat.
He dropped in more coins and, without asking for permission,
took the sign and rewrote it.He returned the sign to the blind man and left.
That afternoon the publicist returned to the blind man and noticed
that his hat was full of bills and coins.The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked
if it was he who had rewritten his sign
and wanted to know what he had written on it.The publicist responded: “Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the
message a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.The new sign read: “Today is Spring and I cannot see it.”