Short Sentences

By @AdamTaylorSmith I was listening to a podcast about the copywriter Julian Koenig earlier this week. At onepoint, Koenig’s son recalled a piece of advice his father had given to him: “if you don't find something you want to do and really work at it, you are going to endup like me - a writer of short sentences.” It’s a shame that he wasn't particularly proud of his achievements, but it’s funny thateven when he was trying to trivialise his career he came up with a pretty good line.I’ve chosen to become an art director, but I still love copywriting and I’m trying topractice the skill of writing ‘short sentences.’ I’m beginning to learn that it’s not somuch about the writing itself as it is about the thought behind it. The best straplines arenot necessarily elaborate, they simply say one true thing well. But condensing hours ofthought and research into one clear insight and then conveying it in just a few words isno easy task. We’ve heard in many master classes that less is more. Once (if) the elusive moment ofinspiration strikes you have to nurture the idea, removing layers from it until it sitsthere in it’s purist form. Marc recently said that at this stage, we should aim to bewriting at least 300 lines before we even consider choosing one for an ad.I suppose I’ve sort of become fascinated with the idea of saying so much with so little.Everyone knows a picture speaks a thousand words. Maybe in a way, a clever straplineshould too? Julian Koenig may have been dismissive of his skill, but interestingly Ernest Hemingwaythought there was real value in the ability to write powerful short sentences. He had atheory that, like the tip of an iceberg poking above the sea as a marker of the vast massbeneath, the most successful way of communicating the deepest human emotion isthrough minimal and unelaborate language. The less you give a reader, the more theyare required to use their imagination. What happens in people’s heads is often far morepotent than anything you could give them on the page. I remembered hearing a story that Hemingway had made a bet with a number of writersaround a dinner table. I don’t know if it’s true, but he supposedly bet them $10 that hecould write a six-word short story that would emotionally move them. He scribbled his six words on a napkin, and won the bet. Funnily enough, the story waswritten in the form of an advert:

“FOR SALE: BABY SHOES, NEVER WORN.”