Writing is acting. Writing is illustrating.

Andy Whitlock
6 min readApr 24, 2019

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If you’re an aspiring copywriter, this post is for you.

Although I’m a brand strategist, copywriting is a core foundation on which I’ve built my craft and career. I spent over ten years overseeing copy at multiple agencies and businesses and I still occasionally help companies to find their tone of voice. As such, I’m massively opinionated about copywriting and what it takes to do it well. There are many posts brewing inside me about this subject. This first one is about style.

As Dave Trott said recently, copywriting isn’t about writing, it’s about thinking. So here are three ways to think about how you write:

1. Copywriting is acting

When you write copy for a brand, you’re pretending to have its personality. And although some people like to argue that brands aren’t people, the goal is certainly to humanise things. That’s the point. Otherwise, your seductive email from Made.com would simply be a list of inventory with SKUs and prices next to them, instead of the tantalising promise of ‘furniture-porn’ or the missing nightstand that your bedroom is yearning for.

So when you write copy for brands, make no mistake, you are being an actor. An actor who is only allowed to use the written word. And the thing about acting is that it’s really hard. Which is why in Hollywood you get lots actors that always seem to play the same sort of character. Because they’re not very good at pretending to be wildly different people. They’re good at emotion, and reacting to things, but they’re really just… them. You have a far smaller number of actors that leave us all thinking: Wow, you can play ANYONE. Think Jennifer Aniston vs Cate Blanchett.

A lot of copywriters are like Jennifer Aniston: Good at performing in a way that is likeable and, shall we say, contextually appropriate, but less good at portraying different personalities. And this happens for the same reason as in Hollywood: because it’s really hard not being you. So brands end up recruiting copywriters for their particular style; their own personality. That’s fine, but it’s limiting. And I’d go further: it’s dangerous to assume that because some people want to pay you to write like you, that you’re already an accomplished copywriter. If you want to be more hireable, you need to be more flexible. You need to be a better writer-actor. And acting means not being you. Sorry.

2. How to not be you

You might have noticed that you write words a LOT. You write emails to relatives, tweets for whoever will pay attention, amusing Facebook updates, WhatsApp retorts. You’ve spent your whole life honing your own personal tone of voice. Your youness is well-established. And you probably like it, because it’s where all that honing has taken you. This is why it’s so hard to write not as you. What makes copywriting all the more difficult is that you have to sit there using the same tool (your computer) that you used to develop your established, personal tone of voice. So how do you break out of it?

The greatest actors use a technique called method acting. It’s well-known so I won‘t patronise you by explaining it. Let’s just speed things up by saying it’s a kind of ‘intense pretending’. You live and breathe as though you are that person, so by the time you are in front of the camera, the pretending comes easier.

You can do this with copywriting too. I mean, you don‘t have to go home and talk to your husband in the voice of Colgate. But you can really get into the mood of the personality before you write, by playing the part of that personality beyond the words you’ve been commissioned to write.

In the past, I’ve experimented by watching YouTube videos to get me in the mood of a character. So if I was going to write Nike copy, I would watch a load of Nike ads, and interviews with athletes that feel on-brand. I would listen to soundtracks the brand has commissioned. And I would allow myself to drift into the mindset that the voice requires before I even start writing anything.

I would write streams of consciousness in the voice of that character to get into the mood, draw on characters from TV shows. Before you know it, you can actually think like someone that isn’t you, just by drawing on these cultural references.

It takes practice, but it’s possible.

3. Writing is illustrating

Here’s a quiz for you: Below are three illustrations of foxes. Which one is ‘best’?

The first illustration, Fox 1, is the most realistic. Fox 2 is the most colourful, exaggerated and endearing. Fox 3 is clever and reductive but a little cold. But which one is the ‘best’?

Of course, it’s a trick question, because it’s entirely subjective. The question wasn’t: which fox is most realistic? That would be easier to answer.

This might seem like a silly exercise, but it’s where lots of potentially good writers go wrong with copywriting. In the world of branding and advertising, communication and expression is more important that a biassed view on ‘correctness’. And there are many, many ways to skin a… fox.

I’ve met many copywriters that write exclusively in the style of Fox 1. Because it’s correct. And I’ve met even more copywriters that have one style in their toolkit, even if they have a more playful, informal approach.

Illustration is a useful analogy for copywriting, because it shows us how one idea (a fox in this case) can be expressed so differently. It’s also a good analogy because illustrators tend to have a style. But it’s harder for illustrators to change style than it is for writers.
So you have a choice: get really good at one style/voice and get hired to write in it, or get really good at being able to turn your hand to any style, and become a heavyweight. A real writer-actor. From my experience of hiring copywriters, I would say only one in 50 writers I come across is capable of this.

Correct grammar shouldn’t be a constraint any more than the anatomy of a fox should be for an illustrator. Leave that level of correctness to a vet. Your job is to express an idea in the most appropriate and effective way.

Let’s take this abstract example of writing in the style of an illustration and put it to practice. Imagine you were briefed to write an email promoting this product:

Now imagine you had to do this in three different styles, taking inspiration from the three fox illustrations above. In other words: you have to write in the style of each one of those illustrations, taking cues from their respective qualities: formal and ‘correct’; endearing and characterful; poetically reductive. Why not have a go now. Here’s my effort:

In the style of Fox 1 (formal and ‘correct’)
“This is a delightful pot, certain to make your guests smile. It has a lovely little face and has been painted beautifully. Measuring twelve centimetres across, this cheerful chap will brighten any window sill.”

In the style of Fox 2 (endearing and characterful)
“Those ears! A gorgeous, perky fox pot with a cheeky snout. Give it a horticultural hairdo and switch it out when you get bored.”

In the style of Fox 3 (poetically reductive)
“A pet pot”

Without more context, it’s not really possible to know if these three examples are ‘good’. But what they demonstrate is that there are many ways to talk about things, and as with the illustrations, there are several tools and techniques to express them in different ways.
The first is formal and thorough, but not personable. The second is warmer, scruffier and more playful. The third is reductive and a tad poetic.

There you go. Three ways to think about how you write:

Copywriting is acting
Remember this and it will change how you apply yourself to the task

Resist being you
Break habits and find techniques that let you escape your personal style

Think like an illustrator
Experiment with formal vs loose, clean vs scruffy. Think: expressiveness.

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