Copywriting Lesson in Coraline Score
by Colin | March 12, 2009
by Colin | March 12, 2009
Hey there… you haven’t heard from me for a while. I know.
As you know, John sold this website recently (along with me!) — so we’re going through some transitions right now.
One quick change you’ll notice — we’re going back to short blogs like we had them last autumn.
I’ll still talk about the five aspects of my copywriting life (Personal Balance, Self-Promotion, Writing for Clients, Shaune’s Coaching and Finances). It’ll just be broken up to two or three blog posts a week.
With that said… I’ll start “dripping” e-columns from the past two weeks to catch you up.
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Tough week.
As I mentioned last week, Shaune assigned the first long copy exercise in his Copywriting Coaching Program.
I simply couldn’t get “into” it.
It hung over me the last two weeks, this menacing, looming grayness.
One thing I will say, I believe that there is no such thing as writer’s block… only lack of research. And with this piece, without the leverage of Intimate Interviews(tm), the struggle amplified itself.
On a fun note — Queenie and I managed to get out to watch Coraline this weekend. Neil Gaiman, hands down, master of his craft.
The composer on the production wrote a beautiful, creepy score as well… however, the score was so unique, it ended up distracting me from the story.
There’s a copy lesson here.
To me, an ideal movie score should be subtle… it seeps into your subconscious and without you knowing, you start humming it a week afterward, out of the blue. The score should never “take away” from the story, but complement it.
In sales copy, replace “score” with “story” and “story” with “selling” and you got the same cautious warning Shaune gave me a few weeks ago.
The story in a sales letter should NEVER distract the prospect so much that he ends up slipping off the selling process.
Don’t forget — your job as a copywriter is to SELL. Not tell stories.
In the same token, the point of a movie is to tell a story, not spotlight the score. Otherwise it’s a music video.
Talk soon,
Colin Y.J. Chung
P.S. Let me know your comments, thoughts and questions in the comment box below…
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