I have a confession to make. I hate reading long copy. I don’t care who wrote it. Or how clever it is. If I see an ocean of text, chances are pretty good, I’ll just be skimming the page. Am I missing out on something? Probably. Do I care? Not in the least. (Normally, I would place a paragraph break right here, but I’m trying to make a point.) Paragraph breaks are your friends. Use them. Otherwise, you end up with the literary equivalent of a cornfield. And anyone who’s seen “Signs” or “Children of the Corn” knows how scary that shit can be. (Another break here would be nice.) Avoid redundancy. Don’t repeat something you’ve already said. Go back and read what you’ve written. Are all those words absolutely necessary? Believe me, they aren’t. Cut it down. You’re not getting paid by the word. And if by chance you are, you should know better. Another thing you should do is count the commas and conjunctions in each sentence, and see how many of each you come up with, and then see if you can, maybe, you know, remove some commas, or maybe cut the sentence into two or three or four sentences, so that people don’t have to go back and read the sentence over and over until they understand what the hell you were trying to say. It makes the copy easier to read. And when it’s easier to read, more people read it. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah. The Wall Of Words sucks.
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