Bruce Beckham's Blog - Posts Tagged "copywriting"
Drinking in pubic
Ah – typos!
Like literary no-see-ums they lull you into a false sense of security – no matter how many rounds of eagle-eyed editing – and then, just when you think you’re safe… ow! – they were lurking all along.
A career in copywriting has proved to me their invisibility. When you read though a piece of text, you can’t help being carried along by its meaning. Your brain gets the message and isn’t too fussy about the messenger. (Did you spot the missing ‘r’ back there?)
Some professional proof-checkers read backwards just to avoid this pitfall.
But it can’t be much fun – and it only really helps with spelling mistakes. When I omitted ‘r’ from ‘through’ above, I doubt a backwards-checker, not following the gist, would spot the error. Though, after all, is a perfectly good word.
Which makes Amazon’s system for finding these flaws all the more impressive.
Just this morning I received an email to ask, did I intend to write, “drinking in the public bar” rather than the published version, “drinking in the pubic bar”?
Given that this particular phrase referred to a group of underage schoolboys enjoying an illicit visit to a hostelry, I did waver for a moment. But only a moment!
Like literary no-see-ums they lull you into a false sense of security – no matter how many rounds of eagle-eyed editing – and then, just when you think you’re safe… ow! – they were lurking all along.
A career in copywriting has proved to me their invisibility. When you read though a piece of text, you can’t help being carried along by its meaning. Your brain gets the message and isn’t too fussy about the messenger. (Did you spot the missing ‘r’ back there?)
Some professional proof-checkers read backwards just to avoid this pitfall.
But it can’t be much fun – and it only really helps with spelling mistakes. When I omitted ‘r’ from ‘through’ above, I doubt a backwards-checker, not following the gist, would spot the error. Though, after all, is a perfectly good word.
Which makes Amazon’s system for finding these flaws all the more impressive.
Just this morning I received an email to ask, did I intend to write, “drinking in the public bar” rather than the published version, “drinking in the pubic bar”?
Given that this particular phrase referred to a group of underage schoolboys enjoying an illicit visit to a hostelry, I did waver for a moment. But only a moment!
The Magnificent Seven
I am presently listening to the audiobook of East of Eden. Something tells me I ought to be forbearing. Isn’t this one of those classic bucket list novels?
But right now I’m being pummelled by yet another salvo of characters (9 members of the same family), with little respite from those who have come before.
I may need to search for and print off a copy of the cast – although I’m worried about inadvertently unearthing a spoiler.
For whodunits I prefer paperbacks so that I can write inside the cover, names as they crop up, along with any suspicious traits or behaviour. It is a relief to be able to refer back when someone re-emerges – though I am still quite hopeless at finding the perpetrator.
Logging the characters is trickier when it comes to an audiobook. Pausing is problematic. You might be driving. And what exactly was the spelling?
This got me thinking about books I have marked DNF (did not finish, as the saying goes). Three examples:
1) LA Confidential by James Ellroy, 40 characters mentioned in first 15 pages.
2) A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell), 37 characters by 10% thru.
3) Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie (which I did actually finish but only with frequent recourse to my notes), 19 characters.
So, how many characters in a novel is too many?
When I worked in marketing, I would quote to my clients Sir Walter Scott (no slouch himself, when it came to verbosity) – he usefully stated, “We should not disregard the time and patience of our audience.”
I would go further, and add the memory capacity of our audience.
Writing copy for ads, I used to remind myself of this finding from research:
“Retention declines when the number of words in a sentence exceeds seven.”
While it is tempting cheekily to observe, why take twelve words to say it? – I think the lesson from advertising is persuasive. And there are other authoritative studies that suggest, for optimum learning, 7 plus or minus 2 is the range in which to operate.
After all, if it’s good enough for colours of the rainbow, days of the week, dwarves, seas and sins, surely seven characters is plenty for a competent author to be getting on with?
But right now I’m being pummelled by yet another salvo of characters (9 members of the same family), with little respite from those who have come before.
I may need to search for and print off a copy of the cast – although I’m worried about inadvertently unearthing a spoiler.
For whodunits I prefer paperbacks so that I can write inside the cover, names as they crop up, along with any suspicious traits or behaviour. It is a relief to be able to refer back when someone re-emerges – though I am still quite hopeless at finding the perpetrator.
Logging the characters is trickier when it comes to an audiobook. Pausing is problematic. You might be driving. And what exactly was the spelling?
This got me thinking about books I have marked DNF (did not finish, as the saying goes). Three examples:
1) LA Confidential by James Ellroy, 40 characters mentioned in first 15 pages.
2) A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell), 37 characters by 10% thru.
3) Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie (which I did actually finish but only with frequent recourse to my notes), 19 characters.
So, how many characters in a novel is too many?
When I worked in marketing, I would quote to my clients Sir Walter Scott (no slouch himself, when it came to verbosity) – he usefully stated, “We should not disregard the time and patience of our audience.”
I would go further, and add the memory capacity of our audience.
Writing copy for ads, I used to remind myself of this finding from research:
“Retention declines when the number of words in a sentence exceeds seven.”
While it is tempting cheekily to observe, why take twelve words to say it? – I think the lesson from advertising is persuasive. And there are other authoritative studies that suggest, for optimum learning, 7 plus or minus 2 is the range in which to operate.
After all, if it’s good enough for colours of the rainbow, days of the week, dwarves, seas and sins, surely seven characters is plenty for a competent author to be getting on with?
