How to write emotional copy

January 2011

Last year one of my assignments was to help a major UK charity write more emotionally compelling copy.

We got into a whole debate about the difference between emotive copy and emotional copy.

You can sum up the difference like this: emoting is pouring out your feelings, evoking is drawing them out of your reader. Now, guess which one brings in more money?

For my client, the picture was further complicated by a recent and ongoing brand tune-up. They wanted to move from a writing style hobbled by a need for scientific rigour at all costs to one that would engage their donors, members, supporters and funders more emotionally.

Self-parody

The new brand guidelines veered dangerously close to self-parody, as in the deathless passage that urged staff to get over-excited: “Well, animals are amazing. You know it’s true! Don’t you? Don’t you?”

Once I’d finished my rant that “exciting”, “fantastic” and “brilliant” were no good, and that describing the way a lion walks as “unmistakeable” conveys nothing to the reader*, one writer stuck her hand up and asked,

“Well, how do we put our emotions across then?”

Which is a fair question.

Except that it starts from a false premise. Which is that your reader is interested in reading about your emotions in the first place.

Now, if you're Stephen Fry, Lady Gaga or Usain Bolt, maybe your fans do want to know how you're feeling. Tweet away to your heart’s content.

We aren’t famous

But we aren’t them. We’re people writing to ask for money.

The question we decided it was legitimate to ask is, “How do I get my reader to experience the emotion I feel?”

And the answer is at once child’s play and the devil’s own job.

It’s child’s play because all you have to do is describe people, moral problems, landscapes, paperclips or whatever it is you’re writing about in enough detail that the reader feels they are there.

It’s the devil’s own job because you have to describe people, moral problems, landscapes, paperclips or whatever it is you’re writing about in enough detail that the reader feels that they are there.

Evoke, don’t emote

In an exercise I set during the workshop, every single member of the group produced a piece of writing that evoked emotion. None emoted. Not one. There were quiet little gasps of pleasure at some of the best pieces, but all succeeded.

We decided that the tone of voice can be neutral, dispassionate even, provided the imagery, storytelling and linguistic richness are there.

Think of the most emotionally draining pieces of writing you’ve read. Maybe a story of bereavement, or war in the trenches, or genocide. Those writers don’t rely on emotionally overwrought language. They don’t need to. Instead they concentrate on precision. Not technical, legal or scientific, but emotional and linguistic.

A pile of bodies isn’t “huge”. It is “eight deep”.

A battle in a First World War trench isn’t “ferocious”. It is “fought with entrenching tools, nail-studded clubs, bayonets sharpened like razors”.

A drowning isn’t “tragic”. It is “drawn out, as if the water were merely playing with her, holding her above the surface just long enough for us to see the terror in her eyes”.

And I’m telling you this because

If benefits are the engine of a sale, emotions are the fuel. But there’s no point pumping in low-grade gas. You need the high-octane stuff. The expensive stuff. The stuff you create in the laboratory of your own experience.

So forget about adjectives and adverbs, the experienced copywriter advised sternly. Forget about fantastic, unique superlatives. Focus instead on a precise evocation of the world you want to create in your reader’s mind.

 

* pad, prowl, strut, saunter or swagger would all be better.