by Andy Brown | Jan 28, 2020 | Writing + Commentaries
I found myself eavesdropping at a cafe. Two coworkers from a nearby marketing communications firm came in for coffee and sat on the couches near me. One was an account director, the other a copywriter. They talked about content for a client’s social media campaign....
by Andy Brown | Jan 28, 2020 | Writing + Commentaries
Aphorisms are short statements, usually in the form of observations or instructions, that express a general truth. The best aphorisms are effective attention-getters, and they’re easy to memorize. Two of my favorite examples are “Measure twice, cut once” and “Make do,...
by Andy Brown | Jan 28, 2020 | Writing + Marketing
I knew this guy—let’s call him John. We occasionally worked together sampling coffee at Costco for a regional coffee roaster. Every weekend, the roaster sent teams of two-to-three people to Costcos all over the region. People came to our booth, asked for samples, we...
by Andy Brown | Jan 28, 2020 | Writing + Lessons
Maybe you never knew this, or maybe you learned it a long time ago and forgot: Good writers are good at varying the lengths of their sentences. Sentence length contributes to style, which contributes to meaning and also makes writing more interesting to read. Here’s a...
by Andy Brown | Jan 23, 2020 | Books For Writers
One of my favorite books about writing is Virginia Tufte’s Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style. Tufte surveys the many forms that sentences can take and illustrates all those possibilities with choice examples. The book itself is a testament to the flexibility of what...
