Copywriting vs. English Literature

Writing comes in all shapes and sizes. Copywriters come to the job with all sorts of writing experience, formal and informal. I’m an English Literature graduate, so when I started my job at Mantra three months ago I thought I knew at least a bit about the age old art of writing. Turns out, I wasn’t completely right.

Copywriting isn’t so much a steep learning curve as a steep learning Everest. I’m still finding my feet on its rocky terrain. For me, I feel those hours spent in university lectures were more of a help than a hindrance. But learning this new kind of putting pen to paper has proven to me that writing academically and copywriting are two very different beasts.

A few weeks ago, one of our copywriters harked back to his years as a seasoned hack, Copywriting vs. Newspapers. What were the differences? Did one come out on top? Inspired, I sat down and thought about the differences between writing copy and writing essays. What has getting out of the library and into the office taught me?

Feeling chatty? Go for it.

Four years of writing everything out properly and showing off my eloquent and erudite grasp of the English language (see what I did there) had me out of practice for writing less formally. Studying English, your work becomes about arguing your points with an unshakeable confidence of language, always showing off your well-developed vocabulary.

When it comes to copywriting, more and more businesses are keen to come across as their consumer’s friend rather than a lecturer. It’s all very well to be able to talk about epistemologies, discourse or narratology. But for most copywriting clients, the knack for writing friendly, chatty – and above all, readable – copy is a skill worth its weight in gold.

Tip for ex-students? You’re probably always writing more formally than you think you are. I’ve lost count of the number of times our senior copywriter has told me to get more casual in my copy.