Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber: RS, an ad agency creative director, wrote the following in a recent article on branding: "Today, the emerging big brands among us are those that are bringing the future to fruition -- changing how we exist, interact, and sustain our lives. They're making social networks, self-driving cars, hoverboards, and holograms. "And most interesting of all, this new class of brand is led by a visionary founder with a particular philosophy, not by a corporate entity acting out a product roadmap against established brand guidelines and architecture. "People like Elon Musk, Evan Spiegel, and Mark Zuckerberg are pursuing innovation across product and business lines that sometimes don't organize quite as neatly under a parent company as the businesses of yesteryear had, and instead are branded in siloes." Is this good writing? I would bet that when RS read his draft, he was glowing with pride at his highfalutin, breathless prose. But in my forthcoming book on writing, I will use it as an example of how NOT to write ... and in my writing seminars my students call this one, "What did he say?" To me, it stinks, because RS violates an important rule of good writing: "Write to express -- not to impress." F. Scott Fitzgerald mocked Hemingway for Ernie's simple, basic vocabulary and plain, unadorned style. "He thinks I don't know the ten dollar words," Hemingway said of Fitzgerald's criticism. "I do. I just prefer the $1 words instead." When I first started teaching business and technical writing seminars for corporate clients, I would occasionally have an attendee who, when I said simple and plain writing is best, argued with me. They said they had been taught all their life to write in a formal, corporate style -- and the conversational style I was teaching in the class was wrong and inappropriate for business. I would show these naysayers the Flesch readability test; they usually remained unpersuaded. But when I got into direct response copywriting, I finally had objective proof -- not just subjective opinion -- to support my assertion that simple writing is the best writing ... at least when it comes to communication. And the proof is this: almost without exception, virtually every successful direct response promotion is written in clear, concise, conversational copy. It's the style used by John Forde ... Clayton Makepeace ... Richard Armstrong ... Ivan Levison ... Paul Hollingshead ... Steve Slaunwhite ... and just about every top six- and seven-figure copywriter I know. Why? Because it is plain English that virtually always gets the best response -- proving that when it comes to communicating, simple writing is the best writing. And it's not just my personal opinion that clear writing trumps ornate writing, and that plain language communicates more effectively than big words. It's a tested fact. So there! Sincerely, Bob Bly P.S. If you prefer my plain and unadorned prose style to RS's pompous, overblown one ... and you strive to attain a clear, conversational writing style that makes you a pleasure to read and easy to understand instead of a pompous blowhard like RS ... click here now: www.writebetterandfaster.com P.P.S. Okay, maybe "pompous blowhard" is a little harsh on RS. Then again -- maybe not. Because I know guys like him in advertising. And they love to use a $10 word when a $1 word would get their message across faster and better. It makes them think the ideas they are expressing are both more profound and more novel than they actually are. Bob Bly Copywriter / Consultant 31 Cheyenne Dr. Montville, NJ 07045 Phone 973-263-0562 Fax 973-263-0613 www.bly.com Follow Bob:        I welcome your feedback! Did you like today's message? What other topics would you like to see covered in my e-mails? Please let me know at: [email protected] As always, please feel free to forward this e-mail to a friend! If you liked this essay, and want to read 75 more just like it, get my book "Don't Wear a Cowboy Hat Unless You are a Cowboy -- and Other Grumblings from a Cranky Curmudgeon," which you can order here: www.bly.com/KindleCowboy Disclaimer: The Direct Response Letter only recommends products that we've either personally checked out ourselves, or that come from people we know and trust. For doing so, we sometimes receive a sales commission.