Your brain likes patterns.
When your brain starts to detect a pattern… it starts making predictions about the future. And if the pattern holds true, it boosts your brain’s processing speed. Because the future is aligning with your brain’s expectations. Which helps your brain process things faster.
And yes, that’s all very abstract.
But it’s super powerful.
And you should use it to your advantage when writing copy.
So let’s look at example – of a particular kind of pattern you can put in your copy: parallelism.
Consider the following section of copy:
“In 2018 maybe you want to…
- Author your first book
- Speak at your first event
- Walk away from your corporate job
- Create passive income streams that free up your schedule and create margin in your life… so you can spend it doing the things you LOVE doing
And yes, that’s a great first step! Figuring out what you want.
However…
Just naming your goals isn’t enough. Not if you want to actually ACHIEVE them, that is.”
Nice copy. Nothing wrong with it. BUT. Watch how the last couple lines read smoother when I add a bit of parallelism:
In 2018 maybe you want to…
- Author your first book
- Speak at your first event
- Walk away from your corporate job
- Create passive income streams that free up your schedule and create margin in your life… so you can spend it doing the things you LOVE doing
And yes, that’s a great first step! Naming your goals.
But no, it’s not enough!—if you want to ACHIEVE your goals.
See what I did?
In those last 2 lines?
I used the same sentence structure for both lines.
“And yes” –corresponds with–> “But no”
“that’s a great first step!” –corresponds with–> “it’s not enough!”
“Naming your goals” –corresponds with–> “ACHIEVE your goals”
See?
Parallelism.
And my example is just one way of doing it – among many.
And parallelism is just one kind of pattern – among hundreds.
…meaning there are lots of ways to make your copy easier on the eyes – so go find them!
(See what I did there? More parallelism in the last 3 lines! Hurrah!)
Enough.
Go write something.
