Narrative Flow - How to Structure Your Copy Beautifully
Lesson 18 from: From Structure to Style: Master Your CopywritingShani Raja
Narrative Flow - How to Structure Your Copy Beautifully
Lesson 18 from: From Structure to Style: Master Your CopywritingShani Raja
Lesson Info
18. Narrative Flow - How to Structure Your Copy Beautifully
Lessons
Chapter 1: Copywriting Fundamentals
1Class Introduction - Overview of the Course Content
03:50 2The Five Aspirations of a Superior Copywriter
05:28 3The Importance of Defining Your Intention & Audience
06:02 4The “Secret Sauce” of Good Copywriting
04:29 5Quiz - Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Simplicity
6Introduction - The Power of Simplicity
02:06Tight Writing - How to Make Your Writing Snappy
05:43 8Tell it Straight - How to Write Plainly & Straightforwardly
03:36 9Don’t Overcomplicate - How to Avoid Unnecessary Complexity
04:59 10Quiz - Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Clarity
11Introduction - The Power of Clarity
01:33 12Nailing Down Your Ideas - How to Fix Fuzzy Ideas In Your Copy
04:07 13Place Words With Care - How to Avoid Misplacing Words
03:49 14Be Specific - How to Avoid Ambiguity, Jargon & Abstract Writing
09:09 15Quiz - Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Elegance
16Introduction - The Power of Elegance
01:57 17Present Elegantly - How to Make Your Writing Look Good
04:10 18Narrative Flow - How to Structure Your Copy Beautifully
04:09 19Musical Writing - How to Give Your Writing Rhythm
05:31 20Quiz - Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Evocativeness
21Introduction - The Power of Evocativeness
02:28 22Add Variety - How to Reduce Monotony in Your Writing
03:10 23Be Bold - How to Steer Clear of Weak Words
03:34 24Create Pictures - How to Make Your Writing Jump Out
06:23 25Quiz - Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Editing With Style
26Introduction - Get Ready to Edit
01:31 27The Quick-Smart Editing System
16:11 28Quiz - Chapter 6
Chapter 7: The Road Ahead: What’s Next?
29How to Nurture Your New Skills
03:06Final Quiz
30Final Quiz
Lesson Info
Narrative Flow - How to Structure Your Copy Beautifully
in this lesson, you're going to learn how to bring flow to the actual content of your writing by the end, you will know how to structure your narratives into elegant blocks of ideas that swim forward gracefully from start to finish. Now, have you ever read a piece of writing that you felt flowed really well? Well, one reason for that was probably because the ideas were arranged beautifully in other words, it's likely that the writing had a very good structure and the quality I'm referring to here is one that I like to call narrative elegance. Now, narrative elegance is one of the most important features of exceptional writing. So let's start by considering what a narrative actually is. Anything. You write, a blog post, a book, a report or an essay has a narrative. It just means that the material is organized, structured, arranged or put together in a certain kind of way. Now there are many really, so many ways that you can organize a narrative, but most high quality writing, we'll have...
some kind of organization to it, some sort of a structure. For instance, a piece of text could be organized into simple sections that reflects steps in a process. You might find this in a step by step meal recipe that is divided for example into ingredients, preparation, cooking method, presentation of it. Now, where each section contains its own details that has a logical flow to it, doesn't it? Well, consider a piece of business analysis that methodically moves from one topic area to another in a logical or otherwise meaningful order. A narrative might also be organized into an evolving argument where the writing moves along a certain path of ideas to a final conclusion. Either way, it's usually helpful to have a bird's eye view of the type of narrative that you're creating by. Which I mean, you should try to picture its underlying structure. Now, here's a simple example. I'm fond of using to explain what I mean. Think of a cover letter for a job. Now, a cover letter might break down into four basic blocks of ideas. For example, like this, why I'm applying for the job, my relevant background and experience what I think I could bring to the role what I am seeking an interview. Now, those four categories of information have a certain logic to them. Right? In other words, the four ideas, their flow elegantly into one another in that order. But if you were to mix those categories up, you could end up with something far less elegant or even quite illogical or messy for fun. Just try putting in some details for each category and then making those four categories flow as badly as possible. And you should see what I mean. Now the important thing is that when you start to see your narratives in terms of blocks of ideas or sections like this, you can then begin to work on ordering those blocks of ideas in the most elegant way possible. And it's through that process of ordering the blocks of ideas that you begin to get what's called narrative flow. Now, I just want to quickly point out that narratives can be a lot more sophisticated than the basic linear types of narratives that I've just talked about so far. And I encourage you, in fact to study news stories, feature articles and opinion pieces in newspapers and magazines to help hone your narrative awareness. And I'm sure you'll find that almost all good writing has an elegant narrative holding it together and driving it forward. Now, apart from the elegant ordering of ideas, there's another way to get your writing to flow better. And it's by focusing on the way the words and sentences themselves move. Yes, I'm talking about the rhythm of your writing and that's what we're going to look at next.