Curiosity. Bad for cats, good for writers

Curiosity. Bad for cats, good for writers

This moggy's curiosity may place it in great danger - but your curiosity is a trait that could make or break you as a writer.

I'm not suggesting you have aspirations to be the next Tolstoy, J.K. Rowling or Jeffrey Archer. (Forgive me. I don't know where that last one came from).

Rather, I was thinking of you as a writer of blogs, of newsletters - even of day-to-day emails.

A bringer of untold pleasure

Along with empathy, curiosity is my favourite human trait. It separates us from the animal kingdom, who almost without exception, act purely on instinct.

A curious mind can bring us untold satisfaction and pleasure.

(A book recommendation for you - Curious by Ian Leslie - The desire to know and why your future depends on it.

This is one of my favourite books to give.)

Back to the point - why, if we want to write well, curiosity matters.

We need to be curious about our readers - those souls who we hope will soon become our customers. If we're going to engage them and sell to them, we need to understand them and relate to them.

Ask more, listen more, read more

How do we do this? How do we find out how they tick?

Easy.

We listen.

We develop an ear for how people talk. We need to think of people, not as a demographic, a target market, an audience segment - but simply, as people.

But it doesn't end with listening. We need to read too - widely. Yes, novels - but other stuff too. Newspapers - broadsheets and tabloids both, business books.

We need to ask more, listen more and read more. That way, we'll give ourselves a much greater chance of converting our readers into paying customers.


I'm Stephen Church from Copywriter Pro. I provide all kinds of marketing communications for small businesses. I get more and better clients for businesses by writing words which are clear, concise and compelling.

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