tedster - 6:59 am on Feb 8, 2002 (gmt 0)

Here's a writing tip I picked up recently -- a way to keep the reader involved and moving along, right to the very end of your copy, instead of hitting the Back button.

The last sentence of a conventionally written paragraph is a danger spot -- a place where it is easy to lose your visitor. We all learned in high school English to begin a paragraph with a new idea and end with some kind of summary or conclusion. Most of the prose we read does exactly this. But there's just one problem.

This convention does nothing to further the "velocity" of the reader and move them forward to the next paragraph. Instead it creates a flat spot, a drop in the energy and a place to leave. Direct response copy writers have developed a way to bypass this trap.

These professionals succeed by ignoring the paragraph convention. Because wrapping things up in the last sentence invites the reader to stop right there, direct marketing copy introduces a new facet of the topic just before the paragraph break. Then the next paragraph develops this just-begun thread, and at the end it introduces the next twist. This writing style creates forward movement, but it also has another valuable benefit.

With this technique, even someone who begins reading in the middle of your copy will probably back up to the beginning. It's a simple idea, and I've sometimes written this way intuitively, but never before by conscious design.

To give proper credit - I picked up this tip from a newly published book called "Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy" by Nick Usborne. It has stimulated my writing gland, and given me many new ideas to make web pages do a better job converting visitors to customers.