Insights archive
Red Pony is a team of writers, editors, Microsoft Office template developers and communications trainers. We have been writing about our areas of expertise for over a decade in our Red Pony Express newsletter.
This collection features the best articles from the last 10 years.
What are you selling?
As any marketing advice will tell you: consistency is key. If you are selling something, all your communication should consistently reinforce what it is and who you are. But it’s worth keeping in mind that there are times when your brand identity isn’t what your audience wants to know.
Are beach safety flags the wrong colour?
As someone who regularly drives between Melbourne and the west coast of Victoria, the new West Gate Tunnel has been a welcome addition to the road network, saving me about 15 minutes each trip. The new routes and signage have taken some getting used to though, and I’m not the only one who has taken some time to adjust.
Listening for the joy of language
Ever wondered why we call it a trailer when it comes before the movie? Or why we refer to anonymous or unknown people as John or Jane Doe. These and many other topics to do with language are the heart and soul of A Way with Words, a podcast that’s all about ‘language and how we use it’.
Blank space
In broadcasting, you’re instructed to avoid ‘dead air’. If you’re applying for a job, you may be dreading the question about that gap in your resumé. Why are we so scared of a little blank space?
Author as editor: Ann Patchett revisits her own novel
By going back to a novel written more than 20 years earlier and annotating it by hand with what she liked and what she would now change, author Ann Patchett offers a fascinating insight into the creative writing process.
How to make an editor happy
We editors get a bad rap. We appear as nothing but a series of crossings out, rewrites, annoying demands (please review), irritating questions (please clarify) and suggestions for changes that, at first glance, look very similar to what was there in the first place. It’s no wonder you might think of us as grumpy pedants whose only joy in life is finding and correcting other people’s mistakes.
False formality
The saying goes that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The same is true for writing. Style – in how we choose an outfit or structure a sentence – evidences our desire to be taken seriously. People notice when we ‘make an effort’ with writing, the same way they notice when we wear a freshly ironed shirt.
Structural integrity matters
When a 12-storey apartment building collapsed in Miami in 2021, killing 98 people, many observers couldn’t understand how previous building inspections had failed to avert the disaster. We now understand that while faults were obvious, inspection reports failed because they obscured them.
Letting the words come
What goes through your head while you’re writing? For many writers, this internal voice is negative, like author Haruki Murakami who said in an interview, ‘When a writer develops a story, he is confronted with a poison that is inside him.’
Out-of-office and out-of-mind?
With many businesses closing over the holiday period, many of us will be setting up an automated email to let people know that we’re out-of-office. You wouldn’t want this email to make people think you weren’t serious about your job, would you?
Making writing enjoyable
The average human has 70,000 thoughts a day and it has never been more difficult to organise these thoughts onto the page and construct a piece of writing worth reading.
Inventing a language of peace
When the French used their veto to vote down a resolution at the 1921 Assembly of the League of Nations, did they unwittingly thwart the world’s best chance to foster world peace and international understanding?
Finding your flow
This is the first in a series of pieces to better understand how we can reach this ‘flow state’ to make writing and editing less painful and more rewarding.
Don’t fear the ghostwriter
Q. When is a writer not the writer?
A. When they’re a ghostwriter.
Notes on transparency
If we take transparency to be a feature of good journalism and reporting, does that mean euphemism is an enemy of ‘good writing’?
Origins of punctuation
Regular readers will know that we’ve written a range of articles in the past about the purpose of different punctuation marks and how to use them in your writing. This time, I want to talk about the origins of punctuation itself.
Command centre: using imperatives in copywriting
Of the four kinds of English sentences – declarative, interrogative, exclamatory and imperative – the imperative might be the one you use least in your writing. It can be tricky to tell someone what to do without sounding blunt, even rude.
Tips for curing writer’s block
As a professional writer I occasionally get stuck with that dreaded affliction called writer’s block – the feeling of being stuck and unable to write. Most writers experience this feeling at some point, and it can last for anywhere from minutes to years.
From Shakespeare's Globe to Fountain Gate: how pop culture shapes English
Pop culture enriches language in delightful ways. TV catchphrases that become part of everyday speech transcend their origins, like countless phrases from Shakespeare which seamlessly integrate into modern English.
Too many notes – tips for succinct writing
Writing succinctly isn’t easy. Here are my top tips for trimming those excess words.