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 since 2009 in our Red Pony Express newsletter.
This collection features a selection of our best articles.
The Clayton’s apology
When we do the wrong thing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we should apologise, particularly to any person we have harmed in some way. Few people will argue with this in theory. But some apologies are not apologies.
How copyright works
The galloping development of the internet and other technologies is making the world’s creative work – literature, painting, music, games, film – available at the touch of a few keys. But just because you can easily reproduce or re-publish something you find online, doesn’t mean it’s legal to do so.
Why Coca-Cola is better than Pepsi (grammatically speaking)
To what degree is good grammar a predictor of overall success? According to a recent study, there may be a correlation between good writing and how a company performs against its competitors.
Failure of the heart muscle
The English language has a huge and rich vocabulary, having absorbed words from so many other languages: Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Norman French, Yiddish, Anglo-Saxon, German … so why restrict ourselves to a small set of tired clichés that convey little if any meaning?
Using the hyphen
As an editor I spend quite a lot of time looking things up in the dictionary. The most common reason for doing this is to check whether or not a word or phrase should be hyphenated.
Four tips for writing an effective sales letter
Red Pony recently developed a simple sales letter for a small local company. We went with a direct approach that has been delivering excellent results to date. I thought I’d share some of the secrets of success.
The music of words
Most business writing is read silently by individuals. Spoken texts delivered to groups of listeners, such as speeches and conference papers, form only a fraction of the millions of sentences produced in workplaces every day. Nevertheless, the way a text ‘sounds’, even in the reader’s head, can help or hinder delivery of the intended message.
Five words you can bet the house on
What do real estate ads really tell you about a property? According to Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, authors of the bestselling book, Freakonomics, the choice of wording might in fact indicate whether the agent is holding out for a high price or subtly encouraging would-be buyers to bid low.
Three tricks to writing sticky web copy
When someone visits your website, opens your newsletter or looks at your latest social media post, you want to engage their attention so that they’ll read on. ‘Sticky’ web copy keeps your audience reading and encourages further interaction: clicking a link, adding a product to a shopping cart, joining a mailing list. So how do we make our web copy sticky?
Spam, spam, spam, spam
The curse of spam is one with which every reader will be familiar. It’s now just one more daily task to eradicate the emails that slip past the spam filter of our email programs, usually playing on one or the other of the top two human desires: sex and money.
Learning from a master
With most things in life, the best way to develop your own skills is to learn from the experts. Writing is no different.
A treasure store of language
A thesaurus is a reference book that helps you find le mot juste—the exact word you need. (Obviously I need one to avoid the pretentiousness of using a French phrase to get my message across.) A thesaurus also helps you add variety and interest to your writing by broadening your vocabulary. But most importantly, a thesaurus is enormously useful for solving crossword puzzles.
These are a few of my least favourite words
Meal. Decent. Bowl. What do these seemingly inoffensive words have in common?
Clichés in the news media
While the cliché can be a warm bath of convenience into which the lazy writer is often tempted to sink, a fresh, arresting image is more likely to call the inattentive reader to attention. Remember that it is far more memorable to be slapped with a fish than with the bog-standard open palm to the face.
And so it begins
‘They threw me off the hay truck about noon.’ Author Stephen King cites this opening line from James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice as a great example of how to begin a book.
Indiana Jones and the creative process
Reading how Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan evolved their plot, trying different ideas in the process (at first the vital clue is in the form of a map, at one stage Marion is a Nazi sympathiser, and another suggestion has Indy trying to steal the headpiece from her) makes you realise just how complex the creative process can be, and how many ideas must be discarded or edited out along the way.
The war against cliché
If there’s one helpful thing to be said about making your writing clearer, it’s this: If you see a phrase you’ve heard a million times before (such as this one), replace it.
What the hell am I talking about?
A common piece of advice is to write the way you speak, the idea being that you will then be ‘freed up’ to express yourself without worrying about that intimidating blank page (or screen) before you. This may be useful to get you started, but if you send whatever you’ve written in the same spirit, look out.
The power of metaphor
But often your goal is to persuade as much as it is to inform. And that’s where metaphor is your friend. Metaphors are so prevalent they often pass unnoticed, but that doesn’t mean they don’t leave a powerful impression in the mind of your audience.
Creeps from the deeps
Perhaps you are familiar with a common horror movie device – it’s the opposite of the ‘sudden surprise’ that startles the audience and the protagonist at the same time. This is the one where the monster/tidal wave/giant squid looms up behind the protagonist to reveal its vast immensity to the audience before the protagonist turns around to be devoured/drowned/ingested.