Sir Winston Churchill is famous for his rousing speeches that galvanized a nation…
So he knew a thing or two about motivating people to take action.
Churchill was a writing workhorse too…
Penning more words than Dickens and Shakespeare combined.
His published speeches stretch to eighteen volumes…
While his memos and letters run into the millions and fill over 2,500 boxes.
Churchill even won a Nobel Prize for his writing, much to the chagrin of writing critics.
Had Churchill ever been a copy chief, here are four cast iron rules of persuasive writing he’d have likely drilled into his cubs:
1. Spend two thirds of your time on research and one third on writing
Churchill took research seriously.
He had a cavernous library of 60,000 leather bound books he called his ‘factory’…
With an army of researchers, secretaries and literary assistants to run it.
With a few barked commands, Churchill would send his team scurrying to track down key facts and quotes.
Then after being handed him their findings…
Churchill would absorb all the research into his elephantine brain to be processed…
Before he’d dictate his thoughts to typists during sessions that could last an entire day and night…
When he’d regale his thoughts, often with a glass of brandy in one hand, a cigar in the other and while naked in a bath.
2. Review your copy three times before you publish
Churchill’s writing process had three stages.
First his typists got his spoken thoughts on paper.
Then he’d go through the text with a fountain pen to cross out dull sections, rephrase clumsy syntax and replace long words with shorter versions.
He’d then have the whole thing typed out again to be reviewed a third or fourth time…
Before he’d deem it worthy to be sent to the printers.
3. Write how you talk and put the reader first
Churchill’s crisp, punchy writing style may not have won him admirers in literary circles…
But the public love it.
And Churchill got paid handsomely for his writing as a result.
4. Be authentic and trustworthy
Churchill often wrote from the front lines…
And he wasn’t shy about exposing the horrors of war.
He’d write about machine gunned corpses…
The bravery of cavalry charges against metal encased tanks…
And men without legs crawling to the Nile because they were dying of thirst.
This was at a time when politicians were eager for war to be glamorized as noble and heroic.
So while Churchill’s brutal honesty won him few friends in the military…
Readers trusted him to give them the honest truth, warts and all…
As it was often said that Churchill “cannot really tell lies.”
Who inspires you to write better copy?
Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that Churchill’s attitude to writing reinforces that tactics come and go…
But the fundamentals of persuasive writing never change.
