G ood word choice is about precision and personality; the words you choose help define your voice.
This article discusses:
Why word choice can feel tricky
Examples of word choice
How word choice shapes your voice
A word choice exercise
How word choice shapes your voice
Writers all experience the same frustrations.
You’ve buckled down to write your content. You’re proud of your ideas.
But when you read your draft … it kind of sucks. A spark is missing. The content sounds blah. It doesn’t sound like you at all.
Makes you want to cry?
Cultivating an engaging voice may feel like an arduous, perhaps even painful journey.
But when you nurture a sense of play, that excruciating journey turns into a fun adventure.
While experimenting with words, you’ll find your voice. And when you’ve found your voice, your content stands out in a drab sea of grey words. Fierce. And proud.
Want to know how to have fun with words and find your voice?
Click here to get the 22-page ebook How to Choose Words With Power and Pizzazz (it’s free!)
Why word choice can feel tricky
Most of us tend to choose safe words—the words popping in our mind first. These are the words everyone is using.
Everyday language is a good idea, because readers can quickly grasp your ideas. But when you use only everyday language, your content doesn’t stand out. You sound like everyone else. Your content lacks sparkle.
Writing is different from talking. When we speak we use hand gestures and facial expressions to add emotion and meaning to our words. But when we write, we can’t wink, we can’t smile, we can’t slam the table, and we can’t put our hands up in the air.
So, our written words have to work harder. Our words have to whisper or shout. Our words have to attract attention and engage. Our words have to express emotion.
This is why you need to infuse your writing with more emotional words, with colorful language, with a sensory touch. You need to push yourself gently outside your comfort zone and play with different words.
Examples of word choice
Have you ever studied how others choose their words?
And have you noticed how their words give you an impression of their personality?
Below follow snippets from a sales page for a fitness book of DragonDoor. What type of personality comes across?
- How to construct a barn door back—and walk with loaded guns
- How to take a trip to hell—and steal a Satanic six-pack
- How to guarantee steel rod fingers
- Time to deliver the final bullet to those aching muscles: the Crucifix pull—brilliant and very painful!
The DragonDoor copy uses strong sensory and emotional words like “loaded guns,” “bullet,” “trip to hell,” “Satanic,” and “steel rod.”
Now, let’s compare this to a sales page for a yoga teaching class of Balance Yoga and Wellness. Try to imagine the type of teacher who’s written this:
- Heart-centered yoga: Learn the foundations of Anusara yoga, including the loops and spirals, universal principles and more.
- Balance your body and mind: Learn and apply ayurvedic principles to your diet and lifestyle so you get healthier and happier. Improve your sleep and digestion so your energy invigorates your students and others around you.
- Spark your creativity: Make your own mala bracelets, eye pillows, clay models, and yantras. Tapping into your creative center will help to infuse a sense of playfulness into your teaching.
This copy uses softer and more positive words like “invigorate,” “heart-centered,” “spark,” “balance,” “healthier,” “happier,” and “tap into.”
Choosing your words isn’t just about being precise and concise. The words you choose also give an impression of your personality; they define your voice.
How do you want to come across? How do you want to interact with your audience?
How word choice shapes your voice
Below follow four questions to consider when considering how words shape your voice.
1. Do you use jargon or everyday language?
Whether you want to use jargon or not mainly depends on the experience of your readers. Do they understand your technical terms?
DragonDoor uses some technical language like “pecs,” “hanging straight leg raises,” “stand-to-stand bridges,” and “progressive calisthenics.” For instance:
Balance Yoga and Wellness also assumes you know basic yoga terms:
When considering your word choice, consider your audience. Which words would they use? Do they understand technical language and jargon? Also, consider whether your audience would appreciate slang or not.
2. Do you appeal to negative or positive emotions?
Positive or negative word choice has a big impact on how readers perceive your voice and your personality.
DragonDoor, for instance, addresses readers’ fears of doing things wrong or acting like a “baby-weight pumper” or “wannabee.” They might make you feel insecure:
- Do you make this stupid mistake with your push ups? This is wrong, wrong, wrong!
- This little fella will really separate the iron men from the baby-weight pumpers!
- These Gecko pushups truly separate the wannabees from the real thing
- Obey these important caveats before you start bridging—or risk injury
- The dumb, fickle, want-it-yesterday way to fail in your long term Convict Conditioning training
Balance Yoga and Wellness uses a positive tone of encouragement instead:
Do you want to agitate and stir up fear? Or comfort, encourage, and soothe? How positive do you want to sound?
3. Do you use strong or subtle sensory words?
DragonDoor uses strong language, borrowing terminology from prisons and war:
- One crucial reason why a lot of convicts deliberately avoid weight-training
- Bar pulls—an old convict favorite for good reason
- How to effectively bulletproof the vulnerable rotator cuff muscles
- Transform skinny legs into pillars of power, complete with steel cord quads, rock-hard glutes and thick, shapely calves
The copy of Balance Yoga and Wellness strikes a warmer tone:
Are you astonished how much your life has improved since you stepped into your first yoga class?
You gained strength, flexibility and fitness. You tapped into a deep calmness, and experienced a new sense of peace and inner beauty.
Now, what’s next?
(…) Our Teacher Training helps you nourish a deeper understanding of yoga, delve into human anatomy, and gain the confidence to share the magic of yoga with your friends and family and community.
How do you spice up your content? With fight analogies? Or cooking metaphors? With hints of seduction? Or warmongering?
4. How much curiosity do you arouse?
DragonDoor arouses curiosity with phrases like “little-known ways,” “a dormant superpower,” and a “jealously-guarded system:”
- The dormant superpower for muscle growth waiting to be released if you only do this
- Try this little-known way to make stand-to-stand bridges harder and increasingly more explosive without adding any external resistance
- A jealously-guarded system for going from puny to powerful—when your life may depend on the speed of your results
The copy of Balance Yoga and Wellness is more straightforward about what you’ll learn and why:
- Sequence a yoga class: Use creativity and knowledge of yoga postures to develop a balanced yoga class.
- Use language effectively: Learn effective verbal cues for leading a yoga class.
- Breakdown key yoga postures: Talk students into and out of yoga postures, what the fundamental alignment cues are for each postures.
- Teach safely: Appreciate how our anatomy impacts different types of yoga postures, and learn how to modify yoga postures to avoid injury.
Curiosity-arousing phrases change the tone of your writing. Moreover, curiosity can nudge readers to take action—to satisfy their curiosity.
But it’s a fine balance as too much curiosity arousal can make your content flimsy, pushy, and hypey. In contrast, pairing benefits with features makes your content more substantial, straightforward, and honest.
A word choice exercise: Get out of a writing funk
Ready to explore your voice?
And play with different words?
Try the exercise below and experiment with your word choice. Try to impersonate different personalities. Also, pay attention to how your voice changes when you borrow phrases from, for instance, cooking, fighting, dating, or sports.
Word choice exercise
Complete the following sentence:
I’m a … and I’m on a mission to …
Examples:
The standard, drab version:
The power-puncher:
Another strong-armed copywriter:
The competitor:
The sparkling personality:
The seductress:
The sensory cook:
The quiet rebel:
Have fun with as many options as you like. Leave the options percolating overnight, and choose a favorite the next day. Consider adding your mission statement to your social media bios and About page.
Playing with words is like trying new clothes
Pick up a different style, try it on, and see how it looks in the mirror.
Does that jacket make you feel confident? Does that fuchsia scarf make you feel more creative? Wanna try a bolder style? Or a different color?
Playing with words puts the fun back into writing.
It enlivens our copy. And invigorates our soul.
Have fun!
FREE 22-page ebook
How to Choose Words With Power and Pizzazz
How to Choose Words With Power and Pizzazz
- Discover 4 wordy rules for captivating your audience
- Learn how to fortify and energize your message
- Get examples that show you how to spice up your writing
PS Thank you to Darren DeMatas of Selfstartr for inspiring this post.
I’m finding it very difficult to put into practice. I’m not coming up with different phrases and words to try different personalities.
Try using a thesaurus or dictionary.
Also, it helps to pay attention to how others write and which words they use. When you start to see how others choose their words and how that helps define their voice, it becomes easier to play with your own voice, too. Look for the authors you like and the ones you don’t like. What’s the difference in their word choice? Which writers do you think have a strong voice? Which words do they use? The more you read and the more attention you pay to what you read, the better your writing will become.
Lastly, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Try to nurture a sense of play.
You’ve shown in the article with clear examples how a writer can choose and play with words to express his writing voice. It’s praise worthy, I do appreciate.
I’m glad you like it, Tajammul. Thank you for stopping by. I appreciate it!
Do you ever teach of writing present tense mindful sentences with the correct wording using the sensory words? I’m writing a book and would love to know if you can enlighten me?
Hi Drenda, you can find my advice on using sensory words here: https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/sensory-words/
Henneke you and your content are awesome! <3
Thanks a lot!
Thank you, Paulo. Happy writing!
You a champ in your field! Please what posts of yours do you highly recommend I read to get a feel for writing? I’m just starting out. Thanks a million.
Hi Solomon,
It depends what you want to write. For learning how to write blog posts, check out my best articles here: https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/business-blogging/
For learning how to write sales copy, check out the articles listed here: https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/sales-copy/
For general writing advice, start here: https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/how-to-improve-writing-skills/
I hope this helps!
One word: AWESOME
Thank you, Carltee 😀
Very cool- and helpful!!
Henceforth, I have no doubts renaming in your expertise!
Sincere Thanks
Thank you. Happy writing!
Thank you so much. I’m writing a memoir and really needed the comments and the 99 active verbs. Now I need to do some editing.
I am glad you found it useful, Roxsane. Happy editing!
And thank you for stopping by.
I don’t drink coffee but this is like writer’s coffee, keep them awake while writing. What a yummy read.
I don’t drink coffee either!
I’m glad you enjoyed this, Susan. Thank you for stopping by.
Thank you. This article is motivating. I am concerned about my own blog posts, the energy I put into them and word choices. These tips have really helped me out
I’m glad you’ve found these tips helpful, Latricia. Happy blogging!
Thanks. It stimulated the playful inner child of me. Writing should be a fun experience, rather than an agonizing stressor.
Indeed! Happy playing & writing, Doran 🙂
That’s such an amazing, helpful and enjoyable post.Your examples are Excellent. word choices, use of positive and negative emotions are very important to give words your voice..
I really enjoyed reading your post…
I’m glad you’ve found it both helpful and enjoyable, Mariah. Happy writing!
Henneke great post.
Loved how you took one phrase of that exercise and turned it into many powerful alternatives.
Goes to show that words you choose really can help you stand out. Because like you said, you can’t express yourself with hand gestures, etc. so your words need to work for you.
Wow, I’m really impressed by this post. You keep on constantly out doing yourself.
– Andrew
Ha yes! I do try to outdo myself. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does. I really enjoyed writing this one.
Thank you for stopping by again, Andrew. I appreciate it.
I’m a copywriting ninja on a mission to dropkick crap content back to the 1980s!
I like that! I can picture you dropkicking content. Great image 🙂
Hi Henneke,
what a great post, a bit over my head in strength but loved the Yoga type of description,
Not looking forward to writing posts, hope that I’ll get something interesting together.
I am on the last leg now to get that website set up.
Thanks for all the posts I may have read but not commented on, my book is in the last edit and will be available at the same time as the Website. It’s been a long journey, but have also been around the world three times which took a lot of my time.
Great to hear that your book and website are both nearly finished, Annamarie. That’s fab news. Congrats!
Maybe you can consider a break from writing before you start writing blog posts so you can approach blog writing with replenished energy?
I’m not sure I’d like to be hanging out in the Dragon Door gym. I shudder to think what type of person would be exercising there 🙂
Thanks for the excellent examples, Henneke. Just goes to show how a few words can change the scene.
– David
You won’t find me in a DragonDoor gym either! Phew. Please no.
Thank you for stopping by, David. No heavy lifting required here 🙂
I write so fucking good my readers beg for more 😉
Yes, the positive, friendly support giver, that is you, with the sparkly tone.
“I write so fucking good my readers beg for more”
That sounds like you 🙂
?”And I’m also the most humble person you’ll ever meet” ?
No, I’m not.
Ha! No smiley needed.
Ok. This is my totally serious face -> ? Nope. Sorry. Can’t help it ? When three of us “meet” in one place I’m always in good mood!
It amazes me every time how you find the right words and examples to explain something as complicated as writing! I think it’s easier to explain how how to build a nuclear bomb than how to write so that it resonates. Because there are only so many ways to build a nuclear bomb, but there are as many ways to write well as there are people.
And of course the part with the exercise and the one-line examples is brilliant! Great to see how everyone started applying your advice immediately! I’d love to contribute my own, but I’ll need to think about it first. Fitting my thoughts inside one line is not exactly my strength, but I’m willing to learn 🙂
Thank you for your lovely comment, Gill 🙂
My secret is not to try to explain how to write, but answer just one tiny question about writing like: How does word choice influence voice? That makes it more doable. 🙂
I can’t remember how I came across that website of DragonDoor (I’m not their target audience!) but because its word choice is so “extreme,” they seemed like a great example.
Don’t try to write the one-liner (or two-liner) in one go. Just play around with it. I can’t remember how long it took me to come up with “an irreverent copywriter on a mission to stamp out gobbledygook” – probably a few months! 😉
“One tiny question for Henneke, one giant problem for humanity (of bloggers)” 🙂 I wouldn’t be able to explain that in a million years!
And yes, the fewer words one has to express something, the longer it takes. But I noticed one gets better at this with practice. This, and spending more time on Twitter with its 140 characters 🙂
Busy day; got here late today, but finally! Whew!
I’m a grandmother I and rescue broken, wounded women desperately looking for someone with strength and knowledge, spiced with soft humor. I offer an enduring, hidden treasure, helping them see their way out of the pain of difficult situations, without physically walking away.
You made me think about this all day. I was so sure I’d gotten it, but it sounds pretty salesy to me, still.
It doesn’t sounds salesy at all. It sounds friendly and helpful. I like it. It’s a beautiful mission. Perhaps consider tightening it a little:
I’m a grandmother and I rescue broken, wounded women. I offer strength and knowledge, spiced with soft humor, to help them ease the pain of difficult situations.
Oh, yes, that’s better. Thank you!
You know, if I read that and think you wrote it, instead of me, it is lots better in my mind. I guess it’s a trick we play on ourselves, making it nigh impossible to feel good about self-aggrandizement?
As for tightness, you are right, but I used to say: “I fix broken women.” Embellishing got carried away. 😉 Thanks, again!
Well, you wrote it; I simply crossed out a few words 🙂
Henneke always produces such good material. If she made underpants for a living I’d rip my own off to read the label!
Thanks for another great post.
Haha! I’m not planning to manufacture underpants. Not yet. 😉
The minute I saw this pop in my inbox, I couldn’t help but click to read.
Tip: Just as hand gestures and facial expressions add meaning to our words when talking, icons and punctuation marks [can] also help drive home our point when writing
This is a post to study and it’s brilliant.
Thanks for sharing Henneke.
Yep, that’s a good point about icons and punctuation, and it’s true for formatting, too. Putting a sentence on its own in one paragraph is also a way to add stress.
Thank you for adding your thoughts, Hannah. I appreciate it 🙂
Salute to Henneke,
Words are the fiery swords
which slice through mediocrity
and open up revolutionary worlds.
so sayeth
Dragon Girl
aka
C A Holmes
(writing my Scottish tales at the moment)
Thank you … what an honor to find such a lovely poem here.
I hope you’re enjoying writing your Scottish tales, Dragon Girl 🙂
At the very least you sold me on Convict Conditioning … and writing sales-boosting copy so powerful I can give the competition the middle finger!
Be careful with those one-arm handstand pushups, Jeff! 😉
Concrete and tangible.
Your examples are so real that my muscles hurt from the exertion of imagining DragonDoor only to be soothed by visualizing Balance Yoga. It’s the perfect yin yang combination. The distinction is quite palpable.
Not to mention loads of fun.
Something you’ve long trained me to expect from your weekly posts.
Useful and fun with a sprinkle of serendipity and a spark of singularity.
Cheers!
Selecting these examples from DragonDoor sure made my body hurt!
Thank you for your lovely comment, Lori. I appreciate it 🙂
Hi Henneke,
I liked this last one best:
“I’m an irreverent copywriter on a mission to stamp out gobbledygook.”
I bet she’s awesome. {:-)
I’d like to meet her, too 😉
Thank you, Rohi!
For a quiet rebel , you sure kick butt with this post !
Thank you, Ray. Your comment made me laugh 🙂
Hi Henneke,
I read lots of newsletters / blogs of ‘experts’ in the field… but none of them can beat you. I don’t know how you do it, but please keep doing it! Excellent examples again. I’ll start practicing right away. Thank you for the eye-openers and keep ’em coming please!
Olga
What a lovely comment. Thank you, Olga!
I hope you have fun with your writing. And don’t worry, I’ll do my best to keep them coming 🙂
Surprise, surprise … another helpful and genuinely enjoyable post!
I particularly liked “Do you use jargon or everyday language?” and the section on curiosity.
And wow, those examples at the end for writers to frame themselves: priceless!
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Aaron. That means a lot to me 🙂
Thank you for stopping by and for tweeting!
That’s the clearest idea of “voice” I’ve ever had. Your wonderful examples of contrasting voices makes that squishy concept so concrete. And now I need to figure out how to bullet-proof my rotator cuffs…
I still need to figure out where my rotator cuffs are before I can bulletproof mine 😉
Thank you for stopping by and for your lovely compliment!
I particularly love how you turned the copywriting example into eight different ‘personalities’. Such a great example! Interesting to think about what you want to portray. I might try doing a writing exercise and write down how I want to come across… and what descriptive words go with that to help get jump started.
You might also find it useful to do the opposite of what you want to describe. That’s a fun way to warm-up your writing muscles, too 🙂
That’s such an amazing read!! Impressive!
couldn’t wait to do the exercise…
I am Tavleen. I craft an empathetic brand narrative that positions you as the go-to in your niche. And not just another ‘player‘ in the market.
Thank you for your lovely comment, Tavleen.
Glad to see you started on the exercise straightaway! 🙂