Excerpt from L.L. Bean’s “1922 Maine Hunting Shoe” Ad

1. “You.” Talk to your reader.

2. First things first: pain. Benefits come later. “You cannot expect great success…” plants the seeds of doubt. A fruitless hunting trip is time spent, effort exerted, monetary cost — without the anticipated satisfaction. The human animal registers loss far more deeply than it does gain.
   
   You, too, can leverage loss aversion to your advantage.
   
   Most of the time, you can reframe a positive — the thing that’s nice to have — with its opposite: the downside if you don’t do the thing. By a different name: the “cost of inaction.”

3. Appeal to authority: “designed by a hunter who has tramped Maine woods for the past twenty-four years.”

4. Don’t worry about grammatically complete sentences. Here we see two fragments: “Light as a moccasin with the protection of a heavy hunting boot. Made on a swing last that fits the foot like a dress shoe…”

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and flip open the laptop.

Or… what if:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 9:27 — final draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

Copygloss handled it. Before you left for the date, actually.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].