Slip Into Their Inner Dialogue

 

Every prospect is already talking to themselves.

They’re not sitting around waiting for your ad, your email, or your clever hook.

They’re thinking about their deadlines. Their money. Their family. Their next move.

As a copywriter, it’s your job to slip into that inner dialogue so smoothly it feels like the thought was already there.

It doesn’t feel like marketing when your words match what they’re already worried about … already hoping for … already trying to solve … it feels like you're lending clarity to their thought process.

Pick up the thread of the story they’re already telling themselves, and continue it in a way that leads straight to what you’re selling.

There’s a branding lesson in here somewhere

“Voice” is a key component of branding.

Can you sound too much like yourself? What if you sound too little like yourself?

John Fogerty’s record label sued him for sounding too much like … John Fogerty. Fogerty filed a countersuit, and the case went to the Supreme Court in Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. (1993). Fogerty won.

In 1983, Neil Young’s record label sued him for recording “unrepresentative” and "uncharacteristic" albums. In other words, they were essentially arguing that Neil Young no longer sounded like Neil Young. The suit was settled.

There’s a branding lesson in there somewhere.

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Sources (with the full stories):

https://www.ajournalofmusicalthings.com/when-john-fogerty-was-sued-for-plagiarizing-himself/

https://americansongwriter.com/remember-when-neil-young-was-sued-by-his-label-for-not-being-commercial-enough/

The Death of the Em Dash (A Casualty of the Algorithm Wars)

 

I used to love the em dash.

Not in some overwrought, writer-y way. I just appreciated its utility. The way it could pause mid-sentence, shift gears, or deliver a punchline. It was punctuation with personality. A little theatrical, sure, but in the right hands it added rhythm. Made prose feel alive.

Then the robots showed up.

Now every piece of content that crosses my desk reads like it was written by the same caffeinated AI having an anxiety attack. Sentence after sentence peppered with em dashes. Thoughts careening from clause to clause with breathless urgency. What was once a subtle tool for emphasis has become the literary equivalent of Valley Girl uptalk (every statement ending with an implied question mark?).

The giveaway isn't just frequency. It's the way AI deploys the em dash as a universal solution. Unclear transition? Em dash. Need to add information? Em dash. Want to sound conversational? You guessed it. The algorithm has learned that dashes feel informal and modern, so it sprinkles them everywhere like semantic seasoning.

This is tragic for several reasons. First, the em dash actually requires restraint. Hemingway used them sparingly. Austen deployed them with surgical precision. In skilled hands, they create genuine pauses—moments where the reader's brain catches up to the writer's intent.(see what I did there?)

But there's a bigger problem. The em dash has become a casualty of the algorithm wars. Writers who once reached for it naturally now hesitate. Will readers assume this is AI-generated? Does this sentence sound too robotic? We're self-censoring based on how we think machines write.

This is backwards. We shouldn't be avoiding good punctuation because bad algorithms overuse it. We should be writing better.

So here's my modest proposal: bring back the semicolon. Embrace the period. Remember that the comma exists for a reason. When in doubt, try one of my favorites: the ellipsis. Use the em dash when it's actually needed, not as a nervous tic.

Let the robots have their breathless, dash-heavy prose. The rest of us can write like humans again.

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Suggested Reading:

QUICK BRIEFING: Generative AI vs Agentic AI

Why Every Copywriter & Content Writer Needs an AI Usage Policy 

The Adolescence of Technology

Generative AI: TO BE (a tool) OR NOT TO BE (a tool)?

Don't Let AI Kill Your Analog Intelligence

Creativity Is Not a Service

Creativity isn’t something you order off a menu.

It’s not a delivery. It’s not an invoice line item.

It’s a partnership. A provocation. A search for what hasn’t been said or seen yet.

If clients could brief exactly what they needed, they wouldn’t need us. They’d write the headline, design the platform, and move on.

But the brief isn’t the answer. It’s not even the question.

Our job isn’t to nod politely and check boxes. It’s to challenge the brief. To ask the uncomfortable questions. To dig until we uncover what’s really at stake.

The best creative leaders don’t ask, “What do you want?” They ask, “What are we trying to shift?” The culture? The category? The assumption that things can only be done one way?

This might sound like arrogance, but it's responsibility. Because if we only ever deliver what’s asked for, we’ve already failed.

Creativity should ignite. It should stretch the conversation, not simply decorate it. It should move people ... sometimes in ways that feel risky, sometimes in ways that feel uncomfortably new.

That’s how you know it’s alive.