Some rules are entirely worth following. Do not blithely approach any animal whose teeth are longer than a child’s toothbrush. Do not borrow pants. Do not go to a friend’s Halloween party dressed as his recently deceased cat.
And then there are rules so flimsy they shouldn’t legitimately be termed ‘rules’. One such, cough, rule, of copywriting I frequently see is when young writers are instructed never to be satisfied with a first draft. Instead they must continuously dissect and ultimately dismantle what they have written. The premise for this seemingly counter-productive exercise is that reevaluation always equates to improvement. I politely disagree. I less politely say ‘bums to all that’.
