The most overlooked way to write conversationally (and how Cormac McCarthy does it so well)
Spoken language doesn’t always follow the rules.
Your conversations don’t sound as if you’re reading an academic paper or giving a political speech.
But then again, would you even want them to? No. And neither would your friends, because if you did, you wouldn’t have any.
That’s because spoken language — or, more specifically, conversational language — breaks rules that written language and your middle school English teacher frown upon.
Take sentence fragments for example.
You can call them incomplete sentences. Same thing.
In fact, I just used one. “Same thing.”
Feels natural, doesn’t it?
That’s because you’re used to it. You’re used to talking that way and maybe even texting that way.
Your reader is too.
So if you’re a copywriter, UX writer, or another flavor of writer whose success depends on writing clearly and conversationally, use the occasional sentence fragment to help you do it.
Cormac McCarthy, whom I consider the greatest living novelist and one of the greatest of all time, uses sentence fragments better than anyone.
And when he does it, he makes the writing feel familiar, effortless, and intimate — which is exactly what copywriters and UX writers should aim for.
Check out these examples from the first few pages of The Road:
He studied what he could see. The segments of road down there among dead trees. Looking for anything of color. Any movement. Any trace of standing smoke (4).
Notice how it feels as if you’re accessing the character’s thoughts in real time. That’s called stream of consciousness, which is code for “this writer knows what they’re doing.”
He stood and looked over the building. The pumps standing with their hoses oddly still in place. The windows intact. The door to the service bay was open and he went in. A standing metal toolbox against one wall (6).
The thoughts are disconnected, but your understanding of them certainly isn’t.
If anything, you understand them better, because the fragments highlight only the most important information in that moment.
And for you, this helps your reader process information as easily as possible.
Sure, sentence fragments leave the sentences incomplete.
But you’re not in 8th grade anymore. Your goal isn’t to write with Puritan-level faithfulness to the 4-pound composition textbook that Mrs. Sullivan beats you with if you don’t follow word for word.
You’re a big kid now, an “adult” and “writer” they call you. Your goal is communication — clear, effective communication.
And if that calls for an incomplete sentence or two, so be it. Mrs. Sullivan will just have to suck it up.
