"I don't go into the torrid deserts in the heat of the summer and stay there for weeks just for fun. There is no fun or pleasure to it, let me tell you. It's hard work when one investigates properly, and I surely did it right. I guess you know that."
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The letter is not lacking in style; the writer knows how to put things forcibly, but he takes up half a page of valuable space before he says anything vital to his subject. See how much stronger his letter would have been had he started with the fifth paragraph, following it with the fourth paragraph.
The great weakness in many letters is padding out the introduction with non-essential material. It takes the writer too long to get down to his proposition. Here is a letter from a concern seeking to interest agents:
"We are in receipt of your valued inquiry and we enclose herewith full information in regard to the E. Z. Washing Compound and our terms to agents.
"We shall be pleased to mail you a washing sample post-paid on receipt of four cents in two-cent stamps or a full size can for ten cents, which amount you may subtract from your first order, thus getting the sample free. We would like to send you a sample without requiring any deposit but we have been so widely imposed upon by 'sample grafters' in the past that we can no longer afford to do this."
* * * * *
The first paragraph is hackneyed and written from the standpoint of the writer rather than that of the reader. The second paragraph is a joke. Seven lines, lines that ought to be charged with magnetic, interest-getting statements, are devoted to explaining why ten cents' worth of samples are not sent free, but that this "investment" will be deducted from the first order. What is the use of saving a ten-cent sample if you lose the interest of a possible agent, whose smallest sales would amount to several times this sum?
It is useless to spend time and thought in presenting your proposition and working in a clincher unless you get attention and stimulate the reader's interest in the beginning. Practically everyone will read your opening paragraph—whether he reads further will depend upon those first sentences.
Do not deceive yourself by thinking that because your proposition is interesting to you, it will naturally be interesting to others. Do not put all your thought on argument and inducements—the man to whom you are writing may never read that far.