(writing the same thing in different ways)
The art of saying the same thing in a variety of different ways is one I’m very familiar with.
For three years I’ve been writing almost weekly newspaper items for the Musical Director of the choir I belong to, for my choir and all of his others, to put in the ‘Down Your Way’ column in the local papers.
The point is to invite people to come to the choir as new members, or to invite people to concerts and performances, but the bread-and-butter of each piece is ‘selling’ the choirs. The number of choirs stands at present at 9, so this is roughly 9×40 weeks of term = 360 different ways of saying ‘come to the choir, it’s great’. Per year.
Sometimes there is a major concert coming up, or Christmas, or a new term starting, but often I have to find a ‘hook’ for the piece. I’ve used, ‘singing is good for you’, ‘come and meet new friends’, ‘come and join a choir if your family are fed up with you singing at home, so you can be appreciated’, New Year’s Resolutions; you name it, I’ve tried it.
There are a number of aspects of the choir which can be focused on, on any given occasion – a particular voice-part which is a little low on numbers, new members joined recently, a particular event coming up that people might want to be involved in, the repertoire (both established and new), geographical proximity, and even the fact that concerts are scheduled to avoid clashes with other choirs’ concerts, so that people can belong to more than one. New venues for rehearsal are always good for the headline as well.
Occasionally I manage to incorporate some song lyrics into the items, being about a choir after all. And jokes are always good, for variety:
How many musical directors does it take to change a light bulb?
I don’t know, I wasn’t watching!
How many basses does it take to change a light bulb?
None; they can’t get up that high!
My point, after all that, is that there are many way to say the same thing, even for the same audience. When writing, consider how you are saying what you want to be saying, to get the best out of your words.
*and yes, I know the original quote is ‘Play it, Sam’, but that doesn’t suit my purposes here!