There's more to emotions than we credit

👉 it's not all sadness and joy

I’m sure you’ve been advised before to put emotion into your writing.

After all, as I explained last time it’s emotions and how people feel about you that trigger them to take action. And getting people to take action is what newsletters and email marketing are all about.

But often, I think, that advice to inject emotion is taken too monochromatically.

And I think we can do a much better job of helping our readers and ourselves if we think about it a little more broadly.

The danger with monochromatic thinking is that we end up assuming “writing emotionally” means we have to write a full-on hero’s journey. A torrid rags to riches origin story about how we were down to our last penny until the silver bullet which we’re about to sell someone saved us.

Or that we have to drag our readers into the depths of despair by twisting the knife on their problems and how they make them feel and how they impact the people they love.

There’s a lot more to emotions than just joy and despair

Surprise is an emotion. And it’s a good one to elicit in emails if you’re surprising your readers with a new insight.

Humour is emotional too.

Excitement at reading something you think will really help you and you can’t wait to implement.

Confusion. Or the feeling that there’s something you need to really think about and process.

The feeling of being understood and accepted. The feeling that someone has your back.

The mini epiphany when you suddenly “get” something.

All these are emotional responses. And to my mind, far more helpful to your readers and far more useful to you than the “traditional” happy/sad emotions we’re taught to try to elicit.

You can trigger emotions without “Emotional Writing”

Triggering emotions doesn’t mean you have to lace your writing with emotional words.

Surprise comes from hearing something new, not because someone says something is surprising.

Excitement comes from anticipating something you think will be great, not because someone tells you about an “exciting announcement”.

And while word choice can definitely influence how your readers feel, what you write about is often more important.

That’s why my advice, if you want to trigger an emotion, is to think first:

• What sort of emotion or feeling do I want here (looking beyond the obvious)? Then…

• What topic, idea, insight or “thing” would likely trigger that emotion?

Before worrying about the words you use to write about it.

In fact, I’ve found that the best way to get the right emotional words is to think of the thing first, then write about it genuinely, using the emotions you’re feeling yourself about that thing.

If you’re genuinely excited by an idea, that will come across in the words you use and the way you write. If you’re amused by something, or if it makes you angry, or if you feel sympathy. All of that will come across genuinely without needing to force it.

And honestly, I believe people can detect forced emotional writing a mile off.

- Ian