Writing a Professional Email
I work in client services, which means that a frankly depressing amount of my job is writing emails, both for myself and for other people. There is an art and a science to writing professional emails.
The subject line
The subject line should be informative enough that somebody scanning through their inbox can tell what the email is about and whether they need to look at it any time soon. Depending on their job, some people get hundreds or thousands of emails a day, and they need to be able to tell at a glance whether an email is important to them.
When emailing someone particularly at another organization with a question, I will often use "Inquiry" or "Question" in the subject line. depending on industry standards, you may also use something like RFI (request for information).
If you want to be clear on why exactly you're sending an email, it is the standard in some industries to start your email with For Action: or For [Reason]: (e.g., For Review:, For Situational Awareness:). I generally only include that in emails staying within my organization, but depending on how well you know whoever you're emailing, you may or may not feel comfortable to do that outside of your organization.
You may not need to be that prescriptive in your email subject lines. if I'm emailing someone about tuition assistance, I might just use the subject "Tuition Assistance."
The salutation
How you address the person sets the tone of the entire email. A lot of this has to do with industry standards and the level of formality you're trying to convey.
At my organization, the explicitly-stated expectation is that you will address everyone, regardless of level, by their first name. If I got an email from someone at my organization referring to me by Ms. [Surname] I would be immediately confused and suspicious.
When emailing agents or addressing them in query letters, it seems like the expectation is often to use their first name--but you should always check, in case they specifically say they want to be referred to in some other way.
When emailing someone with an industry-specific title (professor, doctor, military or law enforcement) it's often your best bet to start with their title. You should make sure you know how to properly abbreviate them, if you do that--the same military rank, for example, is abbreviated differently depending on the service (e.g., Second Lieutenant is abbreviated 2LT, 2ndLt, and 2d Lt).
As you become closer to them, you may start to address them by their first name--but not necessarily.
Also some people/industries prefer "Hi" while others prefer "Dear". if you're really not sure, I've found that defaulting to "Good morning" or "Good afternoon" is often an easy workaround.
The body
Organize the body of the email so the most important information is clear, easy to find, and unambiguous. I frequently use bullets and/or tables in my emails. I also use strategic bolding and underlining, especially for due dates or specific asks.
If you don't know the person or they won't understand why you're the one emailing them about the thing, it can help to introduce yourself. If you're going to do so, keep it short and focus on the key info (e.g., "I am part of x team and am reaching out to you because of y").
If you think your email is too long, it probably is.
The closing
I recommend finding a closing that works for you and stick with it. What I see most commonly are Best, Regards, Best Regards, or Sincerely, but you have a good deal of flexibility here. (I use Regards.)
You should also consider whether to sign off with your first name, full name, or full name + title. I use first name because my signature has my full name.
The signature
Most (all?) email service providers let you set a default signature. My organization has a very prescriptive signature block, so for my work email I just use that.
If you don't have that, I recommend some version of
Full Name
Organizational Title
Organization
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How to Write and Create for Yourself When You Make Writing Your Career
I made a post about why it’s important to write and create for yourself first, rather than do it for external validation or pleasing other people. And on that post, I received this wonderful question from @hotherus-the-blind :
This is a question I just asked myself not too long ago, so you are definitely not the only one wondering.
It isn’t easy. I’ll start with that. It's one thing to write fanfiction or hobby-work (and even that has the pressure of wanting people to like your work). But the pressure of a writing career only makes writing for yourself first harder, and seemingly impossible.
But the short answer to your question is simply this:
All successful professional writers do write for themselves first, because you can’t be successful if you don’t write and create for yourself first.
(And we are glad it works this way!)
Believe me—I have a decade of failure and rejection from trying to write for others first to prove it.
Why You Still Have to Write for Yourself First, Even for a Writing Career
10 years ago I decided that I wanted to write TV shows and publish novels for a living. An ambition I still have.
Prior to that decision, I used to write only for myself. I wrote stories since I was a little kid, and only cared about what I found interesting. And when I write fanfiction, I feel much more comfortable writing for myself first.
But for the past 10 years, I took writing classes and screenwriting workshops and spent that decade trying to learn how to write stuff people would want to watch and read, stuff that would get me hired (which, potato, po-tah-to, right?). What other people would be interested in reading was my only focus. I just wanted to be successful at this; I no longer even remembered that I chose this career because I love to write.
But despite the fact that not writing for yourself first is unenjoyable and ruins something you love to do...
It also is inevitably unsuccessful.
These past 10 years, I came up with concepts that I believed were interesting, based off of what I learned in classes, thinking things like “they did this in Breaking Bad and people love that so I should try it!” or “these two ideas are such opposites; it would be so interesting if I put them together!”
But the problem was that I wasn’t interested.
And that was the important piece of the puzzle I had been missing.
I was writing things I thought were cool or unique or trending. As I was writing, my only thought was of the person who would be reading it; what they would think. But even as I came up with those ideas… they never made it past the idea.
Because I was so uninterested, I didn’t even want to write them. But even when I forced myself to write them, they were cold and boring and uninteresting. And when I shared them with my teachers and friends, they said the same thing; it was impersonal, boring, unemotional. There was no heart and soul. One of my teachers asked me why I was writing that story, and I answered, "Because I think it can be good."
And then he kindly told me: “The stories you write should be ones you feel the need to tell, that you have this desire to write. Stories where you are the only person in the world who can tell that story, because of the way you tell it and the emotion it comes from. That is the connection we’ll feel when we read it.”
My teachers' philosophy, as successful professional writers in the business, is that writing strong compelling stories that other people will be interested in is only as strong as your own interest in what you are writing. (A concept I kept straying from, since I was so terrified and focused on other peoples’ impressions of my work.)
One of my writing teachers is Corey Mandell, who teaches this workshop called Creative Integration. In this workshop, they teach that the trifecta of writing is a harmony of these three things:
1. What other people are interested in
2. What the characters naturally would do in the given situation
3. What you, the writer, care about and find interesting
(here's a video of him talking about this stuff)
When you have all three components fulfilled, you are writing your BEST work, and your most SUCCESSFUL work.
If you are missing any of the three, your story will be lacking.
That includes, especially, your own interest in what you're writing.
And I would even argue that if you had to only pick one, the most important one is the 3rd---what you're interested in. Something filled with your emotion. Because I can think of so many stories that I felt the passion in, even if the plot wasn't all that great. I forgive and still read a story with a bad plot if the emotion is great. I don't often forgive an emotionless story just to see a cool plot.
Additionally, my teacher always tell us this in classes, and I remind myself of every single day now:
“Writing is an energy-transference business. What you felt when you wrote that story is what the reader will feel when they read it. If you felt nothing, they’ll feel nothing.”
Your interest in the story is directly related to your success. You need to feel something if you want other people to feel something.
And this, my friend, is exactly why you need to write for yourself first in order to be successful in a writing career.
Here's some proof of uber successful writers who wrote for themselves first:
If you go to any author or screenwriter or artist who wrote or made something you love, and you ask them, “What compelled you to write this?” You won’t get an answer of: “I thought it’d be cool and people would like it.” Or, “I thought it would sell and be successful.”
99% of the time, it was inspired by something personal to them; it was a story they had to tell.
Take the TV show Psych for example. Psych is a show about a guy who grew up with a detective father who groomed him to be a detective for his entire childhood. But his father sucked as a dad. Due to that bad relationship, instead of becoming a detective like he was trained to be, Shawn pretends to be a psychic to solve crimes rather than do what his father wanted him to do (become a proper detective). The show is a comedy of antics and hilarity, but the underlying story is that of a healing relationship between father and son.
Check out the actual inspiration behind Psych:
(x)
Is this show a biography? Not at all. Putting your soul into your work doesn’t mean it has to be your literal life. But Steve Franks put his pain into that show, his heart and his soul. It was a story no one else in the world could tell, because the main character of that show was a reflection of him. He didn’t just set out to write a detective show with a funny main character; he wrote a show about a broken relationship between father and son, and told it through a show about crime solving. That’s what makes it a show only he could write.
That’s why we watch Psych. Not for the crimes. For the emotion that Steve Franks poured into it.
How about the inspiration behind Breaking Bad?
Percy Jackson?
Game of Thrones? (A Song of Ice and Fire) (by author George R. R. Martin, quote from him below):
(x)
That last sentence is really amazing: "I realized I really want to tell that story."
That is what we should strive to say about all of our own stories.
Try this with any book or tv show or movie you love. You'll find a personal inspiration behind it to prove that those writers were successful writing a story that they felt personally compelled to write.
Here's my favorite quote on the subject that I keep over my desk:
How to Write for Yourself First
Writing for yourself first means that if you write something, and no one in the entire world could ever see, watch or read it, ever, you still feel that it was worth writing. It made you feel good to write. It was something you wanted and needed to write.
There's a quote from an episode of the TV show Leverage where a character tells another character (Eliot Spencer), "You fight like something is trying to get out of you." I think about that quote in terms of my own writing: let's write like something is trying to get out of us.
I spent the past 10 years telling myself, “I just want to write a story that works.” I never used to write that way before. I used to go, “Oooooh, what a cool idea! I want to see what will happen!” And just sit down and write. Or, I’d be angry or upset or afraid and I’d write out of that emotion, and something unique and wonderful would come out and I would be able to cope and pour all the emotions into it. I learned that I write and create to feel better. And realizing that changed everything for me. Because for me, if it doesn’t make me feel better, it isn’t writing.
Why did you used to write, before you decided on this career?
Why did you decide on this career?
What compels you to write? What would make you happy to write? What would make you smile? Laugh? Cry? Cope? Feel better? Deal with your anger? Live vicariously through a character in a fantasy world you’d rather live in? What do you want to write?
Sit down, open a new document or blank page, and ask yourself: if you were to show no one what you write right now, what would you write for yourself? For your own eyes? You aren’t allowed to share this with anyone else, so what would you like to write? It doesn’t have to be incredible, it doesn’t have to impress anyone. It can be silly or stupid or embarrassing or offensive or heartbreaking—anything. It’s just for you to enjoy the process of writing it. Are you upset about something? Are you angry? Think about a crush you have; write a scene of a fantasy date they take you on. Write about a character with superpowers you’d like to have, or someone going on an adventure you’d like to go on—anything your heart desires.
What would make you, and only you, happy to write about?
What would make you feel anything to write about?
If you want to be a writer professionally, I assume it’s because you enjoy writing enough to want it to be a career. Which means that at some point in your life, you were writing before you were thinking about money or other peoples’ feedback.
Try to think back to when you were writing as a kid. Why did you write? What compelled you to write? What did you want to feel or accomplish when you wrote? (I also used this uquiz to help rediscover why I write).
I may not be able to guarantee that people will love what you write (though if you’re interested, it’s highly likely other people will be too!)
But I can guarantee that if you are not interested, if your heart is not in it, then no one else will be interested in it, either.
I spent 10 full years trying to write in a way that would interest other people, putting my interest aside completely. And I have nothing but rejections to show for it.
Am I professional writer with oodles of success right now?
No.
But I can tell you one thing: after 10 years of writing for other people first and making myself miserable, I've learned that writing for others first doesn't work. I tried damn hard to make it work, and still failed. But the most important part?
I don’t even want to be successful that way.
I had to start fresh and start writing from a place of emotion, pain, love, need again. And finally there are stories emerging that I actually care about again. Because I realized that I would never be successful unless I do this. But more importantly…
I will never be happy as a writer (or a person) unless I do this.
Personally, I would much rather write something where my emotions bled onto the page and get it rejected than write a boring draft for others that makes a million dollars.
The bottom line is you can’t capture someone else’s heart with your story until your own heart is somewhere inside it, leading the way.
Yes, it is important to interest other people with your stories if you aim to be a successful professional writer.
But only after you write for yourself, first.
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