Who likes bad news? I guess the people who watch the evening news every night at 7 do. As a rule, however, it’s usually in your best interest to focus your writing on positive things. Why? Because people tend to respond more favorably to positive ideas than negative ones.
If you’re writing a persuasive article, filing a complaint letter or selling a product, keeping your writing on the positive is more likely to lead you closer to your goal. The rosier the picture you create in your reader’s mind, after all, the more open they are likely to be to any of your suggestions.
For instance, when you read a company memo that tells you everything you CAN’T DO, how do you feel? Do you smile and enjoy the workday? If you’re like most people, you’re immediately thinking about the liberties you’ve suddenly lost, taking to your work begrudgingly. The same company memo, however, rewritten to convey a positive tone can potentially have such a different effect.
Positive Writing Techniques
There are two very straightforward techniques good writers use to make items sound positive. The first is to allot more space to the good news than the bad news, making sure readers spend more time dwelling on the positives rather than its opposite while they’re perusing your piece. The second is to detail good news first at parts of the text that allow for greater emphasis – such as the introduction, conclusion, the beginning and end of paragraphs, and the bulleted points. Where do you place bad news? The best place is to embed it in the middle of both the entire body of text and one each paragraph, dampening any of its harmful effects.
Using A Writing Software
While I’ve never seen a writing software that is geared, by default, to help accentuate the positives, you should be able to configure some of the most comprehensive writing solutions out there for this purpose. You can, for instance, have it check for occurrences of various negative words in your writing, having it propose ways to rewrite it in a more positive manner.
