Does Your Writing Make You Cry?

I went to a conference where I heard a speaker say something about copywriting that really confused me.

She said that when she writes something for a client, if it doesn’t make her cry she throws it out and starts over.

At first I thought, “How can everything make you cry?” but as the months went on I’ve come to understand it.

I feel she’s talking about evoking the emotion in HER. Is she that connected to it? Does it make her feel something? If it makes her teary-eyed, chances are it evokes emotion in the reader, or a connection rather.

I thought about this as we were buying our house. We did not agree on a price with the sellers initially and we had walked away. A few weeks later I KNEW this was our house and we should take a risk to get it.

I wrote a letter. I got interrupted. My boys needed dinner. My husband kept talking each time I tried to type. It just didn’t come out right…

Finally, my husband tried to finish it for me when he saw I was frustrated and said it was “good enough”.

But it didn’t make me cry.

I put the kids to bed, sat down in the quiet, and wrote a sincere, heartfelt letter that did make me cry. I wrote about our long journey to homeownership and how we wanted a place to grow roots and raise our boys the rest of the years until they go to college and I believed this home was the one we’d been waiting for.

I made sure that they understood that our price offering wasn’t a reflection of the value we placed on the home.

They ended up accepting our offer after reading the letter and canceling the scheduled open house –saying my letter had touched them. Turns out they had also raised their boys here starting around the same ages and the personal information I’d added is what reached them the most.

The day we moved in, there was an envelope on our front gate. The sellers had written us a letter telling us about the great features of the house and what they had loved about it.

She spoke of how we had one of the few houses in our community with a front window and how the Christmas tree looks beautiful there during the holidays. She spoke of the parties they had and that’s why they had offered us their patio furniture so we too could have gatherings. She referenced a big plant they had left that they felt belonged to the house (it does!) and the wonderful breeze we would get in the summer.

Without my letter and her letter, the house may have worked out the same.

But the power of the letters made it feel instead as if she was passing the house to me. Their family to ours.

I’m sharing this with you because I think writing is more than just words on a page, so much more.

It can be therapeutic, heal energy, and also connect us in a way that evokes emotion and connection.

It’s more than just words on a page…

So when you write something heartfelt or persuasive, you just might take the time to ask yourself if it makes you cry.

Even tears of joy would be welcome.

Creating a connection through our writing is a gift we all have the ability to do. Or through your art, speaking, how ever you do YOU.

For me, it’s writing.

How about you? Do you remember a piece of writing that moved you to tears? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

XOXO,