THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF WRITING GOOD LETTERS
Dear reader, July 2026 was quite eventful, emotional, terrorizing and transformational. I could not find the words for what I had initially planned for you. But I must not default on my promise to write to you at least once a month. So I’m compromising on my delusional quality standards and jerry-rigging this one to honor my commitments.
Words can turn your life upside down, build it up and burn it to the ground. Words of encouragement, spoken to a kid, can inspire her to grow into a better woman. Words of recognition, spoken to an intern, can infuse him with swag and prod him to take the extra step. Unkind words can do irreversible damage, even destroy entire families within moments.
Similar to knocking down a jump shot off a curl, arranging words into sentences is something humans enjoy deeply, right from the preparation till the end. Like fans arrive to the arena 2 hours before the game just to watch Steph Curry shoot, everyone likes to read, write and hear a good fucking sentence. A good fucking sentence hits you right in the keister. You can feel the satisfaction spread through your body. It is the basketball equivalent of a “Swish.” Though good writers, like good basketball players, don’t just appear fully-formed. As a guard spends hours in the gym, working on his jump shot, as a writer, you sit at your table and devote long hours to throwing words on the page, honing your form, your rhythm, precision, the fluidity in your prose — whether it’s homework, a shareholder letter, a job application, or a letter to catch up with your friend in Tegucigalpa. Like jump shots, the more painstaking the effort, the more effective and rewarding the writing becomes. To talk myself out of a shooting slump, I would mentally repeat to myself that the purpose of being a shooter was not to be a shooter, but to be shooting. I like to think the same is true in case of writing good sentences, for effortlessness can only be known through effort.
Writing successfully to any company, public figure or friend requires you to be sensitive to one fact — the person you’re writing to is stressed, rushed and anxious. He is not a kundalini yoga master with alchemical abilities. At best, he is a weekend yogi. All his ‘mindfulness’ knowledge comes from last year’s spiritual retreat in Dubai, and the breathing exercise app that Karen from HR wants everyone to use for work-life balance. His boss is on his back. His peers wonder if he really knows his business. His brain is fried from social media. And his subordinates, he is sure, are “incompetent af” or angling for his position. Anything you say that makes his job easier helps you get an answer.
What can you do to make things easier for him? Go back to the first principles of writing good letters — the ABCs.
Accuracy
Accuracy is important, to an unhealthy extent for some, because the person you’re writing to does not know you. Nor is he likely to be familiar with the tingling sensations that caused you to write. Therefore, be as specific as possible. Give all the relevant information to the best of your abilities.
For example, in the late evening of May 26, 2022, I wrote, “My jaw is broken” on a tissue Horatio handed to me. If you want to hear more about the 3 cracks in my lower jaw and the heroics of Horatio Velveteen, let me know and I will get back to you mediumly with the full story. My point however, is that no one (including Horatio) had any idea where the endless blood was coming from. The slit in my chin was hidden underneath my sexy, black Belarusian beard. Only I was qualified to share the breaking news. I could not talk about the fall. Nor the sound I made after. Not the pain, which was like a 1000 lances piercing into my brain. Each of those facts were true. But I could not think about any of them despite being a 10x Nobel Prize winner in Overthinking. It’s like my body ‘just knew’ that none of those facts would give the medical staff of NIIT University any idea about the urgency of the situation.
You see, accuracy is not about being thorough. It is what saves time and annoyance and decides what happens next. It is about the specific truths within the truth that set the frame for action. The reader does not know you. And he will not ask. So give him the facts and figures that will help him make his next move. Not to mention that most business communications today are influenced by agents, which exponentially amplifies the demand for being accurate.
Brevity
In my early 20s, when I used to plan how my Instagram profile should look, write the copy for my profile and do cold outreach to women on Tinder — I came to face the cold truth that no one has the time to read anything written by you.
People will never refuse to read your writing. But if your letter is more than a page, they will “see to it later” because they are “busy.” And you better believe that they will never read your letter. As a general rule, if your reader cannot decide, the answer is no. Don’t blame them. You would probably do the same. Just stick to the essentials and destroy anything that creates ambiguity.
If you’re not an AI agent, you might feel a tension between Accuracy and Brevity. This is a good sign. There is nothing more boring and annoying than the slow process of writing, followed by the slower process of taking it apart and destroying most of it. You might even lean towards an AI agent to help you. But the ambiguity within you will only be amplified in the answers it spits out. Because AI cannot feel this tension that exists in the dark depths within you.
Before you write “Brevity is the soul of wit” into ChatGPT, massage this mental model into your temple first:
1. Tell why you are writing
Telling the reader why you’re writing hands him a frame of perception. So he does not have to work at building his own just to understand you.
Say a bank sold you something you never walked in for. The first line carries the letter: “I am writing about Monday’s visit to your branch. I came in for some paperwork but I was coerced by one of your salesmen into buying the “Fortune Builder” fund. I wish to withdraw the entire amount as the details of the fund on your website don’t align with what was shared by the salesman...”
If you were in your feelings, you might write something like: “I’d like to raise some concerns about my recent terrible experience at HBI Bank. Your salesman is a liar.”
Both are true. One gets your complaint resolved. The other gets a “Thanks for your feedback. We will get back to you.”
2. Give the important facts
Facts are what separate a letter that’s tangible from a feeling that’s transitory. Giving the important facts to support your first sentence will show that you are thoughtful. I have found it useful to reserve a separate paragraph for each fact.
Keep the one or two or three facts that matter most. If you give a long list of reasons why, the letter becomes boring, annoying and performative. You don’t want to irritate the reader. You want to get him on your side.
3. Describe what you would like the reader to do
Just say it. Plainly. Tell it like it is.
Don’t let all the energy you have harnessed from the facts and arguments die. Close your letter by naming exactly what you want: “I believe you should refund my purchase” or “I want to exchange this for a different size.” Whenever you ask the reader to do something for you, ask shamelessly. You will want to soften it, sugarcoat it. Don’t.
Clarity
It’s easy to say, “Go out and be clear.” It’s like saying, “Be yourself” or “Don’t overthink it.” Normally, I would think of examples of what clarity looks like. But it’s not that simple when it comes to the real world. No matter how much I follow suggestions from writers on accuracy and brevity, I have failed spectacularly in trying to get my point across. On the other hand, getting someone to hire me for a project, being accurate and concise in my emails has resulted in business deals that were once unimaginable.
Clarity is a double-edged sword. When you are declarative and blunt in your intentions, you are putting your name on the line. People who don’t want to devote themselves make their writing muddy and deceptive. But take my words with a grain of salt. They say the average IQ in India is 70-80. Because I’m a delusional egotist, I like to think I’m in the 84s and 86s. The best advice I can produce is to be delusionally devoted to write so unmistakably that your readers can’t possibly misunderstand or misinterpret a single word. Anything that requires unnecessary effort from your reader will be ignored — and is bound to be misunderstood.
A few tactics to simulate clarity:
- Keep your paragraphs within 6-10 lines. Break down the walls of text. Even if it is not easy to understand, the white space makes it look easier, and encourages the reader to continue reading.
- Keep your sentences short. Like we discussed, the reader was not bit by a radioactive spider and does not possess great powers of concentration. Even if he does, he is probably too busy and cute to exercise them for you.
- Keep your words short. Don’t overwhelm the reader with thou brobdingnagian bullshittery.