Writing

Why Emotional Writing Might Ruin Your Text

And how to use your passion healthily

Writing emotionally sounds positive.

You’re engaged in what you’re doing — that’s nice, but not the point. Writing too emotionally can ruin your text.

Here’s why and how you can prevent it.

You might be a stranger to your reader.

Writing based on strong, inner, or outer influences — that’s how you could summarize emotional writing. As a writer, you find yourself in an emotional situation, and your text lives from conveying it. It doesn’t matter if it’s joy, sadness, or surprise.

Something that hits us and moves us inspires us to write. That’s good and important — a story can appeal to the heart. But there’s one crucial mistake:

We think the reader is in the same emotional state.

The problem is that emotions can only be expressed in the text to a limited extent. Skilled writers can make their texts emotionally compelling. They can express and convey emotions. But probably you like me — not a great writer.

Here’s the thing: Your text might be emotional — but that only applies to you. To the outside world, it just seems confused, exaggerated, and aimless.

Everyone sees the world differently, depending on experience, personality, and so on. Some people don’t know a word; for others, it triggers fond memories.

Emotional flow messes up your text.

Out of a spontaneous desire, you open a new, empty document. You penetrate your keyboard. You work linearly — not getting hung up on individual passages, writing everything down from top to bottom — no jumping between the lines, not taking notes.

Surprise — by your standards, you finish your draft quickly. It feels insanely good. It’s a bit like you just had divine inspiration. Now just proofreading, and then you’re done.

But if you had waited a few more days to proofread, you would have noticed something. Here’s the thing.

• Your writing has no red line.
• You’re repeating yourself.
• Your subheadings are dead boring.
• Examples and stories are lacking.
• And what the hell were you trying to say?

A demotivating experience. You felt so good when you were writing, but the horror at your inability is now all the greater.

I have often been demotivated by this — feeling like I was terrible at writing and wasting my time. But don’t worry, your text is certainly not bad; it’s just misaddressed.

In emotional flow, you write what you want to tell — not what someone else wants to read.

It might hurt you

Nothing is more painful than the loss of a beloved thing. Love is an emotion.

As writers, we fall in love with what we produce. A text becomes self-expression or contains a world-changing message — at least.

It’s not just the personal attachment that makes us vulnerable — it’s also because the effort involved is enormous.

Honestly, I often overdramatize. In emotional situations, I’ve thought my writing was better than it actually is. Sometimes, I sit spellbound in front of my laptop, with the perception that I am writing something earth-shattering. My time commitment is correspondingly high.

If I have such a banger in the run, it should be perfect. It came as it had to — my content flopped—a heartbreaking experience for me. I felt like I was working harder than everyone else & pouring my heart out.

Why wasn’t that recognized?

And it does not stop here. Blaming the rest of the world is easy — but what if we doubt ourselves? In strong emotional flows, we are no longer true to ourselves. Not only the reader can’t understand anything anymore — the same can happen to you just after writing.

Sometimes writing drags on for several days or weeks. After a long time, I was shocked — I could no longer determine what I had actually intended with my writing. Emotions vary not only from person to person — but from day to day.

How you can prevent overly emotional writing

Bad news: you can’t turn off your emotions.

Nor can we control them completely. Already when getting up, the emotional situation of the day is decided. A little emotion is not bad. After all, we are human beings, not machines. The important thing is to use emotions in a controlled way and to let them have a controlled effect. Here is how.

Get yourself a mood-o-meter

I had noticed that my most emotional texts were created under certain external circumstances when I was very irritable due to fatigue, for example.

Sometimes it’s just not the right time to write. But how can you tell when it’s the right time?

Simply by writing your mood. You can draw smileys in a journal, for example, or use an app to track your emotions.

You might find out that you are in a good mood in the evening and too negative on Monday mornings.

Write in tangible steps.

A little emotion is important, of course. They make you write, and others read. Here’s how to use it in healthy doses.

You can start your text with an emotional impression. Write about your sufferings, worries & joys — this helps to activate the reader. But with too many emotions, one after the other, the reader loses the line. What is obvious to you is not obvious to him?

To avoid this, use emotions in a delimited way. They are great for introducing a section. To conclude, however, instead rely on something neutral: a conclusion, an opinion, or a practical tip. The reader can benefit from this, and it is much easier to understand.

A good rule of thumb is: If you can’t neutrally summarize your paragraph, it’s useless. That sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. The good news is that you can expand on the content.

Give your piece a brief rest.

At the moment, I have 130 drafts. This may seem counterproductive, but it has a definite advantage. I go through my drafts looking for something to write on.

By the time I find a text, I have long forgotten what it says. There’s also nothing left of the mood I was in when I wrote it — a new day, a new life.

After a few days, I take a sober look at my work. It’s a great sign if I still understand what I meant.

Have someone else read it to you.

I used to think that this was exactly how my mother wanted to humiliate me.

When I didn’t do my homework correctly, she would grab the paper and look at me seriously. “Do I need to read out loud what you wrote here?” she asked me, slightly angry. Only then did I realize what a mess I had produced.

Other people don’t just read your text — they see it from a completely different perspective. Emotionally, intellectually and linguistically.