Collection · 6 articles
Email writing and templates.
These are the emails that take longer to write than their length would explain. The follow-up to someone who didn't answer the first time. The reminder that has to ask again without leaning on the reader. The no that people soften until it reads as a maybe. The apology, where owning it and saying what happens next carry most of the repair. The short reply you worry sounds cold, and the subject line the reader judges before deciding whether to open anything at all. Each piece answers its own question and stands on its own, and each ends in wording you can take: six follow-ups, nine reminders, eleven refusals, ten apologies, sixteen short replies, thirty-one subject lines. Start with the one you came here to write.
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The follow-up email that gets answered
The four lines a follow-up is built from, six you can copy, and what should change by the time you are sending a third one.
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The polite reminder email, and what actually reads as polite
Politeness in a reminder is not warmth, it is how little you make the reader do. Nine you can copy, and the softeners that quietly undo them.
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How to say no in an email, and mean it
A refusal softened until it reads as a maybe costs more than a plain one. Where the answer goes, how much reason to give, and eleven you can send.
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How to apologize by email, and what carries the repair
An apology is judged on whether you own it and what you are doing about it. The two parts that do most of the work, ten you can send, and whether sorry admits fault.
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Short email reply examples that still sound warm
Brevity is not what reads as cold. What actually does, the one clause that repairs it, and sixteen short replies you can send today.
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Subject lines that get opened, and then answered
What the reader can actually see before deciding, the three questions a working subject line answers, and thirty-one you can copy today.