When my friend’s unemployment claim got denied after she was wrongfully terminated, I wrote her appeal letter. A few weeks later, she was granted unemployment. When my other friend’s wedding photographer hadn’t given her the photos of her big day after almost a year and numerous emails, I wrote her a few emails to send him. A week later, she had the photos. When I had a laptop that kept having the same problem repeatedly, I wrote a letter to the company. Shortly after, a brand-new free laptop was on its way to my house. Basically, I’m a Strongly Worded Letter wizard and I’m here to help you be one too.

While all situations that require Strongly Worded Letters are different, here are some tips that might be useful for you when writing one.

Strategize

Half of the battle of writing an effective strongly worded letter is being strategic in your approach. So often we are blinded by the frustration of whatever injustice we’re experiencing that we don’t take the time to think about what we want from the recipient of our letter. Maybe all you want is to express yourself in a rage-fueled diatribe and that’s a perfectly valid reason to send one; being heard or at least effectively expressing yourself feels good even if you don’t want something from the other person. But if you hope to achieve results, you have to think strategically. Start by asking yourself:

What do I want to achieve with this letter?
What kinds of barriers am I likely to face in achieving that goal?
Are there any actions or approaches I can take that are more likely to yield success, knowing what I know about the person or institution who is going to receive this letter?

Perhaps a loved one would more likely respond to an emotional appeal. A company may be more responsive to public social media shaming if direct communication doesn’t work. This is also where to consider the tone you take in your letter.

How far am I willing to go to achieve results?

This is both a question about time and resources, but also when to consider if you’re willing to take legal action or risk damaging a relationship.

Once you’ve thought through those parts, you can strategize your approach. Are you going to send one letter or is this a situation that might start softer and escalate if your demands aren’t met? Maybe you have one overarching goal but several smaller goals you can start with to make your demands more palatable. Do you want to stay cordial and professional in order to achieve results or do you want to burn this person or institution to the ground because you have nothing to lose?

Clearly Define the Situation and Problem

Some situations that warrant Strongly Worded Letters are relatively straightforward and don’t require a detailed account of what happened. However, others will require attention to detail that may take a little time to fully recount. When you’re preparing to write your letter, take some time to really think about what happened and write notes as you remember details. Even seemingly insignificant or unrelated details can sometimes prove crucial to gaining the upper hand in your letter.

Uncover their Mistake

Part of your success in a contentious conflict is being able to identify where the other party made mistakes that give you power. When writing my friend’s unemployment appeal, this moment was the fact that she was fired for something no one ever trained her not to do. Her employer argued she should have known better and we argued she couldn’t have known better because no one ever trained her appropriately. In the case of my own wrongful termination, it took me a few days of thinking through all of the circumstances surrounding my firing as well as recovering from the shock of it all to realize where my employer had made errors. Being able to exploit those moments is a crucial part of success when writing a Strongly Worded Letter.

Own Your Role

If you had a part in the situation your find yourself in, own it. When I was wrongfully terminated, I owned the parts of story where I had made mistakes that contributed to my firing. By doing that, I was in a stronger position to make them own their mistakes and to show how their mistakes were worse than mine. Our instinct is to shy away from the parts of the story that make us look bad but it often situates you to better control the narrative and use that honesty to paint them in a worse light.

Be Reasonable and Clear

There should be a few sentences or a paragraph near the end of your letter that clearly defines the resolution you are seeking whether that’s something tangible or just a desire to see this person do better in the future. But how do you know what to ask for?

When you’re in the middle of a frustrating situation, it can be hard to tease out what is a reasonable resolution to your grievance, but you’re more likely to get what you want if the demands you’re making make sense for the problem you’re experiencing. In the case of my friend with the wedding photos, it would have been unreasonable to ask for a full refund at that point and by instead demanding the product she was promised, she had greater success. Or if you want to get a little tricky, it may also be to your strategic advantage to propose a solution that’s bordering on unreasonable and then offer the more reasonable solution as a compromise. That gives the recipient the sense that you’re being reasonable even if you were just using the unreasonable solution as a tool to get what you actually wanted.

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