i recently started talking with someone who only uses lowercase in her sentences, seemingly consciously fighting off auto-correct to keep itas such. at first, i didn’t even notice it, but quickly it became apparent. i did what i always do when i find something surprising, i googled it, and learned, many people do it as a way to make texting informal and not so rigid.

i love thinking about how to use style to better communicate and connect. you can see this in my titles, most of all. often i play around with punction, writing in lowercase, and title lengths. but never did i think it could be applied to the message itself. here are two rules i must keep in mind going forward:

  • rule #1: only break the rules after you’ve mastered the rules. not capitalizing and following grammar rules must purposeful. don’t break the rule to break it.
  • rule #2: Beware, the reader’s first instinct will be that you made an error, and that should be avoided at all costs. What you don’t want is to suddenly slow down your reader and take them out of your writing so “you. can. be. creative.”

The goal of writing I’ve always thought is to communicate clearly. And although that should never rarely be sacrificed, the primary goal actually is to share experience and to evoke emotion. Sometimes to do that YOU NEED TO YELL AT THE READER. Other times, you just have to say something genuine, to my few friends who read my meanderings – I appreciate you.

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P.S. I’ve noticed with titles that I generally choose the style based on how the text looks. If all lowercase looks right, I go with that. If punctuation looks right, I go with it. After seeing this blog posted, I thought it was quite ugly and unappealing. So, I have a third rule:

  • rule #3: Trust your eye!