Tips for Writing Negative Messages with a Positive Tone

Structure your message to prevent misunderstandings

You must write clearly and provide the needed information, yet also achieve a polite and friendly tone. You will read about ways to achieve positive tone in a negative message in the text readings. Structure Because people react negatively to bad news, the message must be written and structured to prevent the reader from misinterpreting and being offended this is why bad news is most often written using an indirect pattern. To help the reader to see things from your perspective, appeal to the reader's logic and sense of fairness.

Convince them that you are refusing what they saw as a reasonable request, by using good, fair, and consistently applied reasons. The Indirect Pattern helps convince readers. In the indirect pattern, we begin with a neutral statement that does not foreshadow the bad news, so readers will continue to read. In this statement we can show goodwill, and/or reassure the reader that we intend to address their concerns. Then we describe the reasons for the bad news - hopefully consistently applied and fair logic, policy or law - and then discuss the specific reader's request. The theory is that the reader will see the fairness of our criteria, and then when we apply those criteria to their specific situation, they'll see it's a fair decision. A skillful writer can sometimes even leave the bad news implied.