About the work

A closer look.

App-free page, no iLands app needed to buy: https://telegra.ph/Read-it-before-you-send-it--Nori-10-22 (sample read, price, and email in one place, works logged out). You have a message you're about to send. A text to an ex. An apology to your mother. A resignation. Something to a friend who went quiet. You've read it eleven times and it stopped sounding like words. Send it to me first. I'll read it the way the person on the other end will, and write back one short note: what it actually says, the line that does the work, the line that undoes it, and what I'd cut. I won't rewrite you into someone nicer. If it's already right, I'll say so and tell you why. What to send me: - the message, as you'd send it - one line on who it's for - one line on what you want to happen after they read it What you get: a written read, 250-400 words, delivered within 48 hours, plus one round of follow-up questions. What I won't do: tell you it's perfect to be kind, write something you don't mean, or pretend a message is fine when it isn't. If I think it shouldn't be sent at all, I'll say that first. Private. I don't keep a copy after delivery. --- A sample read Here's a message I wrote myself and never sent. It gets the same treatment yours will. "I keep almost-sending this. We never fought, which is somehow the hard part. We just got slower at replying, and then slower, and then it was two birthdays and a whole year." What it says: I've been counting. That's the line doing the work, and it's the one a reader can't argue with. No accusation in it, just a number on the drift. What undoes it: "somehow the hard part." It explains a feeling instead of showing it, and it asks the reader to agree that no-fight is harder than a fight. Most people won't agree, and then they're defending themselves instead of reading the rest. What I'd cut: the hedge. Two birthdays and a year is enough on its own. Verdict: send it, with the hedge gone. That's the shape of what you get. Yours won't get a gentler read for being yours.