Writing a letter to the editor that actually gets printed

Everybody has a theory about why the local paper never prints the conservative side. The editors are biased. The page is rigged. The staff has a secret list. Maybe, in some places, a little of that is true. But I have a less exciting theory, and it explains a lot more rejection slips: most letters do not get printed because they are not good letters. They are four hundred words of everything the writer has ever been angry about, with the key point in the eleventh paragraph, mailed to a person who has forty other letters and a deadline.

Here is the good news. A letters page is the cheapest, most-read piece of political real estate in your town, and editors are hungry for clear, short, specific letters from people who actually live there. The people who read it are the people who vote in local elections: school board, city council, county commission, the levy on the ballot. A clear letter in that space can do more than a month of yard signs. This post is a walkthrough, in order, from the blank page to the published letter and the follow-up.

Step 1: Study the page before you write a word

Spend ten minutes reading the letters page of the paper you want to reach, whether it is on paper or online. Read at least a dozen letters and take notes on four things.

1. Length. How long are the letters that get printed? Count the words in a few.
2. Subject. Are they mostly about local matters, or national ones? Many local papers prefer letters about issues in the community.
3. Tone. Which letters sound persuasive and which sound like a rant? Notice which ones you remember.
4. The rules. Almost every paper prints its guidelines on the page or on its website, usually under "Letters to the editor" or "Submit a letter." They tell you the maximum word count, how to submit, whether you can write more than once in a given period, and what the paper requires to verify you.

This is homework, but it is ten minutes, and it separates the letters that get printed from the ones that do not. If the paper says 250 words, write 200. If it says "no more than one letter every thirty days," do not send a second one on day twenty-nine.

Step 2: Pick one point, and only one

A letter is a pocketknife, not a toolbox. The most common mistake is trying to argue three things at once: the school levy, the state budget and the mayor's parking plan. Pick the one point you want a reader to remember in the morning, and write it as a single sentence before you do anything else.

Examples of one-sentence points (the subjects here are generic):

• "The county should publish the full cost of the new building before the commission votes."
• "The school board should post its curriculum materials online where parents can read them."
• "The city's new fee should go to voters, not to a committee."

Notice that each is specific, arguable and tied to a decision that someone locally can still make. A good letter has a verb in it: the county should, the board should, voters should. If your sentence is "The government is out of control," put it back and try again. That is a mood, not a point.

Step 3: Hook it to something the paper has printed

Editors like a letter that responds to the paper's own coverage. It shows the writer reads the paper, it puts the letter in conversation with other readers and it gives the editor a reason to run it now rather than next month.

So begin by naming the thing you are responding to. Use the headline or the topic and the date: "Your Sunday editorial on the county jail budget missed the real question." Or: "A letter in Tuesday's paper claimed that the levy would cost the average homeowner pennies. Let's look at that." If you are responding to a letter, be gracious. Respond to the argument and never to the person who wrote it.

If you cannot find a hook in the news, use an upcoming local event: a council vote, a public hearing, a school board meeting, a deadline for ballot measures. Our post on open meetings and public records, a citizen's toolkit for any local government shows how to find the agenda before the vote, so your letter lands while it can still matter.

Step 4: Put in one checkable fact

This is the step that most separates the printed from the rejected. Editors, especially at smaller papers, will not print a letter with a factual claim they cannot check. Letters that cite a source get printed more readily, and they hold up better when someone writes back to dispute them.

So include one specific fact that a reader or an editor could verify, and say where it came from. A line item from the county budget, with the page. A date and the number of a council agenda item. The text of a state statute. A number from a published report. A line from the paper's own coverage.

Rules for facts:

• If you are not sure of a number, leave it out and describe the situation in words.
• Never exaggerate to win a point. One caught exaggeration sinks the whole letter and your credibility on the next one.
• Name the source in the letter itself. "According to the county's adopted budget" is much stronger than "I heard."
• For help with figures that mislead, see How to Spot a Misleading Statistic Before It Spots You, With Worked Examples.

Keep the value claims separate from the factual ones. "The levy would raise the tax bill on an average home by the amount stated in the county's own notice" is a fact. "That is too much to ask of a family" is a judgment. Both belong in a good letter. Just do not dress one up as the other.

Step 5: Write it in four short parts

A letter of 200 to 250 words is about four tight paragraphs, or even three. Here is a structure that works.

1. The hook (one or two sentences). What you are responding to and what you think about it.
2. The reason (two or three sentences). Your one fact, with its source, and why it matters to the people who read the page.
3. The other side, fairly (one sentence). Acknowledge the best argument against you. "Supporters say the new building will bring savings in the long run, and that is a fair argument." Then answer it. It makes you look reasonable, and it lets readers who disagree keep reading.
4. The ask (one sentence). What you want the reader, the board or the commission to do. "Attend Thursday's hearing." "Ask your commissioner to publish the numbers." "Vote no on the levy."

Here is a hypothetical letter, with an invented subject and invented details, to show the shape. It is made up and about a fictional town.

To the editor: Your Sunday editorial on the proposed Maple Street parking garage said the project is "modest." The adopted city budget lists the garage under capital projects, and the financing section says the bonds would be repaid from the general fund for twenty years. That is not modest. That is twenty years of every taxpayer in town paying for parking that many of them will never use. Supporters say the garage will bring downtown shoppers and pay for itself. That is possible, and the council should say how many paying cars it needs each day to cover the bond payment. It has not. The council votes Thursday at seven. Come, or write your council member before then, and ask for the break-even number first. Pat Doe, Maple Grove

That is a bit over 120 words, and it contains a hook, a fact with a source, the opposing case and an ask. A real letter would swap in your town's real facts and the real source.

Step 6: Keep the tone you would use at a neighbor's table

Tone decides whether a skeptical reader keeps reading. You are writing to people who may not agree with you, and the only way to move them is to sound like someone worth listening to.

• Write about ideas, policies and public acts. Do not insult officials, neighbors or the other side. Name-calling is a fast way to get cut.
• Avoid sarcasm that needs a decoder ring. Wit is welcome. A joke that makes your point in one line is better than a paragraph of outrage. But if the joke would also work as a slur, cut it.
• Do not claim to speak for everyone. "I" and "my family" are honest. "Everyone knows" is a warning sign.
• Skip the alphabet soup. Spell out the acronym the first time or leave it out.

The conservative case is strongest when it is calm and specific. A reader who sees a plain account of what a tax or a rule will cost a family is already half persuaded.

Step 7: Sign it, and be reachable

Almost every newspaper requires a full name, a town of residence and a phone number or email for verification, and many will not print a letter from an anonymous writer. Editors want to know the person is real and lives in the circulation area. Expect a quick call or email asking you to confirm that you wrote the letter.

Answer the call. The most common way letters die is that the editor tries to verify, gets voicemail and moves on to the next one in the stack. If you hold a position that is relevant to your letter, such as a school board candidate or a county party officer, say so honestly, because some papers require disclosure. A letter that argues for a candidate while hiding that you are on the campaign will end badly.

Step 8: Submit it the way the paper asks

Use the channel the paper's guidelines specify. Most use an online form or an email address, and many say not to send attachments. Paste the text into the body of the email, put a short subject line such as "Letter to the editor: county jail budget," and include your name, town and phone number below the letter.

A few practical reminders:

• Send one letter to one paper at a time. Some papers ask for exclusive letters, meaning they will not print something already printed elsewhere.
• Do not send the same letter to every paper in the state. Editors notice form letters, and they do not print them.
• Send it early enough to be timely. If a vote is Thursday, send on Monday.
• Be patient. Many papers print a letter days after it is received, and some never reply to letters they do not use. If you have not seen yours after a week or two, a polite one-line follow-up is fine.

Step 9: Understand what an editor will do to it

Expect your letter to be edited. Editors trim for length, fix grammar and style, and sometimes cut a sentence they cannot verify. That is normal. Papers vary on whether they show you the edit first, and most do not. If a key sentence matters to you, make it short and put it near the top.

Editors may also decline a letter that makes unsupported accusations, attacks private people, repeats a point the page has run many times, or comes from someone who has written very recently. A rejection is not a verdict on your politics. Look at the page again, shorten, sharpen and try the next time something local comes up.

Step 10: Know how a letter differs from an op-ed

People confuse the two, and the difference matters.

• A letter to the editor is short, usually a couple hundred words, responds to something in the news or in the paper, and carries a reader's name and town. It is one voice from one resident.
• An op-ed (opposite the editorial page) is a longer essay, often several times the length of a letter, that makes a more developed argument. Papers usually want a query or a full submission under a separate set of guidelines, and they care about the writer's credentials and expertise on the subject. Many ask for exclusivity.

Start with letters. A track record of clear, accurate letters in the paper is the best audition for an op-ed later. If you want to pitch a longer piece, read the paper's opinion page guidelines and follow them exactly. For the larger tradition you are joining, From a Small Magazine in 1955 to a Movement Press That Reshaped the Debate covers how conservatives built their own publications when they felt shut out of the mainstream ones, and The Founders' Partisan Press Was Far Nastier Than Anything on Your Feed reminds us that this argument is older than the Republic.

Step 11: Write the short follow-up

If a reader or an official responds to your letter, you may want a follow-up. Keep it to a quarter of the length of the original. Thank the person who wrote back. Concede the point, if any, that they got right. Then restate your core point with one new fact, and stop. Do not turn a pleasant exchange into a feud. The reader who follows a letters page is watching to see who sounds reasonable, and the one who gets the last word is usually the one who knows when to stop.

Better still, use the response as an opening to a larger task. Pair the letter with a call to your elected official, a three-minute comment at a public meeting, or a short note to your county party. The letter is one tool. your campaign message on one page, a five-box worksheet is useful if you are using the letter to build a longer campaign message.

The bottom line

• A letters page is read by the people who vote in local elections, and editors print the clear ones. Yours can be one of them.
• One point, one hook, one fact you can source. If you cannot say it in one sentence, you are not ready to write it.
• Sign it with your name and town, answer the verification call, and keep the tone calm and specific.
• Follow the paper's own guidelines on length, frequency and how to submit, and send the letter early enough to matter.
• Write your first one soon about something local that you can name and check.