The Eight Most Common Mistakes People Make when Writing Love Letters

Writing a romantic note or love letter can be difficult, even for people that are prolific writers and very in-touch with their feelings. However, knowing what mistakes to avoid when writing a romantic note or love letter can make the process much easier. In this article, I describe the eight most common mistakes that people make when writing romantic notes and love letters.

Love Letter Mistake #1 - Feeling Obligated to Write

The biggest mistake that a person can make in writing a love letter or a romantic note is feeling obligated to do so. If you feel obligated to write such a letter or note, it will come out in your writing or your writing will not be as good as it could be. You should only write love letters or romantic notes when you sincerely want to. You should never be in the position of feeling tempted to write things like "I don't really know why I'm doing this" or "Because you want me to do this...", and you should definitely not write them.

Love Letter Mistake #2 - Plagiarizing or Reusing Material

Another mistake that some people make when writing love notes and romantic letters is plagiarizing material. For example, copying pieces of a speech from a movie or your favorite romance novel isn't a smart way to save time and improve your note's quality - it is lazy and you very well may be caught. People tend to write like they speak. If your romantic note does not sound like you or contains sentiments that are clearly not yours, your significant other will notice and will probably be offended, even if the rest of your love letter was brilliant. Even if you feel you are not that articulate, your significant other will be happy to know how you feel, not what a novelist or screenwriter thinks would be romantic. Another side to this is that you should never have a reusable love letter for different relationships. If you can't take the time to express your feelings for a person in an original manner, you don't belong in a relationship.

Love Letter Mistake #3 - Writing Things You Don't Mean

Writing things that you don't mean in a romantic note is a sure way to get in trouble. Again, you should be sharing your feelings with your partner, not what you think he or she wants to hear. For example, let's say that a stereotypical guy is writing to his girlfriend, a ballet dancer. If he were to write something like "I absolutely loved going to your recital the other night and can't wait to go to more ballets with you in the future," his girlfriend is going to be confused and angry when he breaks the news to her that he doesn't really enjoy watching ballet. However, he could write something like "While I don't see myself attending ballets on a regular basis, I very much appreciated being able to see you perform and will continue to support you in the future." This is more honest and more meaningful because of it, yet does not require the boyfriend in this case to pretend to like something he does not.

Love Letter Mistake #4 - Being Vague or Impersonal

"You are the sun to me, my love. You provide light to my life and my existence revolves around you, etc..." While this sentence contains extended metaphor and a somewhat dramatic comparison, it could be written by anyone to anyone else - it is vague and impersonal. It asserts things with no explanation ("you provide light...") and contains no details that would identify the writer of the sentence. Extended metaphor is not the best Sentences like "I love everything we do together" are also vague.

In a romantic note or love letter, it would be much better to write something like "I have enjoyed so many of the things that we've done together, such as kayaking and going to the Cubs game with your family." An improvement to the first example might be "To summarize, you are like the sun to me. You provide light in my life by making me laugh, and when times are hard and things seem cloudy, I know you are there for me." It's not perfect, but it's more personal, less cheesy, and less creepy.

Love Letter Mistake #5 - Trying to Be Funny

While having a sense of humor about things is important in a relationship and in general, a romantic note or love letter is not the place to try to get a lot of laughs. A love note is a place to share your feelings with someone else, so if you don't do that, you've missed the mark. I would suggest punctuating the serious portions of a romantic note with things like inside jokes as a way to add some levity to a letter and to personalize it. But don't try to be Mitch Hedberg.

Love Letter Mistake #6 - Giving Too Much Time to Problems

Every relationship has its problems, and a love letter is not the time to dwell on them. If you focus on problems, your partner is likely to be annoyed and wonder why you bothered to write a love letter at all. If you have been going through a particularly bad period, you may wish to acknowledge that by saying something like "Although we have been going through a difficult time, my feelings for you have not changed and I still see us having a future together", provided that that is how you feel.

Love Letter Mistake #7 - Making Comparisons to Exes

Your current significant other does not want to be compared to your exes, unless it is in an extremely favorable manner. But hearing something like "You are one of the most handsome men I have ever gone out with" would make me feel very self-conscious, because I would feel as if I were being compared in every aspect to previous relationships. If you feel such a phrase is warranted, you could say something like "You are one of the most beautiful people I know." This takes the focus away from previous relationships and generalizes it.

Love Letter Mistake #8 - Focusing Too Much on Any One Aspect of Your Relationship

This tip is mostly for guys. I doubt that the majority of women would like the physical aspect of a relationship to be the focus of a romantic note - in fact, they probably wouldn't find it romantic at all. Don't mention it at all unless you can do so romantically and briefly.

Writing love letters and romantic notes gets easier as you do it more often, and is easier when you are in a good relationship. Do you have any tips of your own for writing love letters? Feel free to share your thoughts in the form of a comment. Thank you for reading!