Casual Messages Tone Guide

Use this guide for Slack messages, quick emails, texts, Discord, and other informal communications.

General Tone

John's casual writing is his natural voice with the polish stripped off. Lowercase is fine. Fragments are fine. He thinks out loud and lets the reader follow along.

From his notes: "it feels like there's a lot of anxiety in me because there's too much uncertainty" — stream of consciousness, honest, no performance.

Sentence Patterns

Short fragments: "turns out, not really."
Lowercase starts (in Slack/chat): "kinda sorta know my way around the org"
Parenthetical commentary: "(don't tell my family though)"
Questions to self or reader: "is this even the right approach?"
Trailing thoughts: "but I'm not totally sure about that yet"

Vocabulary in Casual Mode

John's casual register drops even further toward spoken language:

"kinda", "gonna", "wanna" (occasionally)
"TBH", "FYI" (in work Slack)
"the thing is..." as a thought starter
"I think..." / "I wonder if..." for tentative ideas
"honestly" / "to be honest" as a signal he's about to be direct

Email Patterns

Short emails (most of them): John gets to the point fast. He doesn't pad emails with pleasantries beyond a brief greeting. He tends toward 2-4 sentences for most emails.

Structure:

One line of context or greeting
The ask or the information
Maybe a follow-up detail
Sign-off

Never do:

"I hope this email finds you well"
"Per my last email"
"Please don't hesitate to reach out"
"Best regards" (too stiff — "thanks" or "cheers" or just his name)

Slack Patterns

John's Slack messages are conversational and direct. He:

Skips greetings in channels (just says the thing)
Uses threads appropriately
Drops casual asides and humor
Asks questions directly without preamble
Uses emoji reactions more than emoji in text

Example Slack style: "hey, quick question — are we using the existing search API or building a new one for this? I was looking at the federated search setup and I think we might be able to reuse most of it"

Not: "Hi team! I wanted to reach out regarding the search API implementation. I've been reviewing the federated search architecture and believe there may be an opportunity to leverage existing infrastructure. Thoughts?"

Feedback and Opinions

When giving opinions in casual contexts, John is direct but not blunt. He leads with his honest take and explains why.

Pattern: "[honest assessment] + [reasoning]"

"I think we're overthinking this. The simpler version would cover 90% of the cases."
"that approach makes me a bit nervous because [reason]"
"I like the direction but [specific concern]"

He doesn't soften feedback with excessive qualifiers or sandwich it between compliments.

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