I want to share something I’ve discovered about my own writing that readers often pick up on, even if they can’t quite put their finger on what it is. I call it my “Progressive Tone Shift,” and it’s become a signature element in all my books, especially my latest, “Died a Little Inside.”

How I Stumbled Upon This Approach

I didn’t start out with some master plan to create a sophisticated writing technique. I noticed it in my last few books almost by accident. When I went back and read my completed manuscripts, I saw a pattern: my early chapters had this raw, sometimes unfiltered energy to them. There was more profanity, shorter sentences, and an urgency in the writing. By the end of the books, my tone had naturally evolved into something more measured, reflective, and hopeful.

It hit me that this wasn’t just random. This natural progression mirrored my own emotional journey while writing about difficult topics. When I start tackling something like relationship trauma, I’m right there in it – feeling those raw emotions, that anger, that hurt. The words that come out reflect that state. By the time I’m working on later chapters about healing and moving forward, I’ve processed a lot of those feelings myself. My writing naturally shifts to match where I am emotionally.

Think about it – our language naturally evolves alongside our emotional processing. When we first confront something difficult, our words are often raw and unfiltered. As we process and integrate the experience, our language becomes more reflective. My books just follow this same authentic pattern.

The Strategic Use of Profanity

One of the most noticeable elements of the Progressive Tone Shift is how I handle profanity. In early chapters, I deliberately include curse words and raw language when it authentically captures the emotional reality. This isn’t about shock value—it’s about psychological resonance.

Research in emotional processing shows that when people first confront trauma or difficult experiences, their internal language often includes profanity. Censoring this from the narrative creates a subtle disconnect between the reader’s internal experience and the text. By including authentic, sometimes profane language early on, I create immediate psychological alignment with readers in their most raw state.

As the book progresses and the tone shifts, profanity naturally decreases—not because I’m suddenly concerned with propriety, but because this mirrors the actual psychological progression of emotional processing. When people move from reactive to reflective states, their language naturally shifts too.

Making it Intentional

Once I recognized this pattern, I decided to lean into it deliberately, especially for my books about healing. In “Died a Little Inside,” I consciously embraced this natural progression:

In those early chapters, I let the language be as raw as it needed to be. If a “fuck this” or “what the hell” felt right in expressing the anger or confusion of early trauma recognition, I kept it in. The sentences are choppy sometimes, emotional, direct. Because that’s how we feel when we’re in the thick of pain.

As the book moves forward, you’ll notice the tone gradually shifting. The profanity doesn’t disappear overnight – that wouldn’t be authentic. But it becomes more selective, used to emphasize important points rather than express raw emotion. The language becomes more reflective, the focus shifts from “what happened to me” to “what can I do about it.”

By the final chapters, there’s a calmness, a groundedness that wasn’t there at the beginning. The rare curse word might appear for emphasis, but the overall tone has evolved into something hopeful and empowered.

Why This Matters for Readers

I’ve realized this natural progression serves an important purpose for readers. When someone picks up a book about relationship trauma or healing, they’re often in a raw place themselves. They don’t need some calm, detached voice telling them to “process their emotions” – they need someone who gets it, who can meet them where they are.

The beauty of the Progressive Tone Shift is that it meets readers in that initial place of hurt and anger, validating those feelings through both content AND tone. Then, almost imperceptibly, it guides them toward a calmer, more reflective space – not by preaching, but by modeling that journey through the writing itself.

I’ve received feedback from readers who say things like “it felt like the book knew exactly where I was emotionally and then helped me move forward.” That’s exactly what I hope to achieve.

It Helps Me, Too

Writing about difficult topics like relationship trauma isn’t easy. The Progressive Tone Shift doesn’t just help my readers – it helps me too. Starting with that raw, unfiltered voice allows me to get all those intense emotions on the page. It’s almost therapeutic. By the time I reach the later chapters, I’ve worked through some of my own feelings about the topic, and that authentic progression shows in the writing.

If I tried to maintain the same measured tone throughout, I think both the writing and my own emotional processing would suffer. There’s a natural arc to how we process difficult experiences, and my writing reflects that.

In My Own Words

What I want readers to understand is that the Progressive Tone Shift in my books isn’t some clever writing trick. It emerged organically from my own writing process, and I’ve chosen to embrace it because it feels true to both my experience and what I believe readers need.

When you read “Died a Little Inside” or any of my healing-focused books, you’re witnessing not just what I’ve learned about healing, but my own journey of processing while writing it. The shifting tone is real because the emotional journey behind it is real.

I hope that by sharing this aspect of my writing process, you might notice and appreciate this progression as you read. And maybe it’ll help explain why the book feels like it’s evolving alongside you as you move through it – because in many ways, it is.