If you follow award show season, you may have noticed Huntrix—the fictional girl group at the center of the movie K-Pop: Demon Hunters—has been topping the best song nominations and awards. (I promise I am not here to get “Golden” stuck in your head… oops.)

As someone who listened to the soundtrack on repeat for months last year, I can tell you that the honor is well-deserved. To quote another parent friend of mine, the soundtrack is, fortunately, "all killer, no filler."

But inside one of its lesser-known songs between the two main characters—a poignant ballad called "Free"— there’s a clever little lesson about how you can use grammar to help bring your writing and storytelling to life.

During the course of the movie, Hunrtix’s lead singer, Rumi, loses her singing voice. So there’s a line in "Free" where she sings: "I tried to sing, couldn’t hit the notes. The words kept—catching in my throat."

​

My first instinct was my singer-self being indignant that she took a breath in the middle of a phrase. (That’s not how people talk!)

But then my writer-brain quickly realized how clever that tactic was. By disrupting the phrase with a long pause, the lyricist had brought the struggle of being literally unable to sing to life.

I’m guilty of being a real stickler for grammar. My husband actually had to stop me once from asking a Ben & Jerry’s to fix their sign that touted "frozen froyo." But the point of nonprofit writing is to sound human and conversational. When we rigidly adhere to grammar rules, we can lose sight of that authentic humanness.

So give yourself permission to write the way people speak. Embrace fragments. Use em dashes to insert thoughts within thoughts. Simplify your word choices. Leverage punctuation in a way that captures the cadence of your story subject's speech.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a complete rebel. Grammar is there to provide structure and clarity to writing, but in the words of Aunt Eller:

So go ahead, get a little loose—just don’t go too crazy. And let me know how it goes.

Interesting Nonprofit Link

I recently finished the third season of Loot on Apple TV. If you’re not familiar, it’s a comedy about the philanthropy world starring Maya Rudolph as a MacKenzie Scott-type figure (if MacKenzie Scott were a lovable hot mess).

The show spends more time on the quirky characters and their relationships than on changing the world, but it is definitely a fun watch. Her Super Bowl ads in the last season alone make the whole series worth watching. Check out the trailers.

Nonprofit Good News

Speaking of MacKenzie Scott, she downplayed her mega contributions in her year-end essay to focus on the power of small acts of kindness. Apparently, science backs her up. Researchers carried out experiments that found small, consistent gestures improved both the giver’s and the recipient’s sense of happiness. Read the article here.
​
And as a challenge, what small acts of kindness can you share with your supporters this month? Feel free to email me your plan if you want an accountability buddy, or let me know how the experiment goes!

See you next month!

Lee O'Connell, nonprofit copywriter and communications strategist
<--- most recent picture of me in my phone

​leeoconnell.com​
​

If someone forwarded this to you, you can snag your own subscription here.

​​