Words have power. They can make someone’s day. (“You have beautiful eyes.”) Or, they can break someone’s heart. (“I don’t love you anymore.”) We writers know about proper sentence structure and how to place our carefully chosen words within a sentence to create the effect we want. And we strive to do that in our novels.

But what about in our daily interactions with others? Do we stop and think how we want to phrase something before we open our mouths or type a quick reply to an email?…