In June I wrote that if I produced a comprehensive entry on the consultation step as editing, it would appear in December. This is that entry. It is the fourth craft-theory piece in the journal, after the knot, the photograph, and asking. Those three describe what a maker does at the bench, in the morning light, and in the back-and-forth before the work begins. This one describes what happens with the wearer's letter — the document that initiates everything else.
I will be more practical here than I usually am. The reason is that this entry is also a small protocol I would like other studios to be able to use, and protocols benefit from being unambiguous. I have written it with that in mind.
Why editing
I had been calling the consultation step "interpretation," or "translation," or "reading." Those words are not wrong. They are vaguer than the truth. The truth, which Wei surfaced for me this year by working in a different way than I do, is that the consultation step is most precisely a kind of editing. The wearer provides raw material. The maker's job is to decide what to use, what to leave out, what to amplify, and what to honor as form rather than content.
The word matters because editing carries a specific discipline. An editor does not own the work. An editor serves the work. An editor knows that fewer elements, chosen correctly, produce a stronger piece than more elements, chosen completely. That discipline is exactly what consultation requires.
From now on, when I describe what we do during the back-and-forth with a wearer, I will say "we edit the letter." I want the word to do the work.
The three letters of 2031
Three letters this year showed us, in sequence, the full range of the editing problem:
São Paulo · March. Beatriz gave us three secondhand facts about Lia (Olga's goddaughter, whom Beatriz had never met). Wei made the piece across two distances. The editing problem: not enough material to be confident. The solution: trust the three facts and stop trying to clarify. A guess made from sufficient signal beats a verification that may never arrive. (Wei's entry.)
Mexico City · June. Andrea sent 1,840 words. Wei printed it out and used a yellow highlighter to identify seven sentences out of seventy-six. The piece was made around the seven. The editing problem: too much material to use all of it. The solution: extract the parts that move. (My entry on watching Wei work.)
Marseille · September. Camille sent 87 words. The 12-word reply. The smallest piece. The editing problem: exactly the right amount, deliberately. The solution: honor the calibration, match the register, do not add. (Wei's entry.)
Three problems, three solutions. Together they cover the full editing problem we encounter at SENMOMO. Below is what we have learned to do.
The seven sentences method
For letters above roughly 1,000 words: print the letter. Read it twice without marking anything. Then, on the third read, mark only the sentences that move. Define "move" as: this sentence carries a feeling that another sentence does not carry. Sentences that supply context (her job, her age, where she lives) move only if the context is itself a feeling. Sentences that supply biography (her parents, her childhood, her career arc) move only if the biography is the brief.
Aim for fewer than ten marked sentences. If you have more than ten, read again and choose between the close cousins. If two sentences carry the same feeling, choose the more specific one.
The marked sentences are the elements of the piece. Build around them. Use stones that match each marked element rather than stones that match the letter's overall mood. The piece is not the letter's mood; the piece is the seven sentences acting on each other.
The brief as meta-statement vs. sub-element
Some wearers state their brief directly. Others let the brief emerge. When the brief is stated — "I want a piece that holds X" — read it carefully and ask: is this a meta-statement, or is it a sub-element?
A meta-statement is a description of the piece's whole. ("Something that contains all of this without saying any of it." — Andrea.) A meta-statement does not get its own stone. It gets the whole composition.
A sub-element is a specific request. ("Please use rose quartz, because that was my grandmother's favorite.") A sub-element gets a stone.
The most common error in consultation work is treating a meta-statement as a sub-element. The result is a piece that includes a stone for the wearer's overall intent, which is redundant — the piece is the intent. Conversely, treating a sub-element as a meta-statement makes the piece feel vague.
Distinguishing them is the most subtle judgment in editing. We use this test: can this be drawn? If the stated request can be visualized as a specific bead, it is a sub-element. If it can only be felt as the whole, it is a meta-statement.
Matching register
A wearer's letter has a register — the level of formality, intimacy, specificity, and length. The maker's reply should match it. A long letter gets a thorough reply. A short letter gets a short reply. A formal letter gets a formal reply. An intimate letter gets an intimate reply.
This is not just etiquette. Register-matching is itself editing — it edits the relationship between the wearer and the maker. A wearer who has chosen 87 words has decided how much intimacy she wants. Replying with 800 words violates her decision. The reply should respect the form of the letter.
The maker's note that goes with the photograph should also match. Camille got four sentences. Andrea got two short paragraphs. Beatriz got three sentences. The Tianjin wearer in 2025 got two — and that brevity is part of why she wrote back, and part of why that morning ended the way it did.
The maker's voice in the editing
I have been calling this "editing" rather than "translation" because translation suggests a neutral transfer. Editing is not neutral. The editor has a voice. The piece reflects both the wearer's letter and the maker's editorial judgment, in dialogue.
This is why Wei and I make different pieces from the same letter. We have different editorial instincts. When I edit, I am more likely to amplify the wearer's stated intent and trust it as the spine of the piece. When Wei edits, she is more likely to find the side-comment that the wearer did not realize was load-bearing and build the piece around that. Both are valid editorial styles. Both make good pieces. They do not make the same piece.
If you are a wearer who has commissioned multiple pieces from us across years, you may have already noticed: the pieces are coherent within each maker's hand but distinct between makers. That is the editing. That is how the dialogue between letter and maker produces a piece that is not just yours, but yours through someone.
The protocol, written down
Let me put it concisely, because protocols benefit from being concise:
- Read the letter twice without marking. Get the shape.
- On the third read, mark only what moves. Aim for fewer than ten elements.
- Identify the brief as meta-statement or sub-element. Meta-statements do not get stones.
- Choose stones that correspond to marked elements, not to the letter's overall mood.
- Compose around the elements, not at them. The composition should let the elements speak to each other.
- Match the wearer's register in the photograph's message. Long-for-long, short-for-short.
- Leave room. Pieces with fewer beads than you thought you needed are almost always better than pieces with more.
What this asks of wearers
Nothing, technically. We will edit any letter, of any length, in any register. But knowing how we edit may help you write the letter you actually want to write.
Write what you would write if you were writing to a maker who reads carefully. Do not over-explain. Do not under-explain. Do not write what you think we want to hear; write what you actually feel about the piece. If you have no idea what you want, say so directly — Camille's letter is a good model. If you know exactly what you want, say it precisely — Eleanor's wedding letter from 2026 is a good model. If you want to think out loud on the page, do — Andrea's letter is a good model. We can work with any of these.
The wrong letter is the one you write trying to perform for us. The right letter is the one you would write in your own kitchen, to a friend who happens to make bracelets.
What this protocol is not
It is not customer service. It is not a system. It is a discipline we use because the work requires it. Other studios are welcome to adopt it; we expect they will modify it. The seven sentences number is approximate. The "fewer than ten elements" rule is approximate. The exact judgment in each case is the maker's, not the protocol's. The protocol gives the shape; the judgment fills it in.
I do not believe in systematizing craft beyond the level at which the system stops helping. This protocol helps because consultation is the only step in our process that is not already implicit in the body — the knot is in the hands, the photograph is in the morning, the asking is in the conversation. The editing is in the mind. The mind benefits from a written protocol in a way the hands and the morning do not.
What I owe Wei
The seven sentences method is hers. She invented it, in our studio, in early 2031, with a yellow highlighter she brought from home. I had been doing some version of it for years without naming it. She named it. The naming was the contribution. Most of what becomes craft theory in any small studio is the naming of things the master had been doing implicitly.
I want to be clear about this in print: Wei made this entry possible by being the kind of maker who articulates her practice. I am the kind of maker who does not. We complement each other. The studio is better for the difference. I think other small studios should consider whether their apprentices, whom they may have hired for technical reasons, might in fact be teaching them the things they no longer know how to say.
Year eight begins
The studio closes Wednesday. Wei goes home to Hangzhou. Daisy to Guangzhou. The first piece of 2032 ships January 5. It is for a wearer in Helsinki. Wei is making it. I am reviewing it. Her letter was 412 words, which is the most ordinary length for a wearer's letter — neither too little nor too much. We will handle it without ceremony, the way we handle most pieces.
Year eight will probably be the first year that Wei makes more pieces than I do. We will see if I am right. If I am, I will note it in a journal entry around the end of 2032, dispassionately, the way the studio handles its own progress. The work is the point. Not the brand. Not the maker. The work.
I will see all of you in January. Thank you for reading this year. Year eight begins on the 5th.