The Joy of Letter Writing
Diana M. Raab -- February 27, 2006
The fourth installment of Diana's excellent series on getting comfortable with your muse, and getting work done.
According to the mystery writer, P.D. James, "No other literary form is more revealing, more spontaneous or more individual than the letter." Personally, I view letter writing as akin to having a conversation with someone, but with the added dimension of interjecting our reflections on our thoughts.
In general, the purpose of the letter is to inform, instruct, entertain, amuse, explore psychological problems, keep in touch, and to offer love. Women in Victorian times wrote love letters as a way of intimately expressing themselves. Their letters were rarely taken seriously because they didn't pose a threat to the male-based literary community. The advent of the telephone was seen as a replacement for letter writing, but now with the birth of email, there seems to be a resurgence of the age-old art of letter writing.
Five decades ago I wrote my first letter to my parents from sleep away summer camp. Although that letter only had five words in it, "I hate camp, Love, Diana, those days around the age of six, marked the beginning of my life long fascination with the written word.
During adolescence, my letters to my parents were filled with emotion and angst about society's expectations, and frustrations about my future. Many of those letters to my parents remained unsent, but the cathartic exercise made them worth writing. Today, perhaps fewer letters remain unsent, particularly email letters, because the 'click, send' is far too easy.
My passion for letter writing took a more intense leap at the age of nineteen during the courtship between my husband and I. For more than two years, we wrote letters to maintain our long-distance love affair while living on distant points of North America -- he in Canada and me in New York. Phone calls were also nice, but letters allowed us to dig deeper into our emotions. Now I have boxes of those letters stored away in our hall closet, and will one day hopefully be a cherished heirloom to our three kids.
Over the years, I've also used letter writing to release pent-up emotions. I've done this through complaint letters or letters to the editor. When confronting someone on an issue, it's easier (and healthier) to blow up on the page than to the person. It's also a good venue to gather your thoughts first, and then a segue into having a discussion.
I continued the practice of letter writing a great deal when my kids were adolescents. Basically, it was easier for me to write to them than to talk to them. Somehow looking in one another's eyes is more intimidating, in the same way that it's often easier to converse during a long car ride. My kids seemed to pay more attention to my written word. As a matter of fact, back in 2001, one of my correspondences with my eldest daughter, Rachel, was published in Cheryl Dellesaga's book, Surviving Ophelia: Mothers Share Their Wisdom in Navigating the Tumultuous Teenage Years.
When Rachel was in fifth grade I chaperoned a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia. During our visit to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, the tour guide discussed Jefferson's passion for letter writing. In his days, copy machines were non-existent and Jefferson ingeniously crafted a device to make copies of all his written letters. He attached two pencils to either end of a two-foot long wire. He used one of the pencils to write with, and the other was suspended above a piece of paper to copy his words.
My grandmother died when I was ten and I frequently write her in absentia, effectively a form of journaling. I like keeping her abreast of my current goings on. Since my father passed away fifteen years ago, I also enjoy periodically writing to him. It makes me feel good to link him into my life, plus it gives me a chance to say those things I never got to tell him when he was alive.
Most writers are good letter writers. Authors such as Pam Houston, Fenton Johnson and Shawn Wong frequently writes letters. Whether they're mailed or not, is really irrelevant. Some people even write to their pets. Try writing to whomever or about whatever inspires you to pour your heart out and remember, by all means, date those letters and make yourself a copy. In the future, it will be amusing to look back at them, and you never know how their contents may be used in one of your future literary works.
Some writers use the letter form to warm up their writing. It helps them get into the swing of their story. Others write letters in their journal, particularly if they're having difficulty developing a character in their story.
Writers, such as Shawn Wong view letter writing as practice for their craft. Wong says,
"When I was eighteen I started thinking about becoming a writer but as an undergraduate student and later as a graduate student in creative writing, I didn't really have a career as a writer so I wrote letters, sometimes as many as five or six letters a day. In looking back at the thousands of pages of letters, I realize those letters were how I practiced my writing."
Author, John McPhee, once said that every book he wrote began with the words,"Dear Mother." Sometimes it doesn't end up in his final version, but it gets him writing. In her journal volumes, Anais Nin wrote to her deranged father.
One of the biggest challenges of letter writing is how to write them. The best advice is to start the letter with saying exactly you want to say and then use the body of the letter to elaborate. Let the words flow. You'll know when you're finished. You can use the circular path and finish the letter with the same thought you began with.
The letters we most enjoy receiving are those which carry the writer's personality. When reading well-written letters we feel as if the person is sitting beside us, looking at us and speaking. This illustrates how the act of letter writing helps to develop our most authentic and unique voice.
Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of letter writing is the opportunity to communicate exactly what's on your mind and what's more, you can choose your audience! What more could a writer ask for than a specific, hand-picked, captivated reader? So, if you could say anything you wanted to, to anyone in the world, who would you address? What would you say? Choose a pen pal, explore and enjoy the journey!