A Guide to Writing Letters

I love letters. And I hate letters. Of the typical forms of communication (in person, on the telephone, via instant messages, through emails/letters), writing can easily be the most or least expressive. While letter-writing appears to be the slowest of the above, it is the only way to express oneself in entirety. Of course many will contend that discussing something in person is the easiest way to avoid miscommunication. With many topics, a steady dialogue or eye contact may be necessary. However, for the time and precision needed to say exactly what one wants and for someone to understand precisely what was expressed, there is no better form of communication than writing.

You may very well disagree. And you do have that right. But this page is not written to immediately sell you on letter-writing. From following through on my advice you may very well come to that conclusion on your own, but that is not my intention.

My purpose is to help people express themselves through letter-writing, an art that has not yet died. With the advent of the internet, writing suddenly re-emerged as a practical form of communication. Unfortunately much of society has forgotten what they once knew about writing personal letters. People rediscovered letters as a way to say what they could never say in person and found a simple delight in the power of clicking “Send.” But etiquette and personality were replaced by acronyms, emoticons, and a need for brevity. But while all these mentalities overtook the minds of those writing letters, there were still real people reading these pathetic excuses for prose.

While these real people may not expect much of these letters, they could be pleasantly surprised. And that’s where I want to help. So here you’ll find some tips on writing personal letters and on how to make the recipient feel important. None of them are carved in stone, and all of them need to be considered against the relation that you with the recipient. However, they all stem from general psychological principles with regards to making someone feel as if they’re worth your time and not just a random person designated to read careless words. I only hope that you’ll read through my suggestions carefully and that you’ll consider them the next time you have something important you want to discuss, or just want to say a few words to a friend. Thank you for bearing with me up to this point :).

HOW TO WRITE LETTERS

The best conversationalists are good listeners. And since there’s no body language to convey active listening with written words, it’s important to let someone know that not only are you listening, but that you’re interested in what they have to say. So try to respond to anything they stated that was a thought of their own and not just a detail of their day (people are most interested in things they actively chose as opposed to things they just carried out). This response can be as simple as a “that’s cool that you…” or as complex as multiple pages.

Ideals aside, the most interesting and important person in everyone’s life is themself. So when you’re writing a letter, make sure to care about that person:
* Ask at least 3 questions.
* Write at least 250 words OR respond with a letter at a similar length to theirs
* Try to say at least one nice thing in the letter, especially at its end. Telling someone to “have a happy Monday” will go a lot farther than you’d think. And letting them know that you enjoyed hearing from them couldn’t hurt.
* You know whether or not you’re going to procrastinate, so just remember that putting a letter off one day may turn into a week or a month. And though late is better than never, don’t let a letter’s timing ruin its content. Let it have the reverse affect; a prompt response will make your recipient feel important.

There’s probably a great deal going on in your life. And if you were to write it all out, it would fill multiple books. So when you’re writing about yourself, try to focus on the stuff that you find most interesting, NOT just the “big events.” And if you find something boring then don’t bother writing about it. The way you feel about something will be apparent in your writing, and you don’t want to bore the reader with something that’s been boring to you. Letter-writing is your chance to develop the parts of your world that you care about most.