WRITING LETTERS – AN ANCIENT CRAFT
Writing letters is a process that is as ancient
as the human.
Unlike humans, bees or tigers don’t write
letters. Neither do chimpanzees or dinosaurs. (I’m not sure about this!)
Writing letters is a brilliant way to express
what you want to say.
Letters not only help us to transmit messages
or communicate information, but also to record our day-to-day experiences and
thoughts in the form of written narratives.
The first Mughal emperor wrote a series of
letters in his diary Baburnama to document his life journey.
Persians used to transmit war-related messages
via the pigeon posts, tying their letters to the necks of their homing pigeons
and fluttering them away while the trained birds carefully delivered the
letters to their respective destination.
Beethoven wrote love letters to an imaginary
character he called as his immortal beloved.
Then arrived the era of postcards, stamped
mails and daak chaukis.
Swami Vivekananda used to write letters to an
England-based songwriter named Miss Mary Hale; communicating about the various
harsh lessons of life, his contemplations and insights about reality.
In the contemporary era, writers call this form of writing, specifically by the name of ‘epistolary’.
WHAT IS EPISTOLARY FORM OF WRITING?
The word ‘epistolary’ is derived from the Greek
word epistlē, which means ‘a letter’.
An epistolary form of writing refers to a piece
or a work of writing, written in the form of letters.
These letters can also take the form of diary
entries, newspaper clippings, a series of documents, day-to-day journal notes
and likewise.
In the present day, when the digital realm is
dominating the world’s communication, the epistolary format is also inclusive
of formats like blog posts, emails, newsletters, text messages and snippets
from the web.
5 CHARACTERISTICS OF EPISTOLARY WRITING
#1 CAN BE FICTION OR NON-FICTION
An epistolary work can be either fiction or
non-fiction in nature.
#2 REPRESENTS
TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION
Whether fiction or non-fiction, an epistolary
writing records interaction via two-way communication between characters
Usually, epistolary format of writing is
employed in writing a compilation of author’s diary entries or in writing a
fiction novel with a fictional character acting as the author and addressing
another imaginary, archetypal or a fictional character as the reader of their
letters.
#3 NARRATIVE QUALITY
A work of epistolary nature is always
characterized by a narrative quality.
It is based less on the plot/dialogue/setting format,
and more on the direct expression of interaction between characters.
Although there may be the pockets of
story-within-story where the character is telling a story and herein, we may
encounter a plot, setting & dialogue.
But mostly, a piece of epistolary writing is based
on direct expression of thoughts, feelings, emotions and experiences.
#4
PROJECTION OF THE PERCEPTION
OF THE ‘WRITING CHARACTER’
Due to the two-way communication, an epistolary
novel is typically represented from the point of view projected by ‘the
filter or the colored glasses’ of the perception of the character who is writing
as the author of the letter.
Means, that when you read an epistolary piece
of writing, you are not sure whether the contents written in it are real facts
or not, but rather, it is revealing the world to you from the filtered
perceptions of the one who is writing the letter, diary entry or narrative in a
given moment.
#5 PRESENTS THE VOICE OF A CHARACTER
A work of epistolary writing presents the voice
of a character.
This voice could be the voice of a person,
voice of an archetype, voice of a thought form or even the voice of a made-up
character which could be any thing, animal, object or imagination.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN EPISTOLARY NOVEL & AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FICTION OR A MEMOIR
Autobiographical fiction or memoir can be
written anytime after the experience, can be written by anybody as narrated by
the experiencer, but epistolary is the first-hand subjective draft of that
experience.
An epistolary novel can be autobiographical in nature, but an autobiography or a memoir is not always epistolary.
A STRANGE OBSERVATION!
Every piece of writing, or every novel can be
looked from the point of view of considering it as epistolary because ultimately,
every piece of writing is always a two-way communication between two characters
– the writer and the reader.
In a way, every book is a letter from the
writer to the reader. Hence, metaphorically, epistolary.
Think about it!
FOCALIZATION THEORY & NARRATORS IN EPISTOLARY WRITING
Based on the number of narrators or the number
of characters writing letters, an epistolary work can be monophonic, diphonic
or polyphonic.
A monophonic epistolary work includes the
letters written by one character. Like The
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
A diphonic epistolary work includes the letters
written by two characters. Like, Letters
of Mr. & Mrs. Smith
A polyphonic epistolary work includes the
letters written by more than two characters. Ex: Letters by the Citizens of Village Oza
The focalization theory suggests that it all
depends on the point of view represented in a given moment, by the narrator.
7 VARIATIONS OF EPISTOLARY WRITING
#1 Epistolary novel
#2 Letter
poems – epistolary poem – verse letter
#3 Letter collection – epistolary novel is fiction in nature – a letter
collectionis non-fiction – archive or repository of original documents
#4
Fiction diary novels
#5 Non-fiction diaries
#6 Epistolary
Short Stories or Epistolary Flash Fiction
#7 Any piece of writing including article, blog post, journal entry, etc.
written in the form of letters.
4 EXAMPLES OF EPISTOLARY BOOKS
Here are four brilliant examples of epistolary
work that I’ve read.
#1 Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
#2The
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
#3 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
#4
Diary of a Nobody by George
Grossmith
Apart from these, there are hundreds and
hundreds of books you’ll discover, to be written, in this format.
Have you read an epistolary style book before?
If yes, then which one?
Share with me in the comments down below!
Thank you & Good day!
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