How to Write a Letter

The day I tried to Google "average length of a letter" and found only results related to cover letters and font sizes, I realized people don't write letters anymore. I knew it was rare, but this was something else.

So let me tell you about letter writing and maybe you'll give it a try. Everyone loves receiving letters in the mail.

Some logistics:

• Putting an address on the letter itself is optional.
• Putting the date on the letter itself is also optional.
• Salutations (e.g. Dear ___,) can be anything you want, or even skipped altogether.
• Sign it at the bottom ... but make sure it's legible, or else the envelope makes it clear the letter came from you. Signing it tells the person who you are and that you are finished.
• P.S., or post script, was created back in the days before erasers or the delete key. They were used if you had forgotten something but had already added your signature at the bottom. Not really needed anymore unless you are joking around or it's some stylistic choice.
• As far as I can tell, there is no average letter length. Write until you finish up. When my husband was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I tended to write him ten-page letters. I've also written my share of one-page letters.
• Use paragraphs. It makes reading easier.
• Doodling in the margins is fine, depending on who the recipient is.
• Letters can be sent through the mail, email, Facebook, or any other way you feel like.

With those things out of the way, how do you decide what to put in your letter? Some ideas:

• Is there a purpose to the letter? Make sure to include it. Sometimes it's easy to forget.
• What have you been filling your life with lately? Hobbies, work, family, vacations, etc.
• Tell some stories about what you've been experiencing. Include a funny one if possible.
• Think aloud: Write about what's been on your mind, ideas-wise or worries-wise.
• Ask questions. No letter is complete without them, and it makes a reply easier. Reply to any questions they asked you, if their letter came before yours.
• What would your recipient in particular like to hear about? Satiate their curiosity.
• Anything else you feel like talking about.

Writing letters really isn't much trouble, it just takes a bit of time and thought. Here is an example of a letter (abridged) I wrote to a missionary friend of mine while I was in college a few years ago:

December 11, 2012

My Dearest Sister Rachel,

I figured that if I write this now, it might just reach you before Christmas. So merry Christmas, Rachel! I hope you are keeping warm and doing well. When you get a chance, you should let me know how Russia, the mission, your companion, and everything else is going.

I looked, and last time I wrote you was about a month ago. Thankfully (or not?) nothing incredibly important has occurred since then. Nothing to beat Shelby coming home, anyway. My last update from her (a week ago?) was that she is doing well. She is happy to be with family, that’s for sure. Other news…my roommate, Sarah, has had a series of surgeries and still isn’t done with doctors, but she dropped out this semester, so she doesn’t have to worry about schoolwork. She is in good spirits, and it amazes me. I think I would be a nervous wreck if my body was as messed up as hers is. ...

It’s Finals Week right now. I only have one real final; the others are just the last test of the class and the last is reciting a poem in French. That last one is what I get to do tomorrow morning. In my poetry (English; I took two poetry classes this semester) class, we had our biggest project around Thanksgiving. We put together portfolios of our best poetry and wrote an essay about three of our own poems and three of someone else’s. ...

Everyone keeps asking me if I have any big papers to write, but this semester has actually been pretty tame when it comes to papers. The most intense paper I had to write was actually for Honors credit in my Human Development course. My sister ... gave me access to some of her teenage journal entries and I compared them with a sample of my own, to see how we compared while in that phase of development. To be more precise, I was paying attention to how we started to develop a vocational identity – how we made money, how/if we balanced employment with school, and how we worked toward a future career. There is some debate amongst developmentalists right now about whether or not teenagers should be employed while attending high school. Some say it is good for them, because it expands their social circle and gives them professional/workforce experience. Others say employment inhibits their ability to perform to their full potential in school. ... When I finished, the paper was 20 pages long, including the title page, abstract, and reference page. I wrote an abstract simply because the paper was getting to be so long. Honestly, I enjoyed writing it. I think I even forgot about the time and stayed up until 2 a.m. working on it. I think that’s a sign that I have chosen to do the right thing with my life. If you forget time because you are doing what you love, then you are in the right spot. It wasn’t that I was enjoying the subject; I was just enjoying writing. ...

I’m going to go to bed now, and will write more tomorrow, I hope. Love you!

Love, Elizabeth

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...T.S. Lowe

I had the privilege a year ago to be the principal editor of T.S. Lowe's now-published book Out of Duat, a historical fantasy for a middle school-aged audience. The book involves a young Egyptian pharaoh, a dangerous cult, the cult's slightly insane priestess and an accidental time traveler from South Dakota, with some zombies and Egyptian gods thrown in for good measure.

It is a book of parallels, and that, I think, is one of its greatest strengths. Another is how clear it is just what each character wants (the conflict). Here's the lowdown:

Hath - As a young girl, she watches her father killed by the Egyptians, then learns how to be a priestess to the god of death from her mother. She and her people want revenge, but there's just one problem: She's fallen in love with the Pharaoh, the son of the man who killed her dad.

Xius - A young pharaoh with an awful temper who wants to prove himself. He wants to marry for love but is being pressured by the court to marry sooner than he is ready. He hasn't even found someone to love yet. On top of that, he doesn't know what to do about the absolutely annoying, supposed time traveler.

Annette - A teenager from a broken family and South Dakota who can only talk to Xius, because he has a magic amulet that allows him to understand her language. She was enslaved upon her arrival and is not doing the better for it, even though everyone keeps telling her how grateful she ought to be that Xius didn't have her killed outright.

Set - Xius's chief adviser, Set is a recent widower. His wife was killed by the cultists and he misses her terribly--so much so, in fact, that he is willing to make any deal just for the chance to bring her back.

There are other characters too, of course, but these are our plot-drivers. The parallels are created by them, too. Hath and Annette play off each other, as do Xius and Set. We also have an Egyptian wife who was killed by cultists, and a cultist father who was killed by Egyptians. There are others, but I invite you to look for them as you read.

Lowe knows how to craft a story, and for her it is all about conflict, which is rooted in character. Did you notice how every single character I mentioned desired something? Hath wants revenge and love. Xius wants to prove himself. Annette wants to survive. Set wants his wife back.

These desires change as the characters progress, which is both character development and how the plot moves along. Situations change people, and people can change situations.

Even after reading it so many times over that I'm sick of it, I still recommend this book. It is fun, intelligent and easy to read.

Shooting Stars

A young man once was on a journey through the forested mountains where the elks and salmon live, and because he was hungry, he climbed the tallest tree he could find. It was a pine tree, and its sap and bits of bark and needles stuck to his hands as he climbed, the scent filling the air around him.

It was a slow climb to the top, and once he was there he paused to look at the land around him, at the sweeping river and the spotted canopy of trees. He saw a hawk's shadow gliding across a meadow and raised his gaze to the sky to find it. Once he found the hawk, he kept an eye on it while pulling out an arrow and his bow, made special for the journey and not yet used. It was a creamy brown and smooth as a stone that has sat in the river for many years.

Stringing the bow, the young man took his aim, following the circling path of the hawk as it flew. Just when it was about to fly elsewhere, he let go of the bowstring. His arrow did not strike.

Perhaps it was on purpose, because the young man had already come to love the height of the tree and, hungry as he was, he was loathe to descend. In fact, the young man wanted to climb higher.

So he found an even taller tree and scampered down the one he was in to climb the other. The wind began to blow, but that did not stop him; it only added exhilaration to the climb. He felt one with the forest as his body and the tree limbs all swung every which way in the building storm.

At the top of the second tree, he rode out the winds, laughing as the tree danced and his hair was blown every which way. When the rain began to fall, he held to the tree with his legs, throwing his arms wide and tilting his head back to drink it in. The water quenched his thirst and drenched his body and he was one with the tree, high as a hawk and touching the sky.

When the storm ended and the clouds cleared, he saw the mountain and wished to be on its peak, higher than the trees. So he scampered down the second tree and ascended the mountain, eating berries as he went and skipping through the slower inclines. He relished the challenge of scaling the boulders when they came, his foot slipping now and then on the damp surface but always pushing upward.

Having gained the top of the mountain, the young man looked down on the world beneath and joy led him to laughter. The sun was just setting and he could see the long shadows, hear the crickets, and smell the rich earth. He had been told by the elders of his village to make camp for the night when it came, but his eyes sought the heavens and he wished to go higher, to race with the winds and follow the moon across the sky.

So the young man found another tree, this one still taller than the others, for it was atop the high mountain. And in the dark, he climbed. His bow was across his back with his quiver, all but forgotten as fingers found branches and feet found footholds to hold his weight. He climbed higher and higher, until he was sure he must have reached the top, but there was still more to climb and he continued.

Higher and higher, until he reached the stars. The young man nocked an arrow and aimed it high; it created a graceful arc full of light as it ascended for but a moment and then fell down to the earth far below.

With no way down, and no desire to return, that is where the young man still is. Every now and then he lets an arrow fly out of sheer joy, for he is where the winds, the moon, and the stars are, and during the day he can climb the clouds still higher.

Do you ever visit a place that just feels like it has a story? My husband and I wandered a bit through Boise National Forest this fall and this story came to me while we were sitting on a mountainside overlooking a valley. It just felt right.

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Mitch Albom

I just finished Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie, a book I picked up because my in-laws had it on a bookshelf. In retrospect, it was a relevant book for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Tuesdays with Morrie is a best-selling nonfiction book about Albom's experience learning about life and death from an old sociology professor of his, Morrie Schwartz. I read it in two days, with plenty of pause time, and so I would not say it is a hard read or a dense one. It is simple; but then, I am sure Morrie would argue that is because life is simple.

Before I critique this, let me say I enjoyed the read. I looked up Morrie while reading and am waiting for a better time to watch the TV segments on him that were recorded before his death.

The writing is, as I said, simple and easy to understand. There are aphorisms, stories and humorous bits. As mentioned in Writing Tools, that how-to-write book I am going to discuss (can we say this begins the discussion?), Albom employs short sentences, with an uncomplicated structure, to tell truths. Short and to the point makes people think of it as true and indisputable, Writing Tools says, if I remember right without having it in front of me (I am still at a brother-in-law's, typing this on my phone as my toddler nephew bumbles around the room).

Take the last portion of the first paragraph as a sample:

The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience.

This device was used throughout the book, but usually not in quick succession like it was here. You get the idea, though. It worked well for a story trying to tell simple truths. It made them instantly more accessible and acceptable. I never tried to argue with him.

My primary question about the book is how much of it is fudged. When writing creative nonfiction such as this, small details are often fictional. The color of shirt Morrie is wearing, what the weather was like, that sort of thing. Two instances seemed a bit too clean-cut to me: One is when Morrie pulls out a plant to look at while talking about life and how everyone dies. Useful prop to visualize things for a reader, eh? The other is that while Morrie is dying and wants love and attention, there just so happens to be a parallel character -- Albom's brother. He is also terminally ill but does not want any attention whatsoever, completely ignoring all phone calls. Until after Morrie dies, of course, when he finally allows contact. It's just a little too convenient for truth, don't you think? But maybe it is true. Who would be heartless enough to lie like that for cash?

My primary discontent with the book is it doesn't teach life lessons, it tells them. Life lessons are not taught through aphorisms, but through experiences. I suspect this book could only change a life that is ready for it. If life has been trying to teach the same lessons it tells, this might incite the moment of epiphany. Otherwise, I bet people come away from it like I did: "Well, that was a nice, uplifting read." No life changes, no teary phone calls, no new resolutions.

This is why for self-help or inspirational, I prefer fiction. It is easier to experience lessons that way. Easier to write them so that the reader becomes immersed. It can be done in nonfiction, but Albom didn't manage it.

Identity crisis

I had a small identity crisis a few weeks ago.

Ever since I was a child learning how to write, I have written stories. The first one I recall was about a fish who wanted to save a spider who was caught somewhere on land. Another used my uncle's pig for inspiration - I don't remember what it was about, but I know it was titled "Robert the Pig and His Sweater."

From the beginning, it was stories. Fictional stories, that is. Sure, I kept a journal, but I never considered that writing practice. I actively wanted to never work for a newspaper. I wanted to be a novelist.

College hit, and I wanted a job where they would pay me to write, or at least edit, so I applied for Accent editor and Opinion editor without knowing the job description for either. I just knew I did NOT want to be a reporter. At all.

The entire time I worked for the student newspaper, I did not write an article, not a single one, and I worked there for three and a half years.

I left college with the goal of finding a job where I would use my degree, and I ended up at a newspaper again.

I have since written numerous articles. I am not technically a reporter, but I do report. A few weeks ago, I had the realization that I am a journalist and I mainly write nonfiction. As I said, it was a moment of crisis, and I'm not exaggerating.

Who am I as a writer?, I wanted to know. It seemed like this blog and some meager scraps of other writing were all I had to cling to for my "fiction writer" dream.

To end this crisis, I did a couple things. 1) I told myself that people love my nonfiction writing at the newspaper. It makes people happy, even though it may not seem grand. Or fictional. 2) I am now looking at my job as a second school of writing. I am learning a new form and gaining practice and skills in writing that will transfer over when I am finished with newspapers.

I also read yet another how-to-write book, this one called "Writing Tools" and written by Roy Peter Clark. I finished it recently (a good newspaper word that makes something see timely even when it is starting to overripen) and will share my notes with you over the next few weeks, along with explanations to flesh them out.

P.S. - Being a journalist isn't THAT bad, is it?

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...K.W. Negaard II

I read Kenny Negaard's book "Clarence: Adventures in the Great Wood" for my work. I didn't have high hopes for it, mainly because I'm skeptical of local writers. But I was wrong. This is actually a pretty good book.

For a cool backstory on the writer, read the story I wrote for the Idaho Press-Tribune. In brief, Negaard served in the military, wrote the book, then experienced extreme PTSD and landed himself in jail. He thinks that's where God wanted him to be, though, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. He's out of jail now and doing well. The story is pretty cool, so you should give it a read.

"Clarence" is about a caterpillar who becomes best friends with a robin, Tilly, and they decide to be roommates. They find a home, meet people and wait for the day when Clarence will get his own wings, but in the meantime, he flies around on Tilly. It has a bittersweet ending and is a sweet, religious-in-tone story. I honestly think young children would enjoy it if they are in the I-just-started-reading-chapter-books stage and love animals.

By "religious-in-tone," I mean there are frequent references to the Creator and how He watches over and has provided for all of us. It isn't preachy, though there are moments where spiritual stories are shared.

The writing is okay, not necessarily impressive, but I was impressed with Negaard's grasp of story structure (especially since I struggle with it so much). There is a first climax (finding a home), build up, and a second, larger climax, along with adventures along the way. The conflict for the story starts as being "I'm young and don't know anything" and morphs into "Someday, Clarence will get his wings. What will they be like? How does the transformation happen?" There are mentor characters, a frog and a raccoon, and squirrels provide comedic relief. All the elements to make a story are there, and I actually asked him if he had any writing training. He doesn't, but he has figured out the idea of having a writing schedule, which many non-serious writers don't attain (and thus they don't write anything).

He is planning on turning it into a series, with different books starring different characters, so keep an eye out if you purchase this book and enjoy it.

A study in conflict

I've read a couple essays/articles about conflict today, and here is what I gained:

Conflict is about character.

I always put it in its own category, but maybe it is just a facet of a character. C.S. Lakin, an author who also wrote this essay on conflict, says conflict is shaped by the things a character values. Take that thing away or endanger it, then build a story as the character struggles to regain it.

Examples:

Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat: Little boy wanted house to be clean and chores done before Mom gets home. This is challenged by the appearance of the cat, who proceeds to ruin everything.

Crisis moment.

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: Lady wants to be righteous and have worth. This is almost fulfilled by a man who falls in love with her ... except he's already married. Also challenged by the perception of her aunt.

Roald Dahl's The BFG: Giant runt doesn't believe in eating humans. This is challenged every day as he watches the other giants go out to eat them.

Point made? As I said, I had always thought of conflict as separate from character. It turns out that you grow a character, and then a conflict comes from/in relation to the character.

So what did my Settled character value? ... It seems he valued his marriage, and he enjoys normalcy instead of lunacy. Apparently, then, the conflict should have been something threatening his marriage. The lunacy thing was a bit of a sideshow, really.

The next question on my mind was when to introduce conflict. Lakin said to do it as soon as possible ... unless you are laying a foundation for the conflict to stand on. I once wrote a short story where the entire introduction was focused on solidifying the relationship between the main character and her younger sister. Then I killed off the younger sister and made my main character deal with it (she didn't do so well).

So note to self: Unless I am purposefully setting up the conflict, it needs to be introduced as soon as possible. There needs to be something to carry the reader through the story.

And a P.S. to that note: Remember to at least have two levels of conflict: Outward and inward. This adds depth to both the conflict and the storyline.

I also thought this was worth noting:

Certain genres and age groups will limit or restrict the type and depth of conflict the writer can explore. Special interest publications allow the writer to target a more specific conflict. YA novels and stories will limit the degree to which you can explore sexual conflicts and physical violence, but will heighten the importance of emotional conflict. A primarily male or female audience will vary in the type and style of conflict. A Christian publisher is more likely to focus on internal conflicts, rather than physical or sexual conflicts. (http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/conflict.html)