Depends on the length. For example, I read a short story the other day, I'm guessing roughly 5,000 words long, all done in diary entries. It worked for me because it was short enough; it's one of the reasons I didn't like Dracula or Frankenstein. But using diary entries to tell parts of the story is okay, I think - I'm using it in one of my novels, and as I said, I generally hate diary entries in novels.
Have a look at 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn. Excellent book. I wrote one novella as diary entries, my homage to Bram Stoker's ' Dracula' (although mine was a completely different genre) and it was great fun writing in 1st person POV.
I'm only writing one thing at a time but i am always editing at the same time. I can sort of put a wall up between my writing habits and my editing habits and they don't interfere with one another. If it doesn't mess up POV, or tense, go for it. If you find that you are screwing up one story by working on another you need to reconsider your work habits. Spending all your time banging away at the same story can wear you out though, there's no dispute there.
I want to add that some may find it useful to have a "deadline". It doesn't have to be real, some people can pretend well enough for it to feel real. But I noticed that when I have to meet a certain date, I tend to focus on one thing more and get it done properly instead of loafing around with it.
It'd be an interesting way to get inside of one of the characters heads, but it could fracture the pacing a bit each time you do it.
The problem with diary entries is that they are, inherently, a summation—a history of some events. And, their report format is inherently fact-based and author-centric, which is another way of saying dispassionate. Not good when you take into account that fiction is emotion, not fact-based. The Diary of Anne Frank works best when the reader knows the outer situation she's trapped in and can mentally fill in the blanks, so to speak, to generate the necessary emotional context. She's up-beat but we know that horror is coming, and react to that. The problem you'll face is that your reader is looking for entertainment, so they want emotion-based prose that will give reason to worry about their new friend. Readers feed on tension and worry, after all. We want to feel real danger and excitement without the inconvenience of the wounds and suffering. But history is immutable. The POV is that of the historian recording the events, and that POV character has no uncertainty in their situation. Nor do the characters being reported on. We're not made to wonder what to do, were we in the protagonist's shoes, because our view is the external camera view, not that of the person muddling through the events in real-time. So if your diary entries read like a detailed history, they won't hook the reader, emotionally. It will inform, but won't entertain. Can it be done. Can you write in diary format filled with emotional content, and sell? Sure, but the techniques you use need to be those of writing a story in an expositional style. And we're no more trained in them than we are in the other styles unique to the profession of fiction for the printed word. My personal suggestion, as it so often is, is to look to the pros for the best way to handle your problem. If you better understand the structure and needs of scenes and stories, and how to keep a reader turning pages, doing it gets a whole lot easier. Take a look at Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure at your local free library. He not only answers your question, he answers a bunch more that you might not think to ask.
I can't focus on one tale and I realized large works aren't my thing. So now I'm exploring the areas of flash fiction. I'm currently working on four series on a weekly basis. I'm like you, OP, I like world building and universe creation. And I build more and more each day, one is just too little a number.
It's probably not quite what you're looking for, but the Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a popular contemporary children's series. Our ten year old loves it.
Bridget Jones's Diary - was a best seller and was turned into a movie (or two). So yes it can work! When the novel first came out I was given one as a present, but I couldn't get passed the first few pages, I was bored by the daily calorie counting etc. I know a couple of self-centred people like that, but I guess that is what made it so popular. I loved The Diary of Samuel Pepys. That gives an insight into the daily life of Pepys in the 1600's. Give it a go and see how you get on. Good luck!
@JayG: I have to disagree. Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' is very emotionally involving, you forget it was written in letter form. Also 'Gone Girl'. And let's not even mention ' The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole' my favourite childhood book. I dare say there's a skill in it, and when done right, it stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of 3 rd person POV
Monday night stayed in Tuesday night stayed in Wednesday night stayed in Thursday night...well you get the drift...
And? Remember, I said, "Can you write in diary format filled with emotional content, and sell? Sure, but the techniques you use need to be those of writing a story in an expositional style. And we're no more trained in them than we are in the other styles unique to the profession of fiction for the printed word." Try to write it as a diary entry without a thorough understanding of the techniques of fiction told all in exposition and the result will have all the excitement of a plot outline, expanded. The 99.9+% rejection rate isn't because the plots of the submitted stories aren't good. It's because the one recieving the query wasn't motivated to turn to page two. And making the reader want to do that is a matter of skill and knowledge of the compositional skills of writing fiction for the printed word, something not touched on or mentioned during the years we spend learning to read and write.
On the non-fiction side, there was a spate of sports diaries in the 1960s and '70s, including Jim Brosnan's The Long Season (1960) and Pennant Race (1963), Jerry Kramer's Instant Replay (1967), Jim Bouton's Ball Four, Bill Freehan's Behind The Mask, and Dave DeBusschere's The Open Man (1970) and Brad Park's Play The Man (1972). Bouton's book is probably the best known of all these, but each gave a behind-the-scenes look at a sport and the people who play it. There are limits to the format. There are benefits to the format. If the format serves your needs, then go for it. As far as a letter-form novel goes, my personal favorite is Taylor Caldwell's Dialogues With The Devil. It began with a letter from Satan to God. Caldwell indirectly claimed it was divinely inspired.
In my opinion, storytelling doesn't get better than this. I mean, a diary—series of letters—written by somebody who is borderline illiterate? If this had been posited on this forum as a potential novel project, I can just about envision the response. Just goes to show, you can do anything as long as you do it well. Forget taboos. If it's what you want, do it.
Diary by someone borderline illiterate? This reminds me of Daniel Keyes' great story "Flowers for Algernon." There's another piece where the diary form works beautifully.
The suggestions you have already received are pretty impressive from The Color Purple to 1984 to Dracula and Frankenstein you have diary / letter writing in various forms. Another great one that comes to mind is Go Ask Alice. Best of luck in your own project!
I can't commit to a single story. Whenever something feels stale to me, or I'm simply running out of ideas, or just plain tired of the story, I'll write a different. The end result was two huge novels that are not yet quite complete, yet another novel that I am improving because it had been written seven years ago as of this year and therefore subpar compared to my writing now... and now an unexpected novella sized idea that MAY turn into a novel if I don't stop planning it.
That's how I work. It means I always do a bit of writing every day which can sometimes be a real effort, but it does mean that I get stories completed. I also find that in some cases, where I've decided an idea isn't working, it might work in one of the other projects making it clearer to me which is just an idea and which has a lot more substance. When that happens I drop all the other ideas and can focus on one idea for a long period of time, even through to completion. I think it has a lot to do with the individual though, what works for me may not work for someone else.
It's not easy. Anything worthwhile isn't easy. Sometimes when you force yourself to write the 1000 words a day or whatever it can feel so mechanical, just like you're writing dull uninspired garbage, even when you know what you want to write, where you're going with the scene. I hate that. But some days it just flows and you find yourself at 1500 words and still going strong - you just have to take them days When i find I'm writing mechanically like that, I come back to it later and try colour it in a bit, adding smells, sounds, touch etc. Adding more internal thoughts, trying to find more precise words...you get a rush of inspiartion sometimes and come back and add something to the scene - that's always nice! Writing is a struggle in general though. You're not alone
Nice little article here from Quora: http://www.quora.com/Storytelling/What-makes-a-story-great Before the inevitable cries of 'that's not what I think makes a story great' - no, maybe it's not. The guy's saying what makes a story great to him. It's not meant to be objective. But worth reading, nevertheless.
The first dozen are pretty standard, but it's worth reading someone new articulate the concepts. I chuckled at: "13. It's shouldn't be too "on the nose." I liked the information and seeing a typo is always comforting since they are so difficult for all of us to avoid. Trusting the reader is an important theme in 14 and 15. It's important to apply it to characters and themes, but also to little filter clauses. "He looked out across the valley and saw ..."You don't need to tell us "he saw", we already know that. While I'm on the subject, I wanted to thank the thread author who posted Andrew Stanton's TED talk on storytelling, but I can't find the thread and don't remember who posted the link. Here's a different link to the same TED Talk. http://aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/12/wall-e-and-toy-story-screenwriter-reveals-the-clues-to-a-great-story/
A more removed answer to that question, "What makes a story great?" is that it falls into the string category. How long is a piece of string? As long as it needs to be. Every great story is, more or less, great in its own way, with its own qualities of greatness. Every writer combines the same basic precepts and practices to mold their story. The trick is to blend them in such a smooth, seamless way for YOUR story to create your own greatness. Sometimes, you just write for your own satisfaction and pleasure, in which case, you know exactly what constitutes greatness for your story. Sometimes, you write for the primary objective of publishing and selling your work to a larger audience. In that case, the concept of 'great' is a bit more ambiguous and ephemeral. So you must try to find a way to zero in on the largest percentage of your target audience in such a way that they will consider your work great. But... what will that entail? How long is a piece of string?????
I am writing the story I want to read and tell, so that marketing thing needs modifying. I am working to make one of the themes in my book acceptable to a broader readership, but that's a stylistic issue rather than an issue with the story itself. I cannot accept leaving it out because I might turn some readers off.
I liked the last bit about ambiguity. That's something I liked to aim for, a story that doesn't quite reveal all it's treasures - not on the first reading at least. Number 13 was a hoot - how true. There's so many of those analytical characters out there but in a way even though the guys saying not to do it there are a lot of people out there talking like amateur Oprah's and Dr. Phil's . Number 10 - that's a toughy.
