Does it become strange if we elevate "Dear Diary" and start writing the entries as though talking to a real person? Or is that the idea? I.e. "I feel like this because of this...how could such happen?" Not full double dialogue, but questions even? Or does that get way to strange?
yuck! why would any salutation be necessary or make sense at all?... when writing a diary, you're really writing to yourself, as if 'thinking out loud' on paper, aren't you?... and when lying in bed, thinking over the day's events, do you start out saying 'dear self'?... or just begin thinking, period, with no preamble? same thing goes for if you're telling someone else about your day... do you start out saying, 'dear mom/hubby' every time and then go on to tell her/him what happened at school/work that day?... or do you just say something like, 'guess what i did today?'... and, btw, anne frank didn't call her diary 'kitty'... 'kitty' was only one of a slew of names she used in addressing her diary entries, in the original handwritten one...
I've been writing diaries since I was 7, and have always started with "Dear Diary" and ended with "love Julie". It's like I'm writing a secret letter to myself. Sometimes I think it's weird, but it's a habit, and I don't want to stop it now. I don't see anything wrong about starting with Dear Diary since that's what a lot of people do, but personalizing it will make it stand out a bit more (dunno whether that's good or bad).
Its your diary you can do whatever you please. Whether you address the diary as such or not would be completely up to you. From my understanding a diary is a means to get things off of your chest. A friend that passes no judgement. Its a personal thing and should be handled in the way you want. Well thats how I always viewed it.
Agree with Unit7 There are no rules. Here's something to think about - do you expect your diary to be published some day? If the answer to this Q is 'yes' then by all means try your very best to get the format right. If the answer is 'no' then what does it matter? Just do whatever feels right to you. Have you read any published diaries to see what they did. I think Samuel Peyps Diary and Queen Victoria's Journal might be worth a look.
Anne Frank was following a convention she'd picked up from an earlier writer of the day, whose imaginary diary audience was named "Kitty" somehow... this is probably all explained in Wikipedia.
I don't write in my journal like I would a letter. I write it for a future me or family. It reads more like a summary highlighting what I did or thought of during the day.
