So I got a challenge from a writer friend of mine to write a story of at least 50k words. "No problem," I told her. The catch of course was to write it in diary fashion. Naturally, she left the plot up to me. Got the storyline and an idea of the plot. But before I commence, I thought I'd get your ideas and tips on how to go about writing a diary POV story. My method is rather vague. :redface:
There are two problems that have jumped out at me when reading things written in a diary-like POV: 1. A whole string of entries that feel like they feel like they were written in a single session. 2. Entries that go on for longer than the person would have had time to write about that moment. (If you're in the middle of a crisis where rapid action needed, you're probably not going ten pages of background on it.) In my experience, #1 is a pretty common problem. It might be useful to not let yourself write more than one entry in a sitting. Take a break, do something else, and then start the next entry without re-reading the previous.
QFT. This can also be said of pretty much any writing, in my experience, especially when dealing with the gap between a first draft and a revised draft. As was basically said, crises are basically out. And unless it's a period piece, you probably won't have verbose prose with elegance. You've also got to think more about your character's writing style than anything else. It's not your style you'll be writing. It's the character's. This means that a less literature-savvy character is likely to have less grammatical understanding and a lot of sentence fragments; just thoughts that relate to what they're talking about. I suggest something character-/thought- driven. Not so much plot in the way of "this happened today" but more "today I felt like this" and additional thoughts, perhaps.
I actually chose a crisis for my diary-story. It's challenging, but I can convey quite a bit. Traumatic events are easy to remember and many times they can be recalled in uncannily vivid detail.
You're welcome I wonder if it's available at the library considering it's content let me know if you find it there (just out of curiousty lol). If they don't have it then it's well worth checking stores out or online. Good luck!
I once read a book called Blue which was part-written as a diary and the biggest problem there was the diary contained big lengths of speech. Nobody writes entire conversations in diaries, formatted with speech marks and everything...especially, like in Blue, when the conversation isn't particularly significant.
I just looked it up, they don't seem to have it here. Oh, well. I'll just head to Booksamillion later!
You should read 'Life as We Knew It' by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It's written in diary style and is an excellent book.
