Need help with a word

Mud Dauber · Jan 10, 2007

For the life of me, I can't think of the word used to describe a novel that is written entirely in the form of letters/emails and no narration. Does anyone know? I need to refer to it in my story. Help! It's driving me crazy.

alleycat · Jan 10, 2007

Epistolary (sp?).

I think.

giftedrhonda · Jan 10, 2007

Yes, it's epistolary.

Mud Dauber · Jan 10, 2007

alleycat said:
Epistolary (sp?).

I think.

YES!!

Oh thank you! Thank you! :Hail:

Now I can carry on!

Del · Jan 10, 2007

e·pis·to·lar·y ( ¹-p¹s“t…-lµr”¶) adj. 1. Of or associated with letters or the writing of letters. 2. Being in the form of a letter: epistolary exchanges. 3. Carried on by or composed of letters: an epistolary friendship. [From Latin epistol³ris from epistola epistle; See epistle ]

If it helps...I love digital dictionaries.

MidnightMuse · Jan 10, 2007

Cool, I just learned a new word

Matt McKee · Jan 10, 2007

Learn something new every day. Thanks, Mud Dauber for asking and thanks alleycat and everyone for the answer.

It's like school or somethin' out here.

MidnightMuse · Jan 10, 2007

And embarassing when you realize you've known that word since Sunday school !

johnzakour · Jan 10, 2007

I was going to say, BORING. ;-)

I'm glad other, smarter people knew the right answer.

Del · Jan 10, 2007

That's the nice thing about AW. There are always other smarter people.

Shadow_Ferret · Jan 10, 2007

MidnightMuse said:
And embarassing when you realize you've known that word since Sunday school !

That explains it. I never went to Sunday School. I always just called them "one of them thar novels written in the form of letters."

But know I know. I can say, Dracula is an epistolary. And when I get strange looks I can smuggly say, "one of them thar novels written in the form of letters."

Serena Casey · Jan 10, 2007

OneLook's reverse dictionary is great in these situations. I typed in novel written in letter form and epistolatory and epistolary were numbers 3 and 23, respectively. It looks like they're both adjectives and epistle is the noun form. I learned something new today too!

Mud Dauber · Jan 10, 2007

Serena Casey said:
OneLook's reverse dictionary is great in these situations. I typed in novel written in letter form and epistolatory and epistolary were numbers 3 and 23, respectively. It looks like they're both adjectives and epistle is the noun form. I learned something new today too!

Excellent. Thank you Serena. I never even knew such a site existed. Not too surprising, though, as I had been writing for over a year before a friend of mine told me about Thesaurus.com. Can't believe I used to drag my clunky one with me, wherever I'd settle in to write... 'back in the day! :tongue

I LOVE this place! :hooray:

Akuma · Jan 10, 2007

Couldn't a compilation of letters be considered a frame story?

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