Dear Diary

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detante

My current WIP is in diary format. I'm happy with that decision, but I have one nagging concern. Are readers going to be pulled out of the story wondering when my main character had time to write all this down?

My hope is that readers will give me the benefit of the doubt if I provide an engaging story with memorable characters. But I would like to get some feedback on the issue.

Thanks,
Jen
 

macalicious731

I don't think that's something I would wonder about, provided you don't write things like, "Today was so busy I didn't have time to do anything," because then it would imply the diary entires shouldn't have been written.

Frankenstein by Shelley comes to mind as a novel written entirely in the form of letters, and the climax occurs while the author of the letters is in the middle of writing. He stops, then comes back and tells the ending moments after it occurs in his "real time."

Lolita by Nabokov is written in memoir form, not exactly diaries or letters, so it's completed after the story has already happened.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is another, written in scientific journal entries and dated (not always daily) so the reader knows when the events occur, but not necessarily always happening that one day. If you haven't read it, it's absolutely brilliant and can probably give you a really good idea about how to convey time.

And finally, there's one last novel that I immediately thought of. It's YA, and something I read so long ago I couldn't possibly remember the author. "Dear Mr. Henshaw," I think it is, written in (almost) entirely unsent letters.

Hope this helps!
 

Arisa81

I wouldn't worry about that either.
The last diary format book I read was a YA novel and each diary entry was pages and pages long...it did cross my mind just how much detail there was, but as a journal writer myself, when I have things to say I will spend time on it and my entries can be very long.
I imagine that all your characters entries won't be the same length or the same when it comes to telling detail because in real life it does vary, so have fun with it and good luck !
 

dannyne330

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King is told as a memoir written long after the events in the story actually take place.

Decades after, in fact. It never once crossed my mind about how the narrator could remember all the little details, so I wouldn't worry about it in a diary format either.

R.H. and Shawshank Redemption might be a good story to look at and figure out some of the writing tricks King used though.

It's a short novella, featured in the book Different Seasons. It's also the basis for the film The Shawshank Redemption.
Cheers.
 

evanaharris

And finally, there's one last novel that I immediately thought of. It's YA, and something I read so long ago I couldn't possibly remember the author. "Dear Mr. Henshaw," I think it is, written in (almost) entirely unsent letters.
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First book I thought of, too. Great book. Were the letters unsent? I was under the impression that the boy and Henshaw actually had a running correspondence...I dunno...It must have been 10, 13, years since i've read that...
 

Greenwolf103

Haven't read too many "dear diary" books but the ones I have read always gave me the impression the entry was written after events or when the person had some free time. I've read the Anne Frank book as well as Go Ask Alice. Both very well done as diary books. I've also read a "dear diary" short story of a character locked up in her room (plenty of time to write in a diary there). I think as long as the story is interesting, readers won't stop to think, "How the heck did this person find time to keep a diary?"

I once wrote a diary novel about a girl living on the streets. I pretty much kept it in a way as though it was written in first person but all events that happened before my character sat down to write about them remained past tense.

Try studying "dear diary" books to see how other authors did it.
 

preyer

the first book to pop into my mind was 'dracula,' which had a combination of journal entries and newspaper clippings. i think what makes 'the diary of anne frank' so compelling is it's non-fiction and, obviously, the situation she was in.

i think most readers are willing to overlook certain things if the story is good and there's a modicum of plausibility.

i tried using diary entries in a book once, and found myself conflicted. i felt a real diary entry would detail the entire events of the day, not just those that told the story i wanted to have told. then by putting in a lot of side stuff that didn't relate to the story, i was just writing a lot of things that didn't have a lick of bearing to the real story. good luck, i hope you do better with it than i did, lol. (i think i wound up using excerpts. not sure how that reads, though.)
 

macalicious731

evan,

If I remember correctly, the letters began due to a school project and they did have correspondance, but after awhile the boy stopped sending the letters and just wrote.
 

detante

Thanks, everyone. Some times those muses can turn into nags if you let them. These recommendations (and the dawn of a new day) have helped put things back in perspective. I think I am on the right track. Now I just need to finish the vomit draft.

Jen
 

Kate Nepveu

Are readers going to be pulled out of the story wondering when my main character had time to write all this down?
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Depends. If the details are otherwise plausible, I would probably overlook that--by which I mean the book reads like an actual diary, without lumps of exposition that no-one would put in their own diary because they don't need to explain to themselves, or language that the character wouldn't use, or things like that.

A truly excellent novel written as a diary is Steven Brust's _Agyar_, recently reprinted as a trade paperback (I liked the old cover art better). I can't recommend it highly enough as an example of a thoroughly plausible diary-narrative.
 

detante

'vomit draft'... i like that. i'm going to steal it.
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LOL - Glad you like it. I can't take credit, though. I stole it from a friend. It does capture the way I feel about first drafts. Plus, it helps keep the internal editor at bay.

Jen
 

preyer

okay, tell your friend i'm going to steal it. if that makes her happy, tell her i'm more than willing to steal anything else she wants to offer. :) i'm sure there's a term for this, but i'm coming up lacking at the moment.
 

Kida Adelyn

I've read the Anne Frank book as well as Go Ask Alice. Both very well done as diary books.
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The Diary of Anne Frank is a real diary.


One really good diary book(s) I read are YA fantasy. There by Tanith Lee. If the character was doing something that didn't give them enough time to write she would start the diary entry by telling you it was much later. And the style is such that even though you know they're going to get out of it OK your still held in suspense while she tells it to you.
 

MissKathyClarke

I read that last year and the letters were unsent because Mr. Henshaw had told him to write in his journal just like he would when writing a letter.

I don' think that it would be a problem to write in diary form because when most readers are reading they are only thinking about the story that is being told unless your me trying to figure out what made the story well-written and what could make it better.

However, time doesn't have to be an issue because if it's fiction, it's supposed to be non-realistic.
 

preyer

you can't count, either? man, i hate math. is it common for people to weak stronger in writing to not be very good at math and vice versa?
 

Kida Adelyn

you can't count, either? man, i hate math. is it common for people to weak stronger in writing to not be very good at math and vice versa?
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were you refering to my siggy? That's what I say when I mis-count something. :b I was acctually pretty good in math until last year (grade ten) It's common for anyone to be good at anything and suck at another. :)
 
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