Dear Reader
The Secret to Epistolary Writing that Sells
No story is out of reach for an author with a tale to tell. From screenplays to comic books, graphic novels to epics, often the story told is crafted for the style it’s written in. One storytelling format in particular has grown more popular in recent years, especially within indie publishing: epistolary writing, or a story told through letters.
Epistolary writing is not a narrative novel chopped into letter-length chapters or reframed as personal communication between characters. Although epistolary novels are most often stories told exclusively between characters in letter format, journal entries, newspaper articles, police reports, and anything outside the typical narrative format can be considered epistolary writing. Notable epistolary novels include The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Dracula by Bram Stoker and Lady Susan by Jane Austen; in each, the characters’ use of letters is inherent to the story and creates a uniquely immersive experience for the reader.
Stoker’s Dracula is told through a collection of diary entries, letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, and ship logs, all of which add elements of authenticity and realism to the story. The fragmented style makes the story feel like a collection of evidence, and readers are positioned as investigators rather than flies on the wall.
In The Color Purple, Walker’s Celie, an African American woman living in the rural South in the early twentieth century, writes letters to God and later to her sister Nettie. The story follows Celie’s journey as she grows beyond oppression and abuse to self-discovery, independence, and empowerment; Walker uses the epistolary format to deepen the already intimate details of the story, letting the reader peek into Celie’s mind and hear the story strictly through her voice.
Austen’s Lady Susan is a sharp, satirical novel that follows Lady Susan Vernon, a recently widowed and manipulative character. The story is a series of letters exchanged between Lady Susan, her confidante Mrs. Johnson, the De Courcy family and others as she lays out an ambitious plan to secure advantageous marriages for herself and her daughter Frederica. Ultimately her plans collapse, and readers can better see Lady Susan’s psychological insight and multiple perspectives on a story through her communication with other characters.
From the haunted halls of a Transylvanian castle to the rural South in the twentieth century, these three titles demonstrate that every genre has an opportunity to use the epistolary format. Each showcases a deepening connection between the reader and the characters; as epistolary writing focuses on personal communication between a character and someone else, the reader receives unique insights that might otherwise only be reserved for internal monologues or reveals throughout the story. Because letters and journal entries are typically intimate and personal by nature, epistolary stories grant readers a unique opportunity to better understand a character’s perspective and even to feel like they have become part of the story themselves.
How to Write Epistolary Novels
Keeping the basics of what epistolary writing is above, there are commonalities between almost all epistolary stories and several tropes within the format to consider when crafting your own.
- Brevity Is Commonplace: Letters are shorter and to the point, and as such, the writer is limited on space and must keep the details to those most important—and those that the character has observed and written down.
- More than One Character: Most epistolary novels include more than one character; the story then becomes a back-and-forth communication between multiple characters as each fills the other in on what they’re thinking or what they thought, what they’re doing or what they did.
- Let the Character Speak: The unique voice of each character should be clear in each stanza, chapter, or letter in an epistolary story. The writer can use this opportunity to contrast the character’s differences in personality and writing style.
- Non-Letter Elements: Although not required of an epistolary story, the use of non-letter elements can flesh out a story outside of the traditional format for an epistolary novel, filling out the world around the character. Ship logs, recipes, journal entries, and newspaper articles are all common.
Pro Tip: The strongest epistolary stories make it clear why, within the characters’ world, they are collecting the documents or writing the letters that make up the novel. Consider reading a few of the books above to see why those stories had to be told in the epistolary format. Then, ask yourself the same question about your own project.
Bringing It Together
Epistolary novels aren’t a new concept, but they present a unique form of storytelling for the author who might want to add deeper, more immersive layers to their stories and their characters. Like a novella, a trilogy, or an epic, an epistolary novel is another format for authors to expand their comfort zone to explore—and a way to deliver a story to readers in a much more immersive and intimate way.
David Viergutz
