How to Write the Perfect Letter

Modern communication methods might be convenient — but that’s all that can be said about them. Rare is the romantic text that causes one to tremble, and one has rarely felt any emotion but perhaps annoyance upon reading an email. Worst of all, social media — though intended to keep friends and family members close — has become a place where legitimate and meaningful interaction rarely takes place.

If you want to keep in touch with friends and family in a sophisticated, meaningful way, you should look to times before digital communications took over. Letter-writing is an ancient art that has served dozens of purposes through the years, and sending and receiving letters continues to be a valuable and enjoyable pastime. However, many would-be correspondents are intimidated by the process of crafting letters and thus consistently put off sending their first missive.

The truth is that you don’t need to stress about any aspect of letter-writing; your perfect letter might look and sound unlike any letter that has ever come before. Letters can be as formal or informal as you choose and follow any format, as long as they effectively communicate whatever information or tone you intend. Still, if you want to make an impact with your very first letter, here are a few ideas to help you get started.

Determine Your Recipients

A letter that is perfect for your best friend from high school might not be perfect for your great aunt. Thus, before you start crafting your letter, you need to decide to whom it is going. It might be wise to start out your epistolary adventure with just one or two correspondents, so you can become accustomed to the back-and-forth of letter-based conversations. As letter-writing becomes second-nature, you can add more recipients, as time allows.

Decide Your Formality Level

Once you choose a recipient, you should decide how formal you want your letter-based relationship to be. Typically, letters sent to organizations, experts and strangers are more formal because formality is more polite. When you are writing these types of recipients, you are usually looking for some kind of service, like a job, a reference or information, and politeness helps you gain this service. Conversely, letters sent to friends and family tend to be more informal, which allows you to share honesty and humor with your loved ones. Neither formal nor informal letters are better; they simply accomplish different things. In either case, your letter should always have a purpose, which should be clearly stated in your final paragraph.

Formal letters have a more rigid structure. They require you to include your contact information at the top right, the date you wrote the letter, the recipient’s address and a formal salutation. The language you use in your formal letter should be grammatical, and you should avoid using slang and contractions.

Informal letters, in the 21st century, have almost no required structure whatsoever. While you can still include your contact information and other elements of a formal letter, these often aren’t entirely necessary. You can use informal greetings like "Hey," and depending on whom you are writing, you might feel comfortable using slang words and atypical sentence structures.

Choose Inspirational Writing Tools

Your first letter will always be the most difficult letter to write because you might not be sure what to say and how to say it. Often, would-be letter-writers put off correspondence because of this, but procrastinating too long could lead to dropping the hobby altogether. Thus, you should invest a bit in this new hobby, acquiring fun tools to inspire you to write more letters.

Fun stationery should be your first acquisition. There is no end to the variations in stationery available to you, from formal and staid pages to paper brightly colored and decorated with puppy illustrations. It might be wise to purchase a few different types of stationery to suit your varying epistolary needs.

Next, you will need writing implements. If your handwriting is legible, you might consider investing in a nice set of pens or markers — but it is wise to remember that too much writing can cramp your hand and wrist. If you plan to send long letters to your recipients, it might be wise to type up and print out your missives, in which case you will need a nice printer, instead.

Keep It up

You should imagine writing as a muscle: the more you do it, the stronger it will become. It’s unlikely that the first letter you send will be perfect, but over time, you will hone your letter-writing skills and become the master of snail mail.