Le Duc McNamara Family

Email is a wonderful way to communicate. But if the season has you feeling a little nostalgic, or if you can’t be with loved ones during the holidays and would like to send a communiqué with more permanence, try your hand at an old-fashioned letter.

“Writing an artful letter is truly a gift both to the recipient and to the writer,” says Leslie Laskin-Reese of www.lettersandpaper.com, a website dedicated to preserving the art of letter writing. “If it’s personal and it’s handwritten, that is all the better. You touch the paper that will be touched by your friend or lover. The connection is that much closer.”

She explains how to establish a conducive environment and compose your thoughts before beginning a letter to friends or a love letter, and she also offers tips for writing letters to express thanks or condolences or for business situations.

Richard Palmer, author of Write in Style: A Guide to Good English ((London: Spon Press, 1993), 142, says that “letters are an especially direct form of writing” and that “a good letter presupposes a kind of conversation with the reader.”

Palmer dedicates a chapter in his book to letters, and says that a good letter exhibits these qualities:

• it is clearly set out and comfortable to read
• the writer’s ‘voice’ is properly audible
• the tone and register are appropriate to
  
  1. the relationship with the recipient
  2. the nature of the subject matter
  3. the letter’s overall circumstances
• it gives a sense of enjoyment or satisfaction
• the points are made with impact and ‘rightness’
• it makes the reader want to write back

AskOxford.com notes that “Letters remain hugely important in our everyday lives. People still feel the need to have something confirmed in writing and a letter can add the all important personal touch.” Visit the site for “top tips for getting your letter right” as well as sample letters and even sample phrases to help you create personal and social correspondence and letters for your working life.

Still at a loss for words? Let the resources in Questia’s excellent collection of famous letters inspire you.