Inspirational Writing « Writers Anonymous

Inspirational Writing

For the at least the 12th time, I am reading Anne Frank’s Diary. For some reason, the first time I read this work, I fell instantly in love with her writing style.

This young girl, who died at 15, left behind the one of the only first hand accounts of the experience of the Jews during World War Two. From her, we learn of the hardships that families faced while trying to save themselves.
She wrote as though she was addressing a dear and near friend. She calls her journal “Kitty” and treats Kitty as her best friend. Anne also writes in the first person and does it successfully.

I have seen very few writers, many who have been writing for years, accomplish writing in the first person without losing the interest of their audience.

Granted Anne’s diary was not one that was meant to have an audience. At first Anne was writing for herself. Later she switched to writing for a potential audience, but the reader would never know the difference.

Her ability to draw her readers into her world seems to be tied to her ability to make her reader feel like they are her best friend and that she is actually carrying on a conversation with them. I think that more writers need to take note of Anne’s style and write as though they are telling a long, oral story to their friends and worry less about grammar, spelling, etc.

Just get your story out and worry about the fine details later. Don’t spend hours dwelling on names, character descriptions and the like. Worry more about telling your story. You can name your characters later. The actions your characters take and the things they say may be able to help you decide on a name for them after the story has been going for a while.

I am slowly working on writing a personal story about a little known pain condition that I have struggled with for the past 10 years. I am currently writing in the first person and I know that this first attempt will fail to capture the intended audience. Perhaps I will take a page out of Anne’s book, so to speak, and try to write in a more interesting way. I want my readers to feel as though they have found a new friend, a source of comfort as they find a person who can truly relate to them, as Anne does with her audience.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.