Diary Writing

Diary writing is considered to be a very personal form of writing. Though the people all over the world prefer to use Blogs and other Digital formats to write Diary, however, the conventional style of writing in a Paper Diary is still a popular form of expression of one’s thoughts and feelings. Both the young and the old, love to write about their daily activities.

Diary Writing is a good activity both, for those who have literary skills and even for those who want to just vent out their emotions while they are feeling alone or depressed. It is also a good activity to look back at the life and analyze yourself on the basis of your past. The quality of Diary writing depends on the creativity, imagination, and expression of the individual. Diary writing skills can be enhanced by imagining a situation. Though there are no set rules or regulations for writing a diary there are some features of Diary Writing needed to be followed to make Diary Writing more organized, creative, comprehensive and interesting. Likewise, Diary Writing from the academic point of view also require some essential elements to get good grades. These very features become must in case we are looking to publishing our Diary in the future as they make the work interesting and acceptable to the larger audience.

Features of Diary Writing

A good and effective diary entry should include some of the following points in its format:

Day, Date and Time of the entry.
A suitable descriptive heading of the entry you are putting on.
The detailed comprehensive body of the diary entry (i.e. contents).
A Diary should be written in the First Person and not in the second or third, i.e. - I went to the port (not he went to the city).
A Diary doesn't need to be formal it can be written in an Informal style.
Signature of the writer to give it much need authenticity.

If given in an examination, make your diary entry experiential i.e. write as if you have really been a part of the situation set in the question and what you are writing in your own experience, your own point of view and your very own feelings.

How to Write a Diary?

Basic rules of Diary Writing

The First rule of Diary Writing in general is - Write only if you really feel like writing a Diary, don't just do it for the sake of doing, following your friends or relatives etc. who may have a habit of writing a diary.

It is highly appropriate to write your diary ‘before your day begins’ and ‘before the day ends’. Writing ‘before the day begins’, enables you to express your emotions about how the day will turn out to be, what might happen during the day, what you dreamt in the night etc. At night you can summarise the events of your day, you can relate it to the emotions you had in the morning and so on.

A Diary is a very personal form of writing thus should be written in a private or secluded place, like your bedroom, study room or any place where there is nobody else is present. It is best to write where nobody can see you writing in your diary. This will reduce the possibility of the other person's attention towards your dairy.

It is not necessary to write every day. Write only when something unexceptional or interesting happens in your routine life. Uneventful days can be written with just Date and Time, with a line or two describing it.

If you are wondering what to write then there is no dearth of what you want to write. The matter which can write can be anything like your achievement, hopes for the future, mistakes, improvements, likes, dislikes etc. Whatever you write, it should be legible and neat, so that when you want to read it later you don’t have to guess the alphabets you have written.

It is not compulsory to write every event of the day rather made only exceptional and entertaining details. Writing in detail about everything will make your writing boring and lengthy and will drain your energy.

Keep your diary secret as far as possible because revelations of its contents may harm you or those persons feeling about whom you have mentioned something in it. For keeping it a secret you can write in a coded form.
For effective Diary Writing, one can address his/her Diary as a second person, like ‘Hi! Diary’ or one can call it anything like a friend, bro or name it like Dolly, Sam etc. according to one’s choice. This method is effective because we tend to be more open about our emotions and word formation is easy because in our day to day life we interact in this way. So it’s natural and effortless technique.
Diary Writing is not just about words. You can also create self-portraits, pen portraits of others; express your experience, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows etc. with these graphics. However don’t overdo it, which will make it more like a scrapbook than a Diary.
You can also use some photos, flower petals or anything associated with the happenings you are writing about to make it more creative and attractive. If you went to a theater to see an interesting movie or a concert, you can paste your entry passes or tickets to make it memorable.
Although it should be yet Diary needs not be a very fine and organized piece of literature. You just need to be observant and as far as possible truthful. Otherwise, the purpose of writing the diary is defeated.
Most important of all the diary should be of high quality paper and written by a quality pen to last the writing a life time.

Follwoing these rules can make your diary entry a good piece but these are not by any means the last word on diary writing. You can create your own rules or pattern according to your own convenience and needs.