Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/46953
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I often exchange long letters with family and close friends living far away every 1-2 months to stay connected and give updates on our lives. One characteristic of such a letter/long email is that there are a large number of disconnected topics that I want to put in the letter. I am interested in knowing how I can structure the letter to incorporate these topics.

For example, in a single letter to a close friend, I might want to talk about:

1. My excursion to the mountains was exciting, and here was the story
2. I am having some health problems
3. I have a new idea about a business
4. I hate the world, and here is why.
5. I discovered a new restaurant, which is great
6. The new movie was boring 

...

Since I am corresponding with a close friend/family member, the tone is personal and intimate.

One may ask why I don't send separate letters. Yes, sometimes, especially when I am asking for something or calling for action, I think it makes perfect sense to have separate letters specifically for that. But if the purpose of the correspondence is to stay connected and update my family and close friends about my life, I feel it might be better to write a long letter/email every 1-2 months.

The challenge of incorporating these topics into a single letter is that these are very different, disconnected topics that don't tie back to any thesis. But I think this might be a familiar challenge because I imagine that before the advent of email, people wrote long letters for the purpose of updating their lives all the time. My question then is if I want to write about all of them in a single email, what would be the best structure and style? Are there any good examples?

Original score: 4