Dear Diary

I speak to a lot of people who confess to destroying teenage diaries because they are embarrassed by the content or don't want a new spouse to read them. I never speak to anyone who has collected their diaries and has a substantial stash of them in the attic. It's a shame but life is busy enough without recording it. 

Using a diary to construct a novel is useful. It can enable a merge with the past and the present and can move action around.



Write a first person diary entry for yesterday and the day before. (I washed the car. I went to a club) No more than 250 words.

Now change it into the third person - (Jack washed the car.Jack went to a club)

Then add the voice of someone who finds and reads the diary and is affected by what they read.

Italicise the diary entries and date them. Try to formulate a story with the diary entries and the reader.

Try searching for book titles - fiction - based around diary entries, for example The Vampire Diaries. Have a look at some of them and see what people have achieved with this device.   

secret diary adrian mole