I’m working on The Step and the Walk, which is the second book in The Name and the Key trilogy. What’s particularly special about this novel is that it is written entirely in the form of a journal–Andresh Zatavier’s diary of his time living in Sindalia, attending the University of Evandra, and delving into a whole bunch of dangerous, dark magic, including demonic dealings and alchemical processes.

I *thought* this sort of book was called an epistolary novel, but the definition of such writing is completely all over the place on the web. The consensus (and history of it) means that the format of the book is written as letters. Isn’t a journal consisting of letters to the self, though? Don’t people write, “Dear Diary?” So I would say The Step and the Walk is epistolary even if other sources say it doesn’t quite count.

Actually, other sources refer to my type of book specifically as the “diary novel.” I do not think Andresh would actually use this term to describe his writing book because it sounds a little more whimsical than a journal, which is the term he and Lily use. But I just learned that journals and diaries are totally different things, and truth be told, Andresh is technically writing a diary! Only, he doesn’t always write daily in it. He takes breaks from time to time.

I’ve never written a “diary novel” before. I do write to myself frequently…I consider this website blog a sort of diary, even though I’m writing for an audience. Most of the time it feels like I’m writing for myself. And for a while (not anymore) I wrote in an online app called Reflection. I wrote sporadic entries over the course of my time in Japan and when I came back to the States. Once I threw myself into blogging more often, though, Reflection went by the wayside and I stopped journaling. In the history of my life I’ve never been able to journal consistently.

In that way, Andresh is kind of like me. He starts off writing every day, then lets little chunks of time go by before he comes back in to share things that are important to him…or frightening. And then he takes breaks again.

It’s one of the challenges of writing a novel like this. I have to go in some sort of chronological order if it’s to be a diary, and writers don’t always share literally everything that happens in their lives literally every day. Life gets in the way sometimes.

People who write in journals aren’t reliable narrators, either. While a diary is supposed to be a book of secrets where you are opening up, you can still lie to yourself and conveniently omit details to paint yourself in a certain way. As Andresh writes in his journal, he alternates between addressing a nameless audience, his childhood friend Lily, and even the Holy Mother and Humble Father. As much as he thinks he is writing for himself, he is also writing for others, and very much tries to control how he is portrayed.

To try to make Andresh’s journal as realistic as possible, I’ve been consulting a historical calendar starting August 1819, the month and year Andresh starts school before the events of The Name and the Key happen. He arrives in Mariner in February of 1820, which means his journal making up the entirety of The Step and the Walk only consists of six months of writing. And wow, does a lot happen.

Here are some other lessons I’ve learned along the way:

• You can’t go too much into description because realistically, when you are writing for yourself, you already know what something looks like, so you should only describe things if they are important enough to be remembered later (like when you are old in age and reread a journal you wrote when you were young)
  
• Journals/diaries are written for the writer first, so they can’t be full of tons of explanation or exposition, either, because why would a writer explain information they already have?
  
• Somehow you’ve got to be able to create a complete story while omitting lots of things
  
• Somehow there has to be a common thread through the journal entries to tie even the most fragmented pieces together
  
• Writing the “diary novel” has proven to be incredibly fun

Writing buddies, would you ever give an epistolary or “diary novel” a try?