It’s better not to use paper torn out of a spiral notebook. Plain white paper, perhaps with a temporary lined sheet placed below it to give you guidelines, creates the impression that you care enough about the receiver to give them something pleasant to look at. But if the choice is between using paper ripped out of a notebook and not writing at all, you’ll have to decide if the written message is more important than the unwritten image of yourself that you’re sending along with it. Sometimes image does matter; sometimes it doesn’t matter at all! Just sending the note can be what matters.

For the same reason, if the letter you’re writing has a lot of cross-outs or even white-outs, copy it on to a clean sheet of paper, without the errors. Mail the new version and destroy the original.

Letters to close friends or known family members should be chatty, not stiff.

Write something basically the same way you would say it in person, except please remember to be as courteous as possible. Write from the heart.

Watch your grammar but don’t strain for effect, or to be grammatically accurate at the expense of being understood.

It’s polite to comment on the events mentioned in someone’s last letter to you before launching into your own disasters and triumphs, but do at least acknowledge the important events in their news before you close your current letter. There’s nothing more disappointing than getting a “reply” that doesn’t show any evidence that your letter was even read.

Questions should be answered unless they’re impertinent. Rude questions never have to be answered, no matter who asked them, and, after you’ve become emancipated, that includes your parents and your best friends!

If you’re going to ask others a lot of questions--of course, they won’t be nosy questions--be sure to share some of your own news before signing off. Your family and friends aren’t there just to provide you with the latest gossip, or to provide information you could dig out yourself at the library.

It helps to describe only briefly people or activities unknown to the recipient. You run the risk of boring them or worse, sounding like a name-dropper, if the events are too far outside the recipient’s realm of experience. By all means, draw a circle that shuts them in, not a circle that shuts them out, but don’t overdo it.

If you can avoid it, don’t write all depressing news of your own, unless that’s truly the way life is for you. And even then, you’ll deal with your depression far better if you also think of a couple of positive things to say. “Count your blessings” isn’t just for Pollyannas. It’s still true that our thoughts make us what we are.

If you’re writing to someone who is grieving deeply over the loss of a relative or friend or companion animal, be careful. It’s correct to say that God will take care of everything or that the deceased individual is now with God or Jesus, and that we can all be together again in the hereafter, according to your beliefs. But, although it is tempting, do not say “God knows best” or “God needed them more.”

Of course God knows best! He alone knows the why’s of our suffering and the rewards awaiting us. But the bereaved family may not be ready to hear such statements when wounds are so raw. They need someone to cry with them while they deal with the shock and while they are healing. They need someone to acknowledge their pain and suffering, and empathize with them, whenever they can. Just be careful that you don’t encourage them to wallow in their misery as the weeks pass. Healing isn’t straightforward, and they will have many relapses into grief and anger, but they will gradually move forward.

Even so, the ache in their hearts will always be there to one degree or another. Healing may take many years.

If you make promises to help, be specific and keep your word! Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, but a vague promise of “Call me if you need me,” or “If there’s anything I can do, let me know” still tends to leave the recipient uneasy. How much can you help? How? Would asking for a ride to the doctor’s office in another town be asking too much?

You could let the person know that you have Wednesday mornings off, for example, and could go grocery shopping or to the library with or for him or her, until they feel they can handle crowds alone. Ask them to let you know by Monday or Tuesday evening whenever that would be helpful. You could also offer to bring a lawnmower or get gas for theirs, so you can mow the lawn a couple of times. Sometimes bereaved people find comfort in yard work. Other times they simply can’t face questions from well-meaning neighbors.

When you have to write an angry letter, write it out on scratch paper first and let it sit overnight or at least for a few hours. Go back to it later and tone it down before writing the final copy that you’re actually going to mail. Words, once written and sent, can never be called back. This is even more important with electronic mail and far more dangerous. You can hit the Send button by accident and the damage is done. The business world knows that only too well, but misdirected or unedited personal correspondence can also have devastating results.