Young Writers Society

You walk down the street, fingers curling around the small parcel and attached letter, desperate to get it to the Post Office on time. Up ahead you see the building where your letter must be posted, you speed up just a little and make it right on time. Your letter is sent, let's see what's inside...

NECESSITIES: To join you must send an example of your letter writing to myself (PenguinAttack) or StellaThomas, just to check your skills.
This is an open storybook, so anyone can join and send a letter.
There are no fixed commitments, if you can only (or only desire to) write one letter, please do so! This must be kept relatively PG, innuendos and the like are allowed but asked to be kept mature and subtle.
If you wish to create a character, please develop a profile and send it along with your letter example – your letter example would be best to show part of your character! I’ll post the first letter as an example.

CONCEPT: This is a letter writing Storybook. Each character communicates only through letters from themselves to another character. This may also include telegrams, though remember telegrams were expensive and thus usually very short! There are occasions for the odd newspaper article, photograph or such but this will be singular and on advisement.

SETTING: The Post Office is the vehicle through which hundreds of thousands of letters are sent to beloved and enemy alike. Operating in the 1900s, the Post Office is going stronger than ever - though there is the small issue of a sneaky postal worker, taking a peep at letters being sent. These letters are expressed by the characters in the storybook.

PLOT: To be developed! We're inviting any letters at the moment (though they must have a purpose to them! Sending a letter to someone who can never answer may not be the best way to be a pen pal). As our Post Office grows, we'll no doubt find that threads of narrative are exposed, and thus our plot will grow.

It would be of benefit to have all letters dated, at minimum with the year, so that any plot that develops can be made chronologically sound.

We look forward to receiving your letters!

Dear Mum,

I feel as though it has been months since we last spoke, though I know it has only been three weeks at the very least.

Aunt Louisa has been very kind to me, taking me under her wing as it were. Her house is so grand, I feel utterly dwarfed by the beautiful balustrades and grandeur of the architecture. My lessons progress faster than I thought possible, you’ll notice no doubt that my handwriting is wobbly and unpleasant at the moment. Master Moncrieff is attempting to illicit beautiful script from me, but I may just be a lost cause. As it is, I struggle along even in this letter, adding those awkward curls and spidery flicks that are so desirable in the honourable set. I hope you can even read it! If you cannot, just send along a letter and I’ll print a copy in my usual scrawl, Master Moncrieff will never know.

Sydney is so big compared to home, the roads are dusty but well used and there is always the chatter of fine gentlemen and ladies between the stores. Aunt Louisa says I must get used to the restrictions of my fine clothes and learn to smile, even when I am suffocating from the tight corset (did you have to wear one of these when you were young? When may I stop?). She is sending her own letter by the same post, and I have been commanded to finish up quickly so we may walk to the post office together. Tobin’s general store has nothing on the post office here, mum! There is a huge clock hanging above the doors, Aunt Louisa says this is to ensure all patrons are clear about the times the office is open or closed. She scolded me for laughing at first – even when I explained about Tobin’s general store and how one knew it was open via the crooked open door, and thus one also knew he was closed by the shutters on the windows. There is so much to get used to.

Please do not think I am ungrateful! I know how much this is costing Aunt Louisa, housing me and arranging for my belated coming out. She has mentioned several times that at twenty I am truly edging impropriety by being closeted as I am. I am careful not to mention that my birthday is coming up so quickly that I will be twenty-one before the season even begins. I just feel sometimes that I would, perhaps, have been better off staying at home, where I knew what was what and who was who.

I will not pine, however, I shall send a small gift to those sisters who still remember their scruffy elder sister (scruffy no more). Send all of my love to my siblings and father.

Yours affectionately forever,
Bethany Foss.

18.03.1923

My Dear Claude,

Your studies astound me and I hardly can understand any of the diagrams you have sent with your last latter. I am afraid I am the wrong person to share this with.

Mama and the girls are very well but Ida is still determined to join you in Sydney. I hope for mama's sake that she changes her mind but if she does not, you will look out for her, promise me. I know nothing of the city dangers but I would feel better if I had your word that she will remain free from harm.

We had a good catch today but things are slow on the buying front. Hopefully we will have more luck tomorrow and I will be able to put some money away to visit you. I would very much like to see the city and perhaps if Ida does find a placement there then I will be visiting the both of you before the month is out.

Write me more about this girl you talked to and of your submissions. I am certain you will reach great success soon.

Yours heartily,
Evan Crowe

18.03.1923

Dear Florrie,

How is everything in New York? Are the lights truly as bright as all the stories say? Have you had many wonderful adventures without me? Suffice to say I am extremely jealous about this whole situation. Between one cousin in Australia already, and you in America, why, I feel horridly boring!

Everything in London is as dour and grey as always. I have been to three parties so far this week and - well! The canapés were droopy, the music was an absolute dirge and Mother point-blank refused to let me fox-trot with the only good-looking boy there. Can you imagine?! I'm so tired of this city. I hear in New York there are so many jazz clubs you can't step foot out your door without being battered down by a trombone! Is alcohol hard to come by? I doubt it, from the stories I hear.

My dear cousin Bethany has moved up to Sydney! At last, I hope she can see the benefits of a city... who knows, maybe one day she'll even come to London or New York, although Sydney really is the end of the world. Maybe it even makes London look exciting!

Please write and tell me all your news I'm absolutely ravenous for some gossip!

Much love and affection and a thousand kisses,

Juliette

19.3.1923

My Dearest Eleanor,
I miss you with every passing day. I've arrived to Sydney by ship, and though the journey was rough, you've never strayed from my mind. Ellie, dear, I know you most likely will not respond to my post, but I pray that you do. I've known you and loved you since we were children. I can still remember your golden curls blowing in the wind as we played in your mother's yard.

I remember playing dolls with you, the other young lads making fun of me for engaging in such feminine activities. They would rather play pretend, yelling and running through the yard like imbeciles. I always preferred your quiet company to theirs, our silence that never seemed uncomfortable or forced, but rather relaxed.

Mostly I remember as we got older, the way your fingers would glide over the keys of a piano, how you would be scolded by the teacher in the schoolhouse for your hair or dress being unkempt.

Ellie, please come back to me. I want you to come to Sydney, begin the journey and you could be here in less than three months time. I can send you money for fare by post.

I love you always,
Julian

19.03.1956

Dear Juliette,

How is my most beloved cousin? You know that my move here has been fraught with difficulty - who would have thought there were so many attractive men who could ignore one on a crowded street!

Of course, Auntie Lousia points out that it would be utterly vulgar and not at all thrilling if one such rake were to insinuate himself into our graces without the appropriate introductions. Aunt Lousia manages to be both my most exacting relative as well as my most generous, making it terribly difficult to maintain my frustration with her.

How is London? I know you must be pining for excitement, my dove. You are so excitable I do not know how my aunt handles you one jot! Has that young gentleman of yours made any overtures? Please do be careful, some of these young gentlemen seem to be rather more interested in brief meetings rather than extended ones. I should mention the older gentlemen seem hardly more decorous sometimes. Just last week I was basically accosted by one General something or other whose hands, I could promise you cousin, were those of a tentacled beast.

I should have noted at the onset of this letter that you ought read it privately. Though I suspect you know so well of me to have done so already. One day I shall bring you to Sydney and we will be the toast of the town. I must flee downstairs, Auntie Lousia is bemoaning my décolletage to her closest confidant - as though I chose to vex her with my ill fitting gowns!

Yours with every affection,
Betty

12.04.1923

Dearest Mother and Father,

I've finally found the time to write! If you haven't guessed from the note I left, I've joined Will in Boston. (Will says that he's forcing me to write this. We've agreed to disagree.) I hope you aren't too angry, and that you haven't set Scotland Yard on the case. I did leave a note. (Father, William has your best pocketwatch. He says he has no idea how it could have possibly made it into his bags.) Boston, as you may imagine, is quite lovely. London isn't boring, by any means, but it hasn't the flash of excitement that Boston does. Will is always objecting to everything that I want to do. (Will hopes that you won't scold him for my coming here, for he hadn't anything to do with it.) Of course, I'm not sure how you expected anything else to happen; Will and I have always done everything together.

Of course, I can't possibly attend Harvard, but one of the professors needed a typist, so I've been doing that. Will's also been teaching me everything from his classes, so you needn't worry, Mother darling, I am thoroughly enjoying myself here. Perhaps I'll even sneak into a physics lecture! The pay is good, and I've found a reputable boarding-house to stay at. The owners are widowed sisters, and the girl who lives in the room next to mine works for the phone company. Needless to say, William visits regularly, responsible brother that he is. (He'd also like to interject that I avoid him as much as I can. We've agreed to disagree yet again.) The boarding-house fare isn't much, and the meals are all quite well. Sixteen girls live here, and all of us work somewhere or other.

When you write back, do send news of society- it's the one thing I've really missed. Have Clara and Ruby managed to shock everyone by getting into another scrape yet? Give them my love. (William is muttering about how he's the only one that you and Father could possibly be happy with. We agreed.) Has Juliette McKevitt debuted yet? Have all the old maids and widows been dreadfully scandalised? Give Aunt Marge my love. (Will says that the old bat probably hasn't even noticed that I'm gone. I boxed his ears and gave him a severe scolding.)

Your obedient progeny,
Evelyn and William

Postscript: William will have to write back next, for I've no desire to do this again in a few weeks.

27.03.1923