How do I Make a Fictional Journal Interesting Yet Believable? [duplicate]

Question

I am currently working on a novel, temporarily titled "Broken Collections."

It's a collection of different writings this girl suffering with Bipolar disorder has made. Most of this being her journal, but also interspersed are letters to her distant mom and ends with her suicide note. It's a story of her struggles, her ups and downs, what's going on in her life.

My question, how do I make this interesting yet believable? And how do I make it more show and not tell?

This is different from asking how to write action because this is about telling the story in a way of making it peak the writer's interest without having the typical "action" you'd expect from novels.

Answer 1

Your 2nd person point of view character would have to have a tendency towards noticing small details that impart the thing she'd normally just tell someone. That's ultimately how you show instead of tell regardless of anything else.

Interesting & believably come from conflict and good characterization and don't have much to do with the other point. Each is a can of worms topic unto itself and too broad to answer directly. But the short answer is that you need to study conflict, and you need to study characterization.

Both of these podcasts investigate your can of worms, they have years worth conversations on the topic: http://www.writingexcuses.com/ https://storywonk.com/category/podcasts/the-journeyman-writer/