Hilary Mantel, Alain de Botton and Jeanette Winterson on how to write the perfect love letter.
Alain de Botton - writer and philosopher.
1 Don’t let desire turn into neediness. By all means suggest that life would be immeasurably enhanced by the possibility of capturing the attention of the beloved, but don’t suggest that this means one couldn’t survive without them. It’s a very fine line between devotion and plain desperation.
2 Don’t use words that feel like they have been used too often by others. Clichés are a problem at any time, but particularly at the dawn of a relationship, where the whole point is to break away from convention and find a new, authentic way of relating. Even if true, it’s challenging to be compared to a summer’s day.
3 Don’t resort to new technology like Twitter. The permanence to which love aspires rebels against being put down in a digital medium.
4 Remember to be playful, teasing and funny. There is no particularly necessary link between earnestness and passion. One can amuse someone into bed and into one’s life.
5 Bear in mind that emotional vulnerability is the name of the game. This is no time for irony or coolness. A good love letter should be embarrassing if it were discovered by an enemy. This is the chance to say it all.
5 Bear in mind that emotional vulnerability is the name of the game. This is no time for irony or coolness. A good love letter should be embarrassing if it were discovered by an enemy. This is the chance to say it all.
Hilary Mantel - the Booker prize-winning author of Wolf Hall.
1 No photocopies.
2 It is considered bad form to enclose folding money. Money-off coupons are all right.
3 No verse. Your own would be embarrassing. You could quote, but do you trust your taste? Most love poetry is covert metrical bullying with a clear end in view. You might as well send condoms.
4 Trust the postman. Do not get her out of bed for a signature. A courier service looks a bit needy. Any accompanying gifts should be valuable but compact: that is, nothing that will need help to carry to the pawnshop.
5 Don’t draw hearts at the bottom. Henry VIII used to do that, and look how his affairs ended up.
Jeanette Winterson - author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
1 Write by hand. It’s a declaration, not a CV.
2 Write as though everything depends on this letter. For all you know, it might.
3 Write only a page, both sides. That way someone will remember it.
4 Write extravagantly; this is no place for doubts.
5 Write well. This is not an email or a tweet.
