Everyone has their own unique style of writing. Some are blunt and to the point, some are serious, some humorous and some are careful. Which are you?
If you are keeping your diary completely anonymous, maybe even using a false name, then you are more likely to be more blunt and honest in the way you write it. But if all your friends, your whole family and everyone you work with know about it and reads it then you will probably be more careful about what your write and how you write it.
Grammar, spelling and punctuation are also important when writing. I believe that most people will not read something if it is poorly written or if it has a lot of typos, but not everyone feels that way. Some online diarists believe that is shows a little about who they are to leave things just the way they are written. They write everything exactly as they would speak it, often leaving out punctuation and leaving in misspellings. This is a personal preference and is completely up to you as the author of the diary.
There are several different ways to write to your diary. The traditional way of writing a diary is to write directly to the diary, maybe even starting it off with, "Dear Diary". You are not writing to yourself or to anyone in particular, just to the diary as a means of keeping a history of your life.
You can write to yourself, "Today I ... don't forget to ... tomorrow". This is a great way of reminding yourself of things you need to do later or of how you felt when something specific happened for future reference.
On the Net I have found that it is more common to write to your readers. This is not something you would have done with a private, paper diary but it is something you can do here. You can tell them what happened to you today and say things like, "you know how it is". You can even ask for feedback possibly going so far as to have a forum for them to discuss things with you or post their feelings on things you have done.
Now we get down to the moment of truth, your truth that is. Will you tell the truth all the time, tone it down a bit to protect others in your life and prevent trouble with them, tell about only what is absolutely necessary to get your point across or keep the whole diary totally fictional.
Telling the truth is not always the best thing to do. Some people in your life will not appreciate you talking about them to other people online and will become angry at you when you do, especially if you use their real name. Then there's the scenario where you put down something that someone has done and they read about it, they may never speak to you again. What if that person were your boss? You could lose your promotion because of it, maybe even your job?
This kind of takes away from the point of having a diary as a place to vent. So what can you do about it? You could use a fictitious name and create fictitious names for everyone in your life. No one will know who you are that way. It would be confusing in the beginning though, trying to keep all the names straight, but it is an option that is used often online.
If you think you are going to be completely truthful, using your real name and even telling where you are from, and know one will be any the wiser, think again. More and more people are getting online every day and sooner or later they will find you.
