Why handwriting matters even when texts are easier
Typing is fast and fast is the enemy of a love letter. When you slow down, you choose your words more carefully. You also leave a record of yourself on the page. The handwriting itself is the second message.
Most letters that get kept for decades are handwritten. People keep them in drawers, in books, in the lining of a bedside table. A screen never gets opened twenty years later.
How to start when the words won’t come
Type the draft first if it helps. There is no rule that says you have to write the first attempt by hand. Most good handwritten letters start as a typed mess.
Read the typed draft once. Cut anything that sounds like a card. Keep the lines that sound like you talking. Now copy it out by hand, slowly. The slowness will make you change a few more lines as you go.
Use cheap paper. Nice stationery freezes people. A page from a notebook is fine. The pen does not matter either. The first letter most people remember was probably written in biro.
Leave the small marks in. A crossing out, a smudge, a date in the corner. These are the parts that prove a person wrote it.
Examples to borrow from
Letters where the handwriting was part of the message.
- Read the Love Letter Template, the same frame in any format.
- Read Pen on Paper, From the Kitchen Table, a letter written in one sitting on a Sunday.
- Read The Letter Found in a Book, kept for twenty years inside a paperback.
- Read My Grandfather’s Letters, on what handwritten letters look like decades later.
- Read The Letter on the Pillow, written in the early hours before leaving for work.
- Read Love Letter Quotes, lines to start a handwritten letter with.
What to do with it once it is written
Fold it once, not three times. A letter folded into a small square looks like a note passed in class. One clean fold says you took it seriously.
If you are giving it in person, put it in a plain envelope with their name on the front. If you are posting it, address it by hand and use a real stamp. The way the envelope looks tells the reader something before they open it.
Keep a photo of the letter on your phone before you hand it over. You will want to remember what it said in five years. The original belongs to them.
What to avoid
- Buying expensive paper you are too scared to use.
- Practising your handwriting first. Your normal handwriting is the point.
- Rewriting it three times until every letter is perfect. Imperfect is what makes it real.
- Pretending you wrote it by hand when you printed it. They will know.
- Adding fancy curls or initials that you would not normally write.
Frequently asked questions
Does a handwritten love letter actually feel different to read?
Yes. The reader sees your hand on the page, which is something only you can make. They notice where you slowed down, where you pressed harder, where the pen skipped. None of that is in a typed message. It is the reason handwritten letters get kept and texts get scrolled past.
What if my handwriting is awful?
It is still better than print. The reader is not grading you. If you are worried, write more slowly, leave more space between lines, and use a pen that suits your hand. Messy handwriting from someone who loves you reads better than perfect handwriting from someone who does not.
What kind of paper and pen should I use?
Whatever is in the house. A page from a notebook, a sheet of plain printer paper folded in half, the back of a card. A biro is fine, a fountain pen is fine. The paper and pen are not the message, you are.
Can I write a long letter by hand or will my hand cramp?
It will cramp if you try to do it in one go. Write a page, put it down, do something else for ten minutes, come back. You can write a four page letter over an evening that way without your wrist hating you.
Keep reading
Further reading
For a writer’s case for why pen on paper still matters, see The Atlantic’s The Lost Art of Love Letters. It walks through what handwriting carries that a screen cannot, and why letters get kept for decades when texts get scrolled past.
If you are on the edge of writing yours and the paper is still blank, that piece is a good ten minute push. The argument it makes lines up with what we hear from readers: the letter that gets kept is almost always the one written by hand.
Read more about how we host and lightly edit submissions in our editorial standards.
Leave a Reply