How to Write a Friendly Letter Format Parts Example

What Is a Friendly Letter?

In today's world of e-mail, instant messaging, texts, and video chat, it's easy to forget that at one point, people actually had to put their thoughts, feelings, and experiences on paper to convey them to someone else. That is where knowing how to write a friendly letter comes in handy. A friendly letter is, very simply, a letter you might write to a friend or relative to keep in touch, update them about your life, or a variety of other reasons.

Parts of a Friendly Letter

There are six parts of a friendly letter:

• First, we have the heading. The heading is the first thing you see on the letter. It can be the date, or possibly your address, in case the person you are writing to doesn't know where to send a reply letter
• Next is the greeting. The greeting of a friendly letter always starts with 'Dear' followed by the person's name to whom you are writing the letter. In the below example, the greeting is 'Dear Jason.' The greeting is followed by a comma, then a skipped line.
• Third is the body of the letter. Following your greeting and skipped line, comes the main content of your friendly letter, known as the body. This section can include several paragraphs, with the first line of each paragraph indented five spaces to the right. In the body of the friendly letter, you can write about several things, including important news, recent events, asking for advice, a recent accomplishment, or book or movie recommendations. These are only a few of the many possible topics. The body often ends with questions for the recipient of the letter, as well as a request to write back.
• Then we have the closing. You generally end a friendly letter with a closing word or words, following a skipped line after the end of the last paragraph of your body. There are a wide variety of closing words you can use to close a friendly letter, such as 'Yours Truly,' 'Best Regards,' 'With Love,' or 'Warmly.'
• The fifth part of a friendly letter is the signature. If you are writing in pen or pencil, you would usually sign or print your name on the next line following the closing. A typed signature would be appropriate if you wrote the letter using a word processing program on a computer.
• And finally, there is the postscript. This part is optional, and can come after the closing and the signature, It is generally just an extra thought or question that didn't fit into the body. A postscript is indicated with the letters P.S.