Talk:List of fictional diaries

Order

Would anyone object if I were to alphabetize the lists in this article? They may be short, but it would be easier to find if something is already here if it were. Tartan 21:16, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I have alphabetized the individual sections by title as they were all out of order again. Unfortunately, people often add things out of order so I figure they may be messed up again over time...TheBlinkster (talk) 17:50, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

addition

I thought that Any human heart by William Boyd should be included in the list of fictional diaries, no? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.81.165.20 (talk) 15:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

WorldCat Genres

Hello, I'm working with OCLC, and we are algorithmically generating data about different Genres, like notable Authors, Book, Movies, Subjects, Characters and Places. We have determined that this Wikipedia page has a close affintity to our detected Genere of epistolary-fiction. It might be useful to look at [1] for more information. Thanks. Maximilianklein (talk) 23:12, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

"Hoax diaries" are not all in diary form

In editing this page I noted that a number of the "hoax diaries" are actually memoirs or biographies, not diaries. "The Hitler Diaries" and "Go Ask Alice" are definitely diaries in diary form, but "Education of Little Tree", "A Million Little Pieces", "My Own Sweet Time" are memoirs or biographies. They aren't set up as actual diaries where the author was supposedly writing things down as they happened, but rather were purportedly written after the fact by someone who was looking back. I believe they more properly belong in the main article for Fake memoirs but should not be on this page unless they were written in diary form as purported diaries, thus I will be removing some of them that don't fit the form. I will make sure they are all in the Fake memoirs article, but I think most if not all of them are already there.

Part of the problem might have been the section being entitled simply "Hoaxes" when I first arrived here. I changed it to "Hoax DIARIES" to make clear this is a list of DIARIES, not just literary memoir hoaxes in general.TheBlinkster (talk) 17:59, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Merge proposal

@Bmcln1, Tad102, Nick Michael, and TheBlinkster: I've added merge templates proposing that List of diarists § Fictional diaries be merged into List of fictional diaries. Any comments? Biogeographist (talk) 23:42, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea.Bmcln1 (talk) 10:15, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Fine with me. As long as there is an evident link to the List of Fictional Diaries. Nick Michael (talk) 22:28, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me as well. TheBlinkster (talk) 16:07, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. — No objections after several weeks. Biogeographist (talk) 12:41, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Move and refocus page

At the moment this page is a nice introduction with a large list of mostly unreferenced examples. I think this is a notable topic that deserves better coverage so my proposal would be to move this page to Diaries in fiction which would contain information about diaries in fiction with a list of notable (and sourced) examples. If this list grows too big for the page then this page can be recreated. I think this would better serve the topic and be more informative. Vladimir.copic (talk) 05:31, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I think you're right to see a lot of unrealised potential in this article, but I'm not sure that a Diaries in fiction article is the best solution. Right now this list provides starting points for three distinct combinations of diaries + fiction: 1, fictional works which pretend to be diaries; 2, mentions of diaries within fictional works; and 3, works which pretend to be non-fiction diaries but are actually fictional. Only #2 seems best captured as "diaries in fiction," and #2 also strikes me as the least likely to be an independently notable topic. #1 seems closely tied to epistolary novels and #3 used to be part of fake memoirs... so I'm tempted to merge the diary content back into those. The best approach might be to look for sourcing that discusses the genre, rather than individual books, to give an idea of how the subject is organized in secondary literature. That might answer whether fake-diary novels belong with epistolary novels. Are there any academic books about the history of diaries and fiction? ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:04, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

As a library worker I can hardly resist a research query. I found a book on the subject called Diary Fiction: Writing as Action (1984) by H. Porter Abbott. There's a whole subject heading for "Diary Fiction--history and criticism", although my institution only has three other English books with that subject heading. They are Form and function in the diary novel (1989) by Trevor Field, Writing and reality: A study of modern British diary fiction (1993) by Andrew Hassam, and Rooms with a view: Feminist diary fiction, 1952-1999 (2002) by Giancarlo Lombardy. I also found an article on Russian diary fiction: "Me, the Madman - Writing the Self in Russian Diary Fiction" by Maija Kononen. I was able to download the latter--email me for a copy. On a different topic, many parts of memoirs are fictionalized, but that may be outside the scope of "fictional diaries". Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:15, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Oh, that's fantastic! That really sounds like the list #1 items ought to form the basis of a new article Diary fiction (based on the naming convention in those sources). With that term I've also found the chapter "Reading Diary Fiction" in How to Read a Diary (2019) by Desirée Henderson, a Routledge introduction that looks like a useful "survey" view. It also led me to the Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms which looks very useful. I can help with accessing these works also if anyone wants them! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:47, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I realised, just because I'm not excited about the Diaries in fiction article (from the #2 category of this list) doesn't mean it's a bad idea-- in fact, it might make the most sense for Vladimir.copic to start that article while I start a Diary fiction article... though I still want to work on letter collection!! Always too much interesting editing to do :) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Good luck! I'm happy my short expedition could help give you more leads for your search. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:09, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Rachel Helps (BYU). My search yielded similar results:

- - The Diary Novel by Lorna Martens

- Writing and Reality: A Study of Modern British Diary Fiction by Andrew Hassam

- Diary Fiction: Writing as Action by H Porter Abbott

- Form and Function in the Diary Novel by Trevor Field

- Diaries Real and Fictional in Twentieth-Century French Writing by Sam Ferguson

- Rooms with a view : feminist diary fiction, 1952-199 by Giancarlo Lombardi

- How to Read a Diary: Critical Contexts and Interpretive Strategies for 21st-Century Readers by Desirée Henderson

- Diary as Fiction: Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Turgenev's "Diary of a Superfluous Man" by Jessica M. Natale

I think there are plenty of sources to justify this. It seems like a title such as "Diary Fiction" may be appropriate as this is used in many sources. I think that we can probably dispatch with #2 and #3 in this article although some from #2 may be included. I would also add a #4 category though which is non-fictional diaries that are treated as literary works - I'm thinking of Boswell's diary and Kafka's diary as prominent examples. These would not be able to be discussed under "Diary Fiction" which makes me think of a switch to "Diaries in Literature" which could encompass more. Or would this be too big tent? Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I like the idea of a Literary Diaries page that would be separate from Diary Fiction. That Literary Diaries page could link to Poetic diary. Another example of a diary that is read for its literary value that comes to my mind is The Diary of Anaïs Nin. I noticed there is a List of diarists but not a separate list for "literary diarists". It might be easier to make a page for the diaries of writers who already have their own Wikipedia page, since "literary" is subjective. One of my students worked on Mormon missionary diarists, and I'm currently reading commentary on the diaries of William Clayton, which are examples of the kind of thing that wouldn't be included in a page on literary diarists. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:07, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I actually think literary diaries might be best discussed in a section of the regular Diary article, since that article is not too long and they are real diaries. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 03:12, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree! The diary page could use more development. I might be able to add a section on historical diaries to it. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:42, 4 November 2021 (UTC)