Most advice about pen pal letters tells you what a good one does. This page shows you: five complete letters from five made-up people at different points in a correspondence, each followed by a short note on why it works.
Borrow the shapes, not the details. The details have to be yours.
How to write a pen pal letter, in one paragraph
A pen pal letter has four parts, all of them short. A reply to what they said: something specific from their last letter (a first letter skips this). One small true thing from your week. One question at the end, one they can only answer from their own life (sixty-six of those here). And a sign-off that sounds like you. A hundred to two hundred words is plenty. If the first line is where you're stuck, here are twelve openers.
1. A first letter, to a stranger
I work the closing shift at a cinema, which means I've seen the ending of about forty films and the beginning of none of them.
The job is mostly sweeping. I slip in at the back about ten minutes before the end with a broom and a bin bag and wait for the credits, so every night I get someone else's film from the wrong end: a man crying on a pier, a dog arriving home thinner than it left, two women laughing in a car that is very obviously not moving.
I've started to like not knowing how they begin. I make up the first hour on the bus home. I've never checked, so as far as I know I'm always right.
What's something you only know the ending of?
The one with the broom
Why it works. It starts in the middle: no hello, no name, no age. It's one odd, specific fact, shown through things you can see. The third paragraph turns it: a small confession a stranger wouldn't expect. The question is strange enough that nobody has an answer ready, and easy enough that everyone has one. And notice what's missing: which cinema, which town.
2. A reply to someone's first letter
This one answers the cinema letter above.
You asked what I only know the ending of, and I've been thinking about it for three days.
It's a song. My dad whistles the last eight bars of something when he cooks — only ever the last eight bars, only ever while he's stirring — and neither of us knows what it is. He thinks he heard it on a ferry in the nineties. I've hummed it at two apps that are supposed to recognise songs, and both gave up. So: all ending, no beginning. I think that makes us colleagues.
In other news, I failed my driving test on Tuesday for rolling back on a hill. The examiner wrote something down very slowly, so I'd see.
Have you ever gone back on a day off and watched one from the start, or would that ruin it?
Still on the hill
Why it works. The first line answers their question, so they know their letter was read, and the answer has details only this family could have: the stirring, the ferry. Then some news of its own, so there are two lives in the correspondence, not one. The question comes out of their letter, which says I was paying attention. That's the whole job of a reply.
3. The letter after you went quiet for weeks
I'm sorry I went quiet. Five weeks. Your last letter has been open on my phone the whole time, and I've answered it in my head about twenty times.
Short version: I moved flats, my sister had a baby, and somewhere between the two I ran out of whatever it is you need to write a letter. Nothing bad. Just full.
You asked if I'd finished the jumper. I have not. I've been knitting it in the new kitchen, where the window looks out at a brick wall about eighty centimetres away, and it's now long enough to be a scarf if you're generous. My niece is three weeks old and has already been sick on it, so at least it's been christened.
How did the thing with your landlord end? No hurry. I'm hardly in a position to mind.
Still knitting (badly)
Why it works. One apology, in the first line, and then it stops. Any more, and they have to write back to reassure you instead of writing back to you. The explanation asks for no sympathy. Then it goes straight back to their letter, which is the real apology: I remembered. It never asks are you still there? It assumes they are.
4. The fifth letter, when you're deciding whether to trade names
By the fifth letter you can usually tell whether this is going somewhere. On Kindredly that moment is built in: after five letters each way, you can both choose to trade names, or never trade them at all.
I've been thinking about whether I want to know your name, and I've decided that I do, and also that I'd be completely fine if you'd rather I didn't.
Here's what I already know without it. You walk to work the long way so you can pass the dog with the ridiculous haircut. You think the second season of everything is better. You started swimming in March and still haven't told anyone at home, and you told me, a stranger, in your second letter. I've thought about that more than I expected to.
A name would just be one more thing I know.
So: if you'd like to trade names, I'd like to. If you'd rather we stayed two strangers who know about the swimming, I'll keep writing exactly as I have been. I mean that.
What made you tell me about the swimming?
Either way, yours
Why it works. It says the thing in the first sentence. It makes no cost nothing, and says so twice, because once can sound like manners. The middle is the best argument for trading names, and also proof they don't need to. And it asks for a name, not a phone number or a handle. Trading names isn't trading everything else.
5. A short one (about 100 words)
If a worksheet or an exam has asked you for an email of 80–100 words to a penfriend, this one is 96, and it has every part the longer letters have.
Hi Marta,
Thanks for your letter. I laughed at the part about your dog refusing to walk in the snow. Very reasonable dog.
This weekend I tried the climbing wall in town for the first time. I got halfway up the easiest route, looked down, and climbed straight back to the floor. The instructor said everyone does that the first time. I don't believe her. I'm going again on Saturday, because I refuse to be beaten by a wall that is mostly purple.
What's something you were bad at and kept doing anyway?
Write soon,
Sam
Why it works. It replies to their letter first (the dog), gives one piece of news with a real detail (the purple wall), and ends on one question. If your task lists points to cover, swap the climbing wall for those and keep the shape. A short letter isn't a list of facts squeezed into a hundred words. It's the same letter, smaller.
How to sign off a pen pal letter
Let it sound like you. A few that work:
- Write soon. The one from school. Still completely fine.
- Until the next one. It assumes there will be one.
- Look after yourself. For when they've told you about a hard week.
- Something from the letter. Still on the hill. Still knitting. The one with the broom. The best kind: nobody else could have written it.
And two to skip: Looking forward to your reply (it reads like a job application) and Hope to hear from you soon!! (the exclamation marks are doing the begging).
What not to put in
Every letter above is full of true things, and not one of them could help a stranger find the writer. That's the line: specific about your life, vague about your location. Leave out, at least until you have a reason not to:
- your full name (a first name, when you're both ready, is a different thing)
- your address, or anything closer than the city
- your school or workplace by name: a cinema is a story; the cinema's name is a map
- your phone number and social handles
- photos, and money in either direction
There's more in writing to strangers safely. On Kindredly, letters to strangers pass a safety check before they're delivered, and anyone can be reported or blocked in a tap.
If you'd like somewhere to send one of these, Kindredly is a free, anonymous penpal app where a letter to nobody in particular lands first with strangers who write the way you do.