C.S. Lewis’s Advice on Writing Well. C.S. Lewis’s last interview was on May 7, 1963—six months before he died. One of Sherwood Wirt’s questions was on writing: “How would you suggest a young Christian writer go about developing a style?” Lewis responded: The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that.The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him.I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it. (“Cross-Examination,” in C.S. Seven years earlier (June 26, 1956), Lewis responded to letter from an American girl named Joan with advice on writing: Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one.
(C.S. Works - Tales - The Philosophy of Composition [Text-02] [page 163, full page:] CHARLES DICKENS, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of “Barnaby Rudge,” says — “By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his ‘Caleb Williams’ backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been done.” I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin — and indeed what he himself acknowledges, is not altogether in accordance with Mr. Dickens’ idea — but the author of “Caleb Williams” was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before any thing be attempted with the pen. There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story.
I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. The Single Most Powerful Writing Tool You’ll Ever See That Fits. And now for the continuing run of yesterday’s milestone post: A bold claim, that. But I challenge you to read this stuff — which, when printed, really does fit onto one page — and then argue that you’ve seen a more empowering checklist of must-haves gathered in such a condensed space.
There’s enough stuff here to fill up a bookshelf. If you don’t know what these questions mean, then by all means go to that bookshelf and settle in. If you do, then get busy, your bestseller awaits. This is a listing of everything you need to know about your story before you can successfully finish it, stated in the form of a question. Crazy, I know, but it happens. For drafters — those allergic to story planning and who fight to the death for their defiance of outlining — this becomes a checklist of things you’re looking to discover (answer) in your series of inevitable drafts.
And if you leave only a few of these untouched then no draft you write will ever be final. Yeah, it’s that powerful. You’re here. Blog Archive » Losing the plot, and finding it again. ‘I have a great story, but I can’t seem to write it down.’ ‘I want to be a writer but I can never finish anything.’ ‘I’m OK at starting a book, but I get bogged down in the middle.’ I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard the above from aspiring writers.
Common problems are: - keeping control of the story - maintaining pace - holding it all together - finishing It often emerges that the writer has a story but not a plot. A story is not the same as a plot: A plot is the plan or structure you use to tell your story effectively. Both planners and pantsers need to plot. The more complex the story, the more carefully you need to plot: A linear story with a single thread may be relatively easy to plot. Each plot thread should make sense in itself and interweave with the others, not only convincingly, but in the most effective way for this kind of book. You can’t build the Opera House without a blueprint: Your plan needs to be written down. Colour-coding is useful. Keep a hold on story time:
Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors. On Writing in the Morning. In the morning, I don’t talk to anyone, nor do I think about certain things. I try to stay within certain confines. I imagine this as a narrow, shadowy corridor with dim bare walls. I’m moving down this corridor, getting to the place where I can write. I brush my teeth, get dressed, make the bed. I avoid conversation, as my husband knows. I go down the hall into the kitchen. I fix a bowl of granola, laced with a bogus syrupy non-milk substitute.
I eat standing up at the kitchen window. I live on the fifteenth floor, and this window faces west. I’ve turned the kettle on for coffee. I drink instant because I don’t care how it tastes, all I want is the kick. I don’t read the paper or listen to the news. So I don’t read the news or listen to it. The reason the morning is so important is that I’ve spent the night somewhere else. This is nowhere I can describe exactly, only that it’s mysterious and limitless, a place where the mind expands. The kettle shrills. This is the moment. 1330746369_Screenshot.jpg (JPEG Image, 373x664 pixels) - Scaled (97%)
25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing. I read this cool article last week — “30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself” — and I thought, hey, heeeey, that’s interesting. Writers might could use their own version of that. So, I started to cobble one together. And, of course, as most of these writing-related posts become, it ended up that for the most part I’m sitting here in the blog yelling at myself first and foremost. That is, then, how you should read this: me, yelling at me.
If you take away something from it, though? Then go forth and kick your writing year in the teeth. Onto the list. 1. Right here is your story. 2. Momentum is everything. 3. You have a voice. 4. Worry is some useless shit. 5. The rise of self-publishing has seen a comparative surge forward in quantity. 6. I said “stop hurrying,” not “stand still and fall asleep.” 7. It’s not going to get any easier, and why should it? 8. 9. The mind is the writer’s best weapon. 10. 11. 12. Writers are often ashamed at who they are and what they do. 13. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 14. The Daily Routines of Famous Writers. By Maria Popova UPDATE: These daily routines have now been adapted into a labor-of-love visualization of writers’ sleep habits vs. literary productivity.
Kurt Vonnegut’s recently published daily routine made we wonder how other beloved writers organized their days. So I pored through various old diaries and interviews — many from the fantastic Paris Review archives — and culled a handful of writing routines from some of my favorite authors. Enjoy. Ray Bradbury, a lifelong proponent of working with joy and an avid champion of public libraries, playfully defies the question of routines in this 2010 interview: My passions drive me to the typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was twelve.
Joan Didion creates for herself a kind of incubation period for ideas, articulated in this 1968 interview: I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. E. I never listen to music when I’m working. Photograph by Tom Palumbo, 1956.