Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Lewis on Writing

C.S. Lewis: Advice on Writing


1. 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.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us the thing is “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please, will you do my job for me.”

5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

And towards the end of his life, this perfect analogy:

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.


Read the whole post, but better yet, read the book. He might have known a thing or too about writing, eh?

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11:22 AM

    I'm clicking that "Like" comment button again =)

    ReplyDelete

I enjoy reading your comments and try to reply as much as I can. Thanks for reading here.