Sound Writing Advice

Some cool tips from C.S. Lewis about writing, via Abagond:

  • Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines.
  • Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again.
  • When you give up a bit of work don’t (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the rewriting of things begun and abandoned years earlier.
  • Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
  • Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “more people died” don’t say “mortality rose.”
  • Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “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.”

Read the rest at Abagond.