How to Write
Advice from one of the most successful writers of the 20th Century
I have two blogs. One is about writing situation comedy. This one. The other is about the Christian worldview. Today’s post has some obvious overlap as I recently came across some writing advice from CS Lewis that has been doing the rounds on social media.
CS Lewis was a wildly successful author, particularly in the Christian world. This Oxford don, who became a Christian via JRR Tolkien, is probably best known for his children’s book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – and six other equally brilliant Chronicles of Narnia. These books alone have sold over 100 million copies.
He also wrote a three novel science fiction series known as The Cosmic Trilogy, including possibly my favourite novel of all time, That Hideous Strength. He also wrote The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Four Loves and numerous books that my Christian readers will be appalled that I have not mentioned.
My point is this: the man could write. When he dispenses writing advice, listen carefully.
Two Benefits of Checking Your Sources
I’m suspicious of internet advice of this kind. For me, it falls under the same category as quotations, many of which are wrong, or erroneously attributed to Winston Churchill, GK Chesterton or Mark Twain. I never use them without checking them and making sure they are correct. Which means I rarely use them.
Quotations are not hard to source or verify. The amount of misinformation circulated through sloppiness is entirely avoidable. Unfortunately, Christian preachers are the worst for grabbing convenient quotations that suit their purposes without checking them. And so the false attribution or the fallacious quotation gets a little stronger each time.
Checking your sources is worth the time. You are making the world a truer place. That’s the first benefit. But the second is this: the search will throw up all kinds of interesting supplementary information. In verifying this letter from 14 December 1959, I discovered that CS Lewis replied to every single letter he received and that a number of them were from children about how to write.
I’m not sure this letter or advice was ever published in a book, but I have found it on a blog from Stanford University. I’m going to assume that this prestigious university check and verify their sources.
Anyway, here’s the advice from 14 December 1959.
It is very hard to give any general advice about writing. Here's my attempt.
1) Turn off the Radio.
2) Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines.
3) Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You shd. hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again.
4) Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about . . . )
5) Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn't, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he wants to know-the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn't the same in his.
6) 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.
7) Don't use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training
8) Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of every word you use.
It’s a good list. I’d like to point out that Number 1 is essentially what I wrote last week about turning off the internet. Numbers 3, 4 and 5 are especially helpful, so I’m going to comment on those:
Read your scripts aloud
Your scripts are written to be read and said. Reading them out loud – or getting some friends to do so – will help you spot all kinds of errors and flaws. And you will discover that almost every bit of dialogue you have written can be improved, normally by being made shorter or deleted entirely.
Write about what really interests you
I’m not a subscriber to the advice: write what you know. You might find what you know to be dull. And if you’re not interested in it, your script will be merely a writing exercise. However, if you’re interested in your world and if you love your deeply flawed characters, there’s a chance the reader, the producer or the audience will be.
Take great pains to be clear
Scripts are often baffling. If they’ve been worked over many times, it’s easy to assume that your reader has read the previous drafts. In terms of comedy, that sometimes means something has been cut back to the point where the set-up to a joke is removed, and therefore the joke itself has no context, or makes no sense. This is where reading it aloud helps. Ask the readers if they understand what’s happening. If they don’t, you’ve got a problem. Make your script clear.
Of course, all of the above is easier said than done. Plotting is really hard. If you want some help with plotting your script for next to no money, and you want to support this blog, why not toss some coins into the bucket and watch this webinar I ran a little while back?
Anyway, that’s some advice from one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, CS Lewis who said “You can make anything by writing.” Or was that Mark Twain? I’ll check…
