In 1959 an American schoolgirl wrote to C. S. Lewis asking him for advice on the craft of writing. He sent her a list of eight rules, and I add my own editorial comments to each of them.
1. Turn off the radio.
Today, writers also need to turn off the TV, the iPod or the music streaming over the Internet. I know that some writers claim that background sounds enhances their creativity, but I don’t believe it for a minute, and apparently Lewis didn’t either. Writing is a solitary activity, where words are formed in a special space of the brain, and anything that competes for that space will result in a decrease in writing quality. Good writers are able to be alone with their thoughts and don’t need filler or distractions.
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Ernest Hemingway was a powerful, original writer and anyone who puts words to paper can benefit from learning about his writing style.
He was such an excellent writer that it is easy to get lost in his stories and forget to look at their construction. He is best known for The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bells Toll, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. He won the Nobel Prize for fiction in 1954.
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New writers often ask how many words their book should contain. That answer is not as easy as it used to be. Times are changing and people are busier and attention spans seem to be shorter. The old norms no longer apply.
The epic War and Peace (1869) by Russian author Leo Tolstoy is 565,146 words in the English edition. American author John Steinbeck used 179,148 words to craft the classic Grapes of Wrath (1939). The Di Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown is 138,380 words.
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No matter how advanced you may be as a writer, no matter how many articles or books you may have had published, you can benefit from the feedback of their peers, colleagues, friends, and sometimes even family.
Why? Your point of view on your work is always going to be extremely subjective; that subjectivity is bound to cause you to overlook basic things in your work—facts, form, and function can suffer because your focus might be on some detail of the work. I suggest you seek the opinions of others about your work, and for you to read the work of other writers and offer them your perspective. This exchange is a tried and true method of improving your writing. [Read More]
Many people think we are living in a post-Christian era. That’s not actually the case because there are 1.9 billion Christian believers in the world. Each of them is eager to learn more about the values they hold dear.
Christian writers have a responsibility to share their message with others. It ‘s not only a matter of winning others to Christ, but it’s also a matter of building up and encouraging those who already believe. There are wonderful opportunities for all Christian writers, not only to share their message, but also to have an opportunity to receive an income from their Christian writing projects. As the Bible says, “The worker is worthy of his wages.” (Luke 10:7) [Read More]
