8 Tips from CS Lewis on writing (from a Letter).
(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 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 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 re-writing 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.
