Writing method

“ The order in which to present the main topics requires thoughtful study. A logical development of a subject by which the reader is led, step by step, from the first sentence to the last in the easiest and most natural way, is the ideal arrangement. An article should march right along from beginning to end, without digressing or marking time. The straight line, in writing as in drawing, is the shortest distance between two points. ”

“ This is a fundamental requisite, but the mastery of penmanship, spelling, and punctuation is, however, only a beginning. One must be able to formulate his thoughts easily, to construct his sentences correctly, and to make his writing effective; he must learn the art of composition. ”

“ I must have my paper and pen or pencil before me to set my thoughts flowing in such form that they can be written continuously. There have been lawyers who could think out their whole argument in connected order without a single note. There are authors,—and I think there are many,—who can compose and finish off a poem or a story without writing a word of it until, when the proper time comes, they copy what they carry in their heads. ”

“ These are the first difficult bands which we encounter; and when we remember that the object of writing is to be clear and distinct, and that the test of a good style is that it seizes on the essential points in which letters differ, and puts aside the flourishes and ornaments which disguise the simple form, we shall see how much a strong influence was needed to prevent writing from becoming obscure and degraded. ”

“ Let us keep in mind value, selection, subordination, proportion, emphasis, as a second group of terms for principles involved in writing. We may also wish to give our subject further elements of appeal through what may be suggested beyond the telling, through the melody and rhythm of the words, or through a quickening of the sense of the beautiful. Suggestion, melody, rhythm, beauty, are to be included, then, in a third group of qualities that may contribute to the effectiveness of what we write. ”

“ A few specific bits of advice as to how to go about practicing the art of fiction may not be useless. Technique is conceptive, constructive, and executive, and the beginner should exercise his latent powers in each department.
The technique of conception is practiced unconsciously by anyone who seeks to find a story for writing, but exercise of the conceptive faculty should not be limited to the times when you desire actually to write. You should form a habit of thinking creatively, of mentally shaping into stories the material offered by observation, thought, and reading. ”

“ As we ascend in the scale of literary composition the author's personality creeps in, and brings with it a corresponding complexity of language, not merely the complexity of structure of sentences, but of choice of words, use of figures of speech, and all the refinements of elaborate writing. ”

“ That they be not onely taught to Write according to our Common Way, but also to Write Swiftly and in Reall Characters, as likewise the dextrous use of the Instruments for Writing many Copies of the same thing at once. ”

“ It supplements the formal treatises on good English, grammar, sentence structure, paragraphing, manuscript arrangement, punctuation, spelling, essay writing, and letter writing, and renders the general teaching of such books effective in detail and in practice. Students are taught not only that certain practices violate good usage, but also are shown exactly how to correct their errors and conform to established practice. ”

“ By the very nature of the conceptive process the writer seizes his story ideas in terms of persons, events, or atmosphere. And when he has a definite story idea he first should develop it so as to give it maximum effect, and then should consider whether he must write a short story or novel or romance to give his developed idea adequate expression. The writer who starts with some abstract knowledge of fiction technique, and seeks to vivify rules of construction into a definite story, will accomplish very little. ”

“ To fully describe and depict writing as it is the wide world over in our civilised age, would require a volume of itself. Suffice it in this chapter to furnish an amount of description, testimony or evidence and illustration, as shall adequately exhibit the existing condition of things in the writing world. ”

“ Outlining the subject fully involves thinking out the article from beginning to end. The value of each item of the material gathered must be carefully weighed; its relation to the whole subject and to every part must be considered. The arrangement of the parts is of even greater importance, because much of the effectiveness of the presentation will depend upon a logical development of the thought. In the last analysis, good writing means clear thinking, and at no stage in the preparation of an article is clear thinking more necessary than in the planning of it. ”

“ When the student has come to have a clear idea of what is to be sought in composition, he naturally goes on to inquire by what means a writer can gain the ends desired. It has been shown that there are certain principles which govern the mechanical structure of language, and also that there are as well principles which have to do with the quality of what is written. ”

“ This usefulness, helpfulness, is double in its value—to the writer and to the instructor, when there is one.
As to the value of an outline for the writer—without an outline you face in your writing a complicated problem, more complicated, in fact, than is justifiable. At one and the same [Pg 58] time you must make your thinking logical and your expression adequate—distinguished if possible. Either of these tasks is sufficient to demand all your powers; together, they offer a really overwhelming problem. ”

“ Fresh from the labor of composition, I believe, indeed, that almost every man, unless he has had a very long and close experience in the practice of writing, finds himself a little dazzled and bewildered in computing the effect, as it will appear to neutral eyes, of what he has produced. ”

“ In casting about for a story the writer should regard chiefly the intrinsic merits of each idea that comes to him. But when he has pitched upon his theme or plot, and approaches the task of construction and elaboration, he should change his viewpoint and strive to view his conception with the cold eye of a reader. A reader has nothing to go upon except what the writer [79] sets down, and realization of the fact will lead the writer in construction to provide for every matter essential to give the story full appeal. ”

“ If we believe the theory with which we set out, that all writing is done to accomplish an object, that is, a certain effect in the reader's mind, and then remember that different readers take different trails to the same objective, and that some must be even coaxed back from one trail into another, we shall see that it is vital that the reader do not select the wrong way, and, like a futile dog, "bark up the wrong tree." ”

“ To write the simple language requires much study52 and practice—more, indeed, than to write the other kind. It is natural for people, children especially, to use simple words, but the schools and colleges have taught, until within a few years, the writing of rather high-sounding prose. ”

“ It will take a very real degree of courage and perseverance to carry out a course of practice in conceptive and constructive technique long enough to accomplish its end. But if you will lay out for yourself along the lines indicated here such a course of study and practice, and then will perform the necessary work, you will certainly gain more insight into the essential processes of fiction than you can acquire merely by [217] accepting at face value such story-ideas as may come to you and by writing them out one after the other. ”

“ Part I.—How to Write a Composition.—The treatment of this subject is masterly and thorough, and is so fascinating that the study becomes a delight. Rules and examples are furnished for the right choice of words, for constructing sentences, for punctuation, for acquiring an elegant style of composition, for writing essays and letters, what authors should be read, etc. The directions given are all right to the point and are easily put into practice. ”

“ It doesn’t matter what the longer ‘story’ is. What you have to do is to read it through, extract all the parts that matter, and put them down in readable form.
The Object of these Exercises
Now précis writing is unlike free English composition. It is much more exact and scientific; and it must be written according to certain definite rules. It is no use trying to learn all the rules at once; you will learn them one by one, and without trouble, as you work through the following exercises. ”

“ Avoid especially the common faults that denote the semi-illiterate man or woman. If you make errors that would not be made by a twelve-year-old child, your composition will get scant consideration from an intelligent reader. While revising, question everything, spelling, grammar, choice of words, punctuation; question the usefulness of each idea, and the arrangement of the parts of the completed composition. ”

“ This exercise will improve, not only your skill in the art of writing, but also in the art of thinking, for those involved sentences are almost always the result of confused thoughts; the resolve to write clearly will compel you to think clearly, and you will be surprised to discover how often thoughts, which had appeared to you definite in contemplation, are found, when you come to set them upon paper, to be most incomplete and shadowy. ”

“ Get your inspiration on paper before it cools. If you finally find a system—or even a lack of one—that enables you to write fast and at the same time to feel that you are creating something, do not let anyone talk you into trying some other plan. ”

“ The writer can only strive constantly in his work to write with definition and force. It is all a matter of practice, whether or not the capacity must be inborn. But the principle of fiction technique, that the important event should be emphasized in some way, whether by vividness or expansion, is subject to direct statement and to assimulation from the direct statement. Therefore statement of the principle is all that a work on fiction technique need attempt. ”

“ It might seem, at first view, that a symbolical mode of writing must be more simple in its character than the system now in use, inasmuch as by that plan each idea or object would be expressed by one character alone, whereas, by our mode of writing, several characters, sometimes as many as eight or ten, are required to express a word, which word, after all, represents only one single object or idea. ”

“ But there is a more immediate reason for taking up the phases of technique in the order in which they present themselves to a writer of fiction, thereby emphasizing the existence and importance of the constructive phases of technique. Briefly, it is that construction is at once easier and more important to learn than execution. ”

“ The remainder of the technique of the short story, apart from the matter of creating real men and women, is not verbal, but constructive, and is implied in—as it results from—the brevity of the fiction. ”

“ Writing, which takes place in many respects at a higher cognitive level than the production and utterance of the word, or than in pictographic notation, is a multi- relational device. It makes possible relations between different words, between different sentences, between images and language. ”

“ That means is to write with due elaboration, lest the phrasing seem stark and flat in comparison with the softly moulded contours of life itself. There are two elements in literature, the fact and the form; they are equally important and should be equally complete. When considering the fitness of a plot to serve as the skeleton for a short story, remember that in execution the thing must be written with due verbal elaboration, else it will be angular and unattractive, and that the idea of many incidents, people, or places cannot be so written in the space available. ”

“ When the writer of a story is not using narrative or description, he will be transcribing the speech of his characters. And in the matter of transcribing speech the writer of fiction has a chance comparable with that of the dramatist and the practitioner in the graphic arts. The effect of narrative or description upon a reader is secondary and derivative; the effect upon him of written speech or dialogue is very nearly primary. ”

“ One reader abandoned writing these words, for two reasons: the first, that a compositor, when correcting, inserted them in the text, making an astonishing sentence; the second, that the marked passage,—a piece of close, logical reasoning,—after being carefully scanned by the author, was brought to the reader, with a very earnest request that he would {p43} point out what justice there was in that bluff remark. It is enough to draw what beginners in writing call “straight marks” across the matter, and also in the margin. ”

“ We may take it, therefore, that the letter was composed by an educated man who wished to pose as an uneducated one, and his effort to conceal his own writing suggests that that writing might be known, or come to be known, by you. Again, you will observe that the words are not gummed on in an accurate line, but that some are much higher than others. ‘Life,’ for example, is quite out of its proper place. ”

“ The argument of the last paragraph is clinched by the fact that of a thousand stories, all of which are well constructed and put together, only a few or perhaps [17] none will be written with any approach to real literary power, in the verbal sense. Of all the writers of to-day who can put together a story in workmanlike fashion how many have the power of the telling word? how many have even a style? ”