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C. S. Lewis on Writing

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“Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don't say “Mortality rose.””

More from C. S. Lewis

“If they won't write the kind of books we like to read we shall have to write them ourselves.”
“What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn't matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can.”
“I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if it's thrown into the fire the next minute, I am so much further on.”
“The story itself should force its moral upon you. You find out what the moral is by writing the story.”
“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.””
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