Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write

I started teaching English to ninth-graders when I was 22 years old (I loved it), and I ended up teaching English to undergraduate and graduate students when I was 52 (I loved it). But at that point I was forced to give up classroom teaching forever because I was housebound.

I thought it would be a shame for no more students to profit from my hardwon insights into the English language and good writing, and so I decided to set forth all I could in a book that would be practical and fun to read. I found the perfect illustrator, Patrick Wynne, and the perfect editor, Leonard Goss -- and the book was soon a reality.

Introduction

C. S. Lewis wrote to me in 1957, "If you understand me so well, you will understand other authors too."

I hope he was right.

The purpose of this book is to enable authors--people who want to write or have to write--to do it better and to enjoy it more. I designed the book for creative writing classes and for creative writers far from the classroom. But I frankly hope the book will be used also as a supplementary textbook for college composition classes and for homiletics classes in seminaries. I am always thinking of the people who want to express themselves better for personal or professional reasons.

Today's wonderful new technology enables people to cover more pages faster with multiple copies of turgid writing that no one will ever really read. What the writer experienced as mindless drudgery is worse than mindless drudgery for readers. Both writers and readers need all the help they can get.

Writing carelessly is easy enough for most people, but writing one's very best is hard, hard work; so we might as well be clear about what we are doing and why. All the things we write are in essence various kinds of letters to ourselves or to other people. Further, they are letters that we HAVE TO WRITE , or that we SHOULD WRITE , or that we WANT TO WRITE .

Everyone understands the NEED to write reports, applications, and business letters. And everyone understands the DUTY to write greetings, personal records, and family letters. But not everyone understands the DESIRE to write. Some of us desire to write in order to be creative, to develop an inborn talent, to find out what we think and feel, to share our ideas and feelings, to intensify life by writing about it, or to experiment on paper because we have a love affair with words.

Needless to say, in a given case we may change our minds about whether we have to write something, whether we should write something, or whether we want to write something. But those are the three valid reasons behind the struggle to put words on paper well. In every chapter of this book the emphasis is upon making conscious, informed choices.

I wrote the book with serious purpose but with the intentionally warm and lively style reflected in the title. Throughout, I was modeling some of the techniques that I am teaching. Because the book is far-ranging, it touches only lightly on most topics and often refers students to good sources for further reading. Many of the footnotes contain valuable material that would have cluttered the text; I hope that readers refer to them. At the end of every chapter I suggest activities meant to illustrate and apply part of what was in the chapter.

Topics in this book include discoveries about creativity, the cost of clarity and brevity, common pitfalls, evocative prose, peculiar properties of the English language, word wealth, rewards of writing, facts about publication, the nature of poetry, how to hit the heart, pathways to print, writers' temperament types, writing tools, and writers as readers. The next-to-last chapter contains an outpouring of reflections and advice from an array of contemporary writers who were kind enough to contribute; and the final chapter brings together for the first time a collection of writing advice from one of our century's foremost writers and teachers, C. S. Lewis.

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Here are the ten chapter titles with their opening quotations and their contents.

1. The Wonder of Creativity

"The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder." --G. K. Chesterton

An original collection of data and insights about the human mind and how we create.

2. To Communicate or Obfuscate.

"To write simply is as difficult as to be good." --W. Somerset Maugham

Why writing should be impossible. The basic essentials of good writing, and the costs and compromises involved.

3. Pitfalls and Pratfalls

"It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous." --Robert Benchley

Ways to avoid looking foolish: sidestepping boobytraps from misspelling to overwriting.

4. Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Specialists

"A fine artist is one who makes familiar things new and new things familiar." --Louis Nizer

How to show not tell, and the power of wet prose. Color, texture, sound smell, taste, and weight in words at work and words at play.

5. English, the Marvelous Mess

"So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world." --Genesis 11: 8-9, NIV

A quick look at the languages of world, and a sugar-coated history of English--the strangest of them all.

6. A Foot in Your Mouth

"If you can't be funny, be interesting." --Harold Ross

Writing poems, puzzles, and preachments that please the ear, tease the brain, and ease the heart.

7. A Foot in the Door

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money." --Jules Renard

Ideas about writing; ideas about getting published, paid, and read; and ideas about getting more ideas.

8. Writers-Types (How to Type Yourself)

"If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers." --Irvin S. Cobb

An introduction to the sixteen temperament types; how we perceive life and make choices.

9. Authors in Action

"With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and a definite hardening of the paragraphs." --James Thurber

Reflections from real writers, each one making a key point about the writing life.

10. C.S. Lewis's Free Advice to Hopeful Writers

"Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." --Samuel Johnson

A collection of pithy advice to writers from Lewis's personal correspondence with friends and strangers.

Appendices

Annotated list of suggestions for further reading

"Pure Poppycock" essay

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Reviews and Commendations

"...will appeal to those who work with words as well as those who read them. Widening the definition of creative writing..."
--Booklist

"A potpourri of useful information for writers. Even the footnotes make fascinating reading."
--Bookstore Journal

"It's a fine survey."
--Lloyd Alexander, winner of the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award

"Frankly, I'm overwhelmed with projects and have a pile of reading several yards high, so I didn't really expect to have time to read it. However, I did dip into it, and soon got hooked, and now I'm about two thirds of the way through, and pick it up again every time I'm stuck on the current project! It really is an enjoyable book, and I'm sure it will be very useful."
--Arthur C. Clarke, three-time winner of the Nebula Award, twice winner of the Hugo Award.

"Careful reading, coupled with the writing exercises suggested at the end of each chapter, should improve anyone's writing.
--The Living Church

"Reading it is like eating a hot fudge sundae. One taste and you're hooked to the end... I have never read a book as helpful and entertaining as this one."
--The California Southern Baptis

"I may laminate the pages on punctuation... This book is no shortcut, but a tonic..."
--Provident Bookfinder

"It's delicious! I've been savoring it."
--Tom Tenney, editor of The Mark Twain Journal

"I just got a copy, and it's absolutely delightful. I've read enough to be ensnared."
--Jerry Daniel, Editor of the New York C.S. Lewis Socitety Bulletin

"I keep your CREATIVE WRITING book close by as a reminder of how I should write."
--Paul McCusker, author of Adventures in Odyssey

"The 'Suggested Activities' at the end of each chapter were a godsend."
--The Austin Writer

"Creative Writing is chock full of good advice to writers, all of which the author herself follows scrupulously.... I hope that someday I will produce a book that passes Lindskoog's own test, as well as hers does: 'A good writer is as graceful guest in a reader's brain.'"
--Glad Tidings