Posts tagged c.s. lewis
and all manner of utterly unrelated nonsensical ephemera
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
(via mr-craig)
To Love is to embrace vulnerability without fear.
This is something every romance “writer” needs to see.
Reblogging specifically for Claire, since this addresses her recent post in words far more succinct & eloquent than any of mine.
(Source: leilockheart, via asstrangeasiambeautiful)
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, 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.”
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
C. S. Lewis on writing, joining other sage writing advice from Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Wilder, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, and David Ogilvy.
More on the power of simple words.
(via explore-blog)
(Source: , via asteroidproject)
