HOW TO WRITE | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 15, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 48.

HOW TO WRITE.

THE first thing in writing is to have something to say. Now everybody can talk, or nearly everybody; and it is pleasant to sit and chat with a friend about the weather, and the fashions, and what Mrs. Milligan had for dinner; but if all this talk was printed in a book, you wouldn't care to read it. So there is a difference between speaking and writing. If you expect people to read what you write, it must be something more interesting than common talk. I don't say the words must be longer and more high-sounding, I don't say anything yet about the words; I haven't got to that. I only say that the subject must be more interesting than ordinary gossip. Or, if you are going to write about common things, you must be able to tell more about them than most people know. You can write about the weather if you have watched it carefully for ten years, and lived outdoors most of the time where you could notice a great many things that other people never see about the clouds, and the stars, and the winds. But if you haven't had this experience, don't try to write about that subject.

Never try to write at a subject you don't know anything about; and never try to write at what everybody knows all about already. Write something new. Ah! that's the hard part of it, to find something new to write about—something that you know all about, and nobody else knows anything about. You must keep your eyes open, and perhaps you will see some things that no one else ever noticed; or perhaps you will think some new thoughts about things that others have seen; or perhaps you will think the same things that others have thought, only they have never expressed their thoughts. In any of these cases you may have something to say that is worth saying.

But don't imagine that people will read what you write if you go to saying the same old things over again, in the same old way that they have read and read until they are tired of them. I'll tell you one thing not to do. When you read a story or a poem that you think is bright or beautiful, don't say to yourself: "Oh! I'll go and write something just like that." Don't try to write anything just like somebody else. If you have any ideas of your own, write them; and then you must make a practice of reading a good deal in the best books, from which you will see whether they have said the same things you have, just as a man who has some fruit to sell will look around in the market to see if the market isn't already full of the fruit.—Treasure Trove.