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The Art of Writing Made Simple PDF

292 Pages·1981·51.147 MB·English
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The Art of Writing Made Simple GEOFFREY ASHE Digitized by tbe Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/artofwritingmadeOOash_meg THE ART OF WRITING Made Simple The Made Simple series has been created especially for self-education but can equally well be used as an aid to group study. However complex the subject, the reader is taken step by step, clearly and methodically, through the course. Each volume has been prepared by experts, taking account of modern educational requirements, to ensure the most effective way of acquiring knowledge. In the same series Acx:ounting Geology Acting and Stagecraft German Additional Mathematics Housing, Tenancy and Plarming Administration in Business Law Advertising Human Anatomy Anthropology Human Biology Applied Economics Italian Applied Mathematics Journalism Applied Mechanics Latin Art Appreciation Law Art of Speaking Management Art of Writing Marketing Biology Mathematics Book-keeping Modern Biology British Constitution Modern Electronics Business and Administrative Modern European History Organisation New Mathematics Business Economics OflSce Practice Business Statistics and Accounting Organic Chemistry Calculus Personnel Management Chemistry Philosophy Childcare Photography Commerce Physical Geography Company Law Physics Computer Programming Practical Typewriting Computers and Microprocessors Psychiatry Cookery Psychology Cost and Management Accounting Public Relations Data Processing Rapid Reading Dressmaking Retailing Economic History Russian Economic and Social Geography Salesmanship Economics Secretarial Practice Effective Communication Social Services Electricity Sociology Electronic Computers Spanish Electronics Statistics English Transport and Distribution English Literature Twentieth-Century British History Export Typing Financial Management Woodwork French THE ART OF WRITING Made Simple Geoffrey Ashe Made Simple Books HEINEMANN : London © Geofifrey Ashe, 1972 Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk for the publishers William Heinemann Ltd, 10 Upper Grosvenor Street, London WIX 9PA First Edition, February 1972 Reprinted, June 1976 Reprinted, April 1979 Reprinted (with revisions), September 1981 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade, or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar cdndition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser SBN 434 984965 OTHER BOOKS BY GEOFFREY ASHE The Tale of the Tub King Arthur’s Avalon From Caesar to Arthur Land to the West The Land and the Book Gandhi: a Study in Revolution The Quest for Arthur’s Britain All About King Arthur Camelot and the Vision of Albion The Finger and the Moon Do What You Will The Virgin The Ancient Wisdom Miracles A Guidebook to Arthurian Britain Acknowledgments For permission to quote, the Publishers and author gratefully thank the following: The Publishers of Nature for extracts from two issues of that journal; Times Newspapers Ltd. for extracts from two articles in The Times; The Reader’s Digest Association for an excerpt from British Reader's Digest; Professor N. Cohn for an extract from The Pursuit of the Millenium published by Martin Seeker & Warburg Ltd.; The Daily Express for two quotations of Arthur Christiansen and for an extract from an article in that paper; The Publishers ot IT for an extract from an article in that magazine; David Higham Associates Ltd. for an excerpt from Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror published by Victor Gollancz Ltd.; The Economist for an excerpt by Sir Ernest Gowers; The London Daily Mail for an extract from that paper; Gildrose Productions and Jonathan Cape Ltd. for an extract from Dr. No; George Allen & Unwin Ltd. for an extract from History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell; Michael Joseph Ltd. for an extract from Friends at Court by Henry Cecil; Cambridge University Press for an extract from On the Art of Writing by Sir Arthur Quiller- Couch; Robert Graves and Alan Hodge and Jonathan Cape Ltd. for an extract from The Reader over your Shoulder; Miss Sonia Brownell and Martin Seeker & Warburg Ltd. for an extract from Politics and the English Language in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays by George Orwell; Mr. Oliver Jensen and The New Republic for an extract from that magazine; The Estate of Aleister Crowley and Jonathan Cape Ltd. for an extract from The Confessions of Aleister Crowley edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant; Mrs. Laura Huxley for an extract from Point Counter Point published by Chatto and Windus Ltd.; The Estate of Sinclair Lewis and Jonathan Cape Ltd. for an extract from Main Street; A. D. Peters & Co. for an extract from Helena by Evelyn Waugh published by Chapman & Hall Ltd.; Murray Pollinger for three extracts from Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl published by Michael Joseph Ltd. and Penguin Books; The Executors of the Ernest Hemingway Estate and Jonathan Cape Ltd. for an extract from Fifty Grand in The First Forty-Nine Stories; A. D. Peters & Co. for Tarantella in Sonnets and Verse; The Trustees for the copyrights of the late Dylan Thomas and J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. for lines from Fern Hill in Collected Poems by Dylan Thomas; Diane Conlan, Rosemarie Dale and Intiaz Malek for three poems from Stepney Words published by Reality Press; The Daily Mirror for an extract from an article in that paper; Rapp and Whiting Ltd. for Brigid Brophy’s Anti-list in Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without by Brigid Brophy, Michael Levey and Charles Osborne. The Pubhshers apologise for any unintentional omissions. Preface The Art of Writing’ is a topic which can be treated in many ways. Indeed, it already has been. There are classic discussions by famous critics and scholars, with a frankly literary approach. There are hand- books on technique: ‘writing for magazines’, ‘writing for radio’, and so on. There are established manuals of correct English usage. As a writer myself, I have gained from the reading of books of all these types. Yet I have also had to learn lessons which no book taught me, and they were apt to be the most important. For instance, in a career that has involved writing for several widely different media, I have often run into problems adapting my ideas on writing-in-general to the needs of a particular market, such as a Sunday paper. Again, much of the advice offered in existing works, however sound when they first came out, rests on assumptions about society and its media of communication which have become obsolete. The modern writer has to think in new ways, sometimes altering or re-interpreting the rules that guided his predecessors. This book, therefore, combines several modes of treatment. It con- siders the writer as a human being in the contemporary context, and what he does, and what he should do. It describes various literary forms fiction, drama, poetry—and their special features, always with practical applications. It surveys the media and markets as they exist today, and explains how a writer should proceed so as to have the best hope of success in his chosen field. And it puts forward some unifying ideas to hold all these themes together. The Art of Writing Made Simple is designed to be useful to as broad a spectrum of writers (and intending writers) as possible. School- leavers should find that it helps them to develop their gifts and avoid wasting time in blind alleys. The more experienced freelance, dissatis- fied with his progress, should be able to pick up the hints needed to get him moving again. Students of English, both ‘Literature’ and ‘Com- position’, can use the book to approach their subjects from original angles. The hopeful contributor to magazines, the hopeful script- writer for television, the staff man in industry who has to compose a report—these and others can all find something here to assist them. The more ambitious writer with a promising notion for a book can learn how to present it to a publisher, and carry the project through to completion. I have included many quotations and examples to illustrate the points viii Preface made in the text. However, it is impossible to give adequate extracts from novels and plays. Some of the exercises at the ends of the chapters supply recommended reading to fill such needs. A further word on these exercises. In the whole book, there are seventy altogether. Many are substantial. To work through them all would be a large undertaking. Many readers will doubtless prefer to make a selection. Hence, the choice is wide. Obviously 1 have taken hints and advice from more people than I can recollect or thank individually. But special thanks are due to Jane With of the National Book League, for her aid in unearthing statistics; to David Wainwright, for his excellent practical advice on journalism, and constructive comments; to Correlli Barnett and Michael Bakewell, for their immense help with the chapter on television; to Anthony Jones, for his expert information on the writer’s market in broadcasting. None of them, of course, should be held responsible for anything that is said in the text. I must especially thank Irene Slade, who launched the idea of this book, and supplied constructive help and valuable criticism in every part of it, on a generous scale. She also made available to me, for the chapters where they were applicable, all the lecture notes and other material from her own courses on the art of writing, given at the City Literary Institute, London. GEOFFREY ASHE

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