The Art of Writing Made Simple

292 Pages·1981·51.147 MB·English

by  Geoffrey Ashe

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