Can you remember when you discovered the word “chronicles”? For me it was when I was about ten (I think) and a weekly visitor to the Dunedin Public Library in New Zealand. There I came across Clive Staples Lewis’s classic series, The Chronicles of Narnia. An adventurous tomboy, I identified with Lucy and devoured all seven books in short order, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

At the time, I didn’t bother looking up “chronicles” because I could guess its meaning from the books themselves: they were a written record of events that took place in Narnia. C.S. Lewis finished writing the series—incidentally not in the order in which they were published—in the mid-1950s. Since then the chronicles have always been in publication and to date have sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages, including Braille. But I digress…

I wonder why C.S. Lewis chose to label his Narnia books “chronicles” given that one of his famous tips for young writers begins:  “Always prefer the plain direct word….” Left up to me, I’d probably have gone with “stories” instead but perhaps I’m being contrary. He’s not the only one to use the word in a title. My point… and I do have one (thanks, Ellen de Generes) is that C.S. Lewis has given writers of ALL ages some great advice on the craft of writing. Here are some of his most popular tips (full disclosure: lifted from a blog post) compiled by Justin Taylor.

1. “Turn off the radio.”
2. “Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines.”
3. “Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You shd. hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again.”
4. “Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about . . .)”
5. “Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn’t, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he needs to know—the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn’t the same in his.”
6. “When you give up a bit of work don’t (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.”
7. “Don’t use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training.”
8. “Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of every word you use.”
9. “The way for a person to develop a style is to know exactly what he wants to say, and to be sure he is saying exactly that. The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it.”
10. “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.”
11. “Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.”
12. “Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean ‘More people died’ don’t say ‘Mortality rose.’”
13. “Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us the thing is ‘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.’”
14. “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.”

Sources
1-8: C. S. Lewis letter to a girl named Thomasine (December 14, 1959), a seventh-grader whose teacher had assigned her students to write to a famous author for writing advice.
9: From C. S. Lewis’s final interview (May 7, 1963), six months before he died. He was responding to a question by Sherwood Wirt (1911-2001), who asked, “How would you suggest a young Christian writer go about developing a style?”
10-14: C. S. Lewis letter to Joan Lancaster (June 26, 1956), a young American girl who had written to him for advice on writing.

So there you have it: excellent advice that even I (a bit older than ten now) still follow today. As a chronic lover of writing chronicles, why wouldn’t I?▼

Further reading
On writing a biography of C. S. Lewis. A lecture at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival by Alister McGrath
30 Pieces of Writing Advice from C.S. Lewis compiled by Barnabas Piper
On Writing (and Writers) C. S. Lewis e-book (pdf) free to read for subscribers to Perlego

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The Complete Chronicles Of Narnia 50th Anniversary Edition This edition presents the seven books—The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle—unabridged and arranged in C.S. Lewis’s preferred order, featuring full-color artwork by the original illustrator, Pauline Baynes.