General Principles

Explore the fascinating journey of writing, from its historical origins and types to mastering clarity, authenticity, and engaging narratives, while gaining insights into essential writing techniques such as dialogue, imagery, editing, and more.

General Principles

1 Introduction

  1. The Birth of Writing and Its Importance
  2. Types of Writing and Their Functions
  3. The Substance of Writing
  4. Some Tips to an Aspiring Writer

2 How to achieve lucidity and directness

  1. The dimensions of clarity
  2. Your writing must be engaging
  3. Clarity and transparency
  4. Clarity is not facile comprehensibility
  5. Directness

3 Authenticity and credibility

  1. The child accepts the incredible quite easily
  2. Writing is a form of self-expression, even with children
  3. Authenticity of facts
  4. Credibility stems from authenticity

4 Authorial voice

  1. The Author’s Voice-how to visualise it
  2. Modes of Direct Address
  3. Author’s Voice with Partial Omniscience
  4. The All-Knowing Author-his Voice
  5. The Direct Method or the Autobiographical Mode

5 Genesis of themes- preparation for writing

  1. Origins of the creative impulse
  2. Genuineness of the creative impulse
  3. The creative impulse as distinct from political and social motivation
  4. Preparation for writing
  5. Themes for short stories
  6. Themes for poetry

6 Opening

  1. The importance of opening
  2. Planned narratives and openings
  3. The opening and the short story
  4. The narrative modes
  5. General hints and suggestions

7 Building a climax

  1. The meaning of climax: an illustrative story
  2. The climax is a happening of heightened intensity
  3. The uncomplicated climax is most easily identified in the ‘plot’ story
  4. The climax is not an essential component of reflective and experimental fiction
  5. The postscript to the climax in complex fiction

8 Appropriate Ending

  1. Literary endings
  2. Kinds of endings
  3. Unique or single-effect endings: stories of incident
  4. Endings in detective stories
  5. Endings in mood and atmosphere stories
  6. Endings in formula stories

9 Situations

  1. Choice of a Situation
  2. Direct Experience Very Important
  3. The Daily Newspaper Can Offer Situations for Story Writing
  4. To Begin With, One Might Find Short Stories (or One-Act Plays) Easier to Handle
  5. Felt Experience May Not Appear Equally Intense When Put Down in Writing

10 Dialogues and Monologues

  1. Dialogue can play an important role in dramatising ideas
  2. Dramatised dialogue in fiction
  3. Dramatic dialogue in poetry
  4. Dramatic dialogue in drama
  5. Dramatisation of news reports
  6. Personality of the speaker in a dialogue
  7. Monologues

11 Imagery and Symbols

  1. Imagery
  2. Symbols
  3. Imagery and symbols in poetry-a study of some poems to illustrate their use
  4. Imagery and symbols in fiction
  5. Imagery and symbols in other types of writing

12 Readability

  1. Readability – a writer’s ultimate goal
  2. Make your beginning interesting
  3. Ambiguity and Suspense
  4. Minutiae and Readability
  5. The importance of sustaining the reader’s interest
  6. Language and Readability
  7. How to Conclude?

13 Proof-Reading

  1. The necessity for proof-reading
  2. Methodology
  3. Galley proofs and page proofs
  4. Proof correction symbols
  5. Specimen of a galley proof with reader’s marks

14 Editing

  1. The word and its meaning
  2. Kinds of editing
  3. The Schooling of an editor
  4. An editor at work
  5. The cardinal rule

15 Footnoting and Reference

  1. Notes and Footnotes
  2. Preparing a Note About a Book
  3. Preparing a Note for Periodicals and Composite Books
  4. Preparing a Note for Unpublished Documents
  5. General Recommendations for the Compilation of Notes and Footnotes

16 Indexing

  1. The Index Can Best Be Prepared by the Author Himself
  2. Basic Guidelines
  3. Arrangement of Entries
  4. Editing and Typing of Index
  5. Types of Indexes