Many of you who are beginners will probably explain that your object in writing is solely to entertain (and a very good object it is). In that case, see to it that your writing is entertaining. Don't let it be flat and colourless and tepid for pages at a stretch.
But you must remember that every book should be entertaining. This is as much a primary necessity as that every book should be grammatical. It is another way of saying that every book must interest people. Yet how few amateurs stop to consider whether what they write is really entertaining?
Ask yourself, after your MS. is completed, "If I saw this in print, should I be so impressed with it that I should write off at once to my friends and urge them to buy it, and mention it to all my acquaintances as something well worth their getting and reading?" If not—why not?
If you can criticise your own work dispassionately in this way, it will help you to detect some of your own weak points. But, unfortunately, so few of us can look dispassionately upon the children of our own brain!
Form Should Be Considered
Form which plays a very important part in the construction of literature, means shape and order; it means also definite restrictions.
Though we do not realise it at first, these restrictions are particularly desirable. Without them, we might go writing on and on, till no one could follow us in our meanderings, the brain would be worn-out with the attempt. Yet these same restrictions are what the novice most resents, or at any rate is inclined to flout.
Nevertheless, you must abide by certain rules if your work is to be readable and profitable.