Choose a subject for your composition that is adapted to your capacity. You cannot write on a subject that you know nothing about. Having selected your theme, think upon it, and, if possible, read what others have written about it, not for the purpose of stealing their thoughts, but to stimulate your own, and store your mind with information. Then you will be able to express in writing what you know.
The Treatment of the Subject.
The principal reason why many persons make such hard work of the art of composition is that they have so few thoughts, and consequently so little to say, upon the subjects they endeavor to treat. The same rule must be followed in writing a composition as in building a house—you must first get your materials.
I said something about stealing the thoughts of others, but must qualify this by saying that while you are learning to write, you are quite at liberty in your practice to make use of the thoughts of others, writing them from memory after you have read a page or a paragraph from some standard author. It is better that you should remember only a part of the language employed by the writer whose thoughts you are reproducing, using as far as possible words of your own, yet in each instance wherein you remember his language you need not hesitate to use it. Such an exercise is a valuable aid to all who wish to perfect themselves in the delightful art of composition.
Take any writer of good English—J. G. Holland, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Irving, Cooper, or the articles in our best magazines—and read half a page twice or thrice; close the book, and write, in your own words, what you have read; borrowing, nevertheless, from the author so much as you can remember. Compare what you have written with the original, sentence by sentence, and word by word, and observe how far you have fallen short of the skilful author.
A Frequent Change of Authors.
You will thus not only find out your own faults, but you will discover where they lie, and how they may be mended. Repeat the lesson with the same passages twice or thrice, if your memory is not filled with the words of the author, and observe, at each trial, the progress you have made, not merely by comparison with the original, but by comparison with the previous exercises.
Do this day after day, changing your author for the purpose of varying the style, and continue to do so long after you have passed on to the second and more advanced stages of your training. Preserve all your exercises, and occasionally compare the latest with the earliest, and so ascertain what progress you have made.
Give especial attention to the words, which, to my mind, are of greater importance than the sentences. Take your nouns first, and compare them with the nouns used by your author. You will probably find your words to be very much bigger than his, more sounding, more far-fetched, more classical, or more poetical. All young writers and speakers fancy that they cannot sufficiently revel in fine words. Comparison with the great masters of English will rebuke this pomposity of inexperience, and chasten and improve your style.
You will discover, to your surprise, that our best writers eschew big words and do not aim to dazzle their readers with fine words. Where there is a choice, they prefer the pure, plain, simple English noun—the name by which the thing is known to everybody, and which, therefore, is instantly understood by all readers. These great authors call a spade “a spade;” only small scribblers term it “an implement of husbandry.” If there is a choice of names, good writers prefer the one best known, while an inexperienced writer is apt to select the most uncommon.