I think, perhaps, at the start, the best way to learn how to write is, _not to write_. And, of course, I mean here, not to write thoughtlessly and without relating life to words. Above all, I am opposed to studying models in writing. I would like to say, forget all about the styles that have been set before you as models. Disregard those famous old English essayists. Turn your face away firmly, however reluctantly, from Lamb, Macaulay and Carlyle. I even advise you to bid a sad farewell to Edith Wharton and Henry James. And while Bernard Shaw will amuse and delight you, he will only inspire you to imitate him. And what could be less important to you, and more torturing to the editors than to join the ever-swelling army of Shaw’s imitators? Because the important thing about Shaw is--his fantastic brain, his whimsical soul, his lack of philosophy, his ability to contort all life into witty jeers, and these attributes for good or evil you must be born with. It sounds very drastic, but I think it very important to empty your minds of all literary ideals. And above all to abandon forever the burning desire “to express yourself.” Because it is immensely more important to gather through experience and vision and fine sympathy, universal truths to express, than to imagine that within oneself is hidden a great unwritten truth. Once your mind is delightfully empty and free and at your command, begin to think, to observe, to appreciate; but do not make the mistake of branding the people you meet as interesting models for fiction writing. It is far more important to think of _your characters_ as _real people_. After you have learned to observe life honestly and very simply, all the phases of life with which you come into contact, then write exactly what you think about them, just as you would tell typical episodes to some one interested in your observation--except of course that you must tell your story conscientiously, you must bear in mind the pattern that you are weaving. And you are not writing good fiction, until you have learned to design a pattern of writing with beauty, and put it down with power. As I think I have said before, one of the first points I look for in a story is character that is a product of its own environment. Dialogue that has an accent is not enough to separate one nation from another; it is the kind of person that is expressed through an accent that is significant. The dialogue must be born in the soul; otherwise the impression given is irritatingly superficial and sometimes absurd.