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How to Write Like Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll's whimsical tale of wonderland has become one of the most iconic children's stories of all time. Carroll took the time to write down some of the most obscure products of his imagination, resulting in a collection of work admired by both young and old. There may only be one Lewis Carroll, but you can still learn to write your own stories in his fun, fantastical style.

Instructions

    • 1

      Use a pseudonym. "Lewis Carroll" was the pen name of The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. "Lewis" derives from the anglicized version of "Ludovicus" (Latin for Lutwidge) and "Carroll" is the anglicized version of "Carolus" (Latin for Charles.)

    • 2

      Tell stories. Carroll's most famous book, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," was inspired on an afternoon boat ride with his child friends, 10-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters, who asked Carroll to entertain them with a story. Carroll made up the story as he went along and soon after committed it to paper at the request of young Alice.

    • 3

      Write letters. Carroll was a diligent pen pal and even kept a letter register of his correspondence to remind him when it was his turn to reply. He also wrote an essay on the art of letter writing, titled "Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing."

    • 4

      Keep a diary. Carroll exercised his writing skills further with journals he kept of his day-to-day events, which are today preserved in his family's archives.

    • 5

      Create nonsense words. Carroll's famous poems, "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky" both contain nonsense words in the title. Carroll also created words such as chortle (a combination of chuckle and snort) and mimsy (a combination of flimsy and miserable) which are accepted today as standard English language.

    • 6

      Include brainteasers and games of logic in your prose. In addition to author, clergyman and photographer, Carroll was also a logician and mathematician who relished games of logic and proliferated his stories with them. One famous example includes a passage in "Through the Looking Glass," when the White Queen tells Alice that she can eat "jam tomorrow and jam yesterday--but never jam today."

    • 7

      Adhere to conventional rhyme and meter in your poetry. Carroll's poems are not written in free-verse, but rather framed with rhyme schemes and repetitive stanzas that give them a standard form.

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