Goodreads asked Cornelius N. Grove:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Cornelius N. Grove From my perspective, successful writing - at least of expository prose about non-fiction topics - boils down to two essentials. The first is deep curiosity about a topic, curiosity that keeps spurring you on to discover more and more fully what it's all about. The second essential is fluid command of the mechanics of clear writing. It really helps to have learned these mechanics in middle school and high school. Back in my day, these mechanics were taught; not only was I drilled in grammar, punctuation, and paragraph structure, I even learned to diagram sentences! Nowadays the mechanics of good writing usually are glossed over in the effort to get children to express themselves by writing something creative. So much potential goes down the drain when kids try to write creatively before they know how to write!

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