The first thing to learn is how to write pleasantly about the most simple and ordinary things.

But a common fault in children's writing is to wait for an event, "something to write about," and to dispose of it in three or four sentences like telegrams.
The influences which determine these early steps are, first, the natural habit of mind, for thoughtful children see most interesting and strange things in their surroundings; secondly, the tone of their ordinary conversation, but especially a disposition that is unselfish and affectionate.

Warm-hearted children who are gifted with sympathy have an intuition of what will give pleasure, and that is one of the great secrets of letter-writing.

But the letters they write will always depend in a great measure on the letters they receive, and a family gift for letter-writing is generally the outcome of a happy home-life in which all the members are of interest to each other and their doings of importance.
What sympathy gives to letter-writing, imagination gives to the first essays of children in longer compositions.

Imagination puts them in sympathy with all the world, with things as well as persons, as affection keeps them in touch with every detail of the home world.