Five Tip Top Hints to Wordualise a Literary Hit
Here’s a fantastic article that Ian found written by Bournville College. I’m putting this up here mainly because I know I’ll loose the link and regret never being able to find it again.
The article explores George Orwell’s 5 rules to good writing, including an inspiring smackdown quote from Ernest Hemingway. Here are the rules. Slosh about in the original article HERE.
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figures of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.
Here’s Ernst to lead us out with a buzz phrase to look down thread super bitched up on the street:
Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.