Six simple rules

June 16, 2011 Six simple rules

I’m a firm proponent of simplicity in writing. I believe that one’s job, as a writer, is to convey information, and that writing simply is the best way to do that.

By trying to write “fancy”, you risk unnecessarily cluttering the narrative, and making it harder for your audience to work out what you’re trying to say.

Many, many years ago (in 1946!), George Orwell thought exactly the same thing, and wrote an essay, “Politics and the English Language“. In it, Orwell sets out six rules for clear writing, and it’s these rules that I follow, every day.

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Personally, I love the idea that his last rule is “break all the other rules if you need to”, but I think, all these years later, we could all stand to look at our writing and say, for each sentence and paragraph, “did I say that as simply and concisely as possible, or did I let style override substance?”

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Tags: grammar, orwell, writing

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