Five Rules For Effective Writing

I found this interesting post on another blog, Pick the Brain. In case you didn't bother to click on the link, it's called George Orwell's 5 Rules For Effective Writing. It talks about imprecise language, and for those of us who want to be pubbed writers, this is something we need to avoid.

Orwell wrote an essay back in 1946, Politics and the English Language, and the person who writes this blog has nicely summarized what Orwell wrote. One in particular was quite funny (Hemingway being criticized by Faulkner for Hemingway's limited word choice):

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.

Wow, two masters dishing it out! But I agree with Hemingway: Why use a bigger, longer word when a shorter one will do?

I think all five rules (plus the bonus 6th one, about breaking such rules) are something all of us should try to remember.

~Nancy