George Orwell is one of the most famous writers of the twentieth century. I didn’t know until today that his given name was Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in India in 1903 while his father was in the service. The following year, his mother returned to England with him.
He adopted George Orwell as his pen name and created six rules for writing. As soon as you read them, you’ll see they’re great for creating crisp, clean prose.
BritainUnlimited
George Orwell’s Rules for Writing
- Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure 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 say anything outright barbarous.
If Orwell had been my writing coach, I imagine he would’ve cried in despair! Or at least doubled his coaching rate. But his rules give me something to aspire to.
Friedrich Nietzsche, the dark philosopher, also had rules for writing, but they are less practical.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Rules for Writing
- Of prime necessity is life: a style should live.
- Style should be suited to the specific person with whom you wish to communicate. (The law of mutual relation.)
- First, one must determine precisely “what-and-what do I wish to say and present,” before you may write. Writing must be mimicry.
- Since the writer lacks many of the speaker’s means, he must in general have for his model a very expressive kind of presentation of necessity, the written copy will appear much paler.
- The richness of life reveals itself through a richness of gestures. One must learn to feel everything — the length and retarding of sentences, interpunctuations, the choice of words, the pausing, the sequence of arguments — like gestures.
- Be careful with periods! Only those people who also have long duration of breath while speaking are entitled to periods. With most people, the period is a matter of affectation.
- Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.
- The more abstract a truth which one wishes to teach, the more one must first entice the senses.
- Strategy on the part of the good writer of prose consists of choosing his means for stepping close to poetry but never stepping into it.
- It is not good manners or clever to deprive one’s reader of the most obvious objections. It is very good manners and very clever to leave it to one’s reader alone to pronounce the ultimate quintessence of our wisdom.
I bet Orwell would have hated Nietzsche’s rules for writing! They aren’t that helpful to me either but I admire what an astute critic Nietzsche was. He could tell when people used jargon or academic terminology to discourage people from engaging with and challenging their ideas. He once said, “They muddy the waters to make it seem deep.” Brilliant! We discussed Nietzsche’s life in a post a while back.
Yikes. I only brought up Nietzsche because I was planning to share a quote that showed what a terrifyingly intense writer he was. But after I wrote the majority of this post, I discovered the quote was actually by Franz Kafka! (This would not have happened to me if I had followed Nietzsche’s Rule #3. Oh well. C’est la vie! I’m breaking Orwell’s Rule #5 to keep it fair and square.)
Here is the Kafka quote: “What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the ice-axe for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.”
All these rules seem to stem from the authors’ pet peeves, don’t they? I’m curious. Do you have any pet peeves when reading?
old spirituals 
My pet peeve is when the author of any written (or oral) article or story commits the unconscious or conscious transfer of their own desires, emotions or contemplated actions to another person and is critical of the other person for it. I consider that “hypocrisy.”
“Hypocrisy is the audacity to preach integrity from a den of corruption.”
— Wes Fesler, college coach
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Unless it’s satire, I completely agree!
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This was such an enlightening comparison, Kimberly! I love how you contrasted Orwell’s surgical precision with Nietzsche’s demand for ‘gestures’ and life. It’s funny how Nietzsche warns against periods—I think modern internet writing has taken his advice to heart, though perhaps not in the way he intended!
To answer your question: my biggest reading pet peeve might be ‘thesaurus syndrome.’ It’s exactly what Orwell was fighting against—when a writer uses a complex word like ‘pulchritudinous’ when ‘beautiful’ would have carried much more emotional weight. Sometimes the simplest words are the ones that actually break the ‘frozen sea within us.’
If the rebel in you were to spend the evening sipping wine, and you could only choose a bottle from the 19 Crimes collection, based on the criminal’s history, which bottle would you choose to drink? Based on your About page and your fascination with notorious crimes and complex characters, I’m guessing you might lean more Martha Stewart–meets–true-crime historian than party rebel—but given your deep dive into criminal minds, one could also imagine you appreciating a collaboration like Snoop Dogg’s take on the brand.
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Your comment stirs mixed feelings! I absolutely agree the simple descriptive words are almost always the most powerful. When I hear people throwing around needlessly complex words, it seems like they’re trying to establish themselves as an authority. Usually it just establishes what a tiresome person they are. The mixed feelings are because people seem to use fewer and fewer words. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m all for expanding vocabularies as long as people are trying to communicate ideas, rather than be pretentious.
How have I never heard of 19 Crimes wine? I looked at their website and the Shiraz sounds the tastiest to me.
So glad you wrote!
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I love that distinction! You’re so right—there’s a massive difference between curating a vocabulary for precision and inflating one for ego. It’s the difference between a master chef using a rare spice because it’s the only thing that works, and someone just dumping truffle oil on everything to make it ‘fancy.’
I think we’re losing those ‘middle-ground’ words that provide texture. If we only use a hundred different words to describe our entire emotional spectrum, we start to lose the ability to feel the nuances between them!
Excellent choice on the Shiraz—it’s bold, just like your blog posts. Since you’re new to the brand, you have to download their ‘Living Wine Labels’ app. You point your phone at the actual bottle, and the criminal on the label actually comes to life and tells you their story. It’s a bit of ‘true crime’ magic that I think the historian in you will get a kick out of!
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This comment is not intended to be critical, just an observation. Many of us are guilty of using 50¢ words; speaking and writing in a way to show our expertise and intelligence. For example, using the phrase “curating a vocabulary” versus “selecting words?”
People have various reasons for using complex, sophisticated or uncommon words. I try to expand my vocabulary to exercise my brain and expand my knowledge. Others do it just to have a better command of the language. Regardless of the motivation, a new word should be used in order to retain it. Through dictionary.com a subscriber can receive a daily email: “Word of the Day.” Today’s “Word of the Day” is pedagogy — meaning the methods and mindsets behind effective teaching. That is a new word for me. Hopefully, I will use in the future.
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That’s a good tip!
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I like the truffle oil analogy 😂 That’s a good description for ego inflating language.
The idea of the criminals reanimating and talking gives me a chill! That’s a really interesting idea!
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I’m glad the truffle oil analogy landed! As for that ‘chill’—imagine if that reanimation wasn’t just a generic digital gimmick, but carried the weight and mystery of your prose.
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