By Ashley Lister<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a common mantra within the writing community that we don\u2019t write: we rewrite.<\/p>\n
This investment in revision is supported by Hemingway who is meant to have said, \u201cThe first draft of everything is shit.\u201d Of course, Hemingway died in 1961 so he never got a chance to read any of my first drafts, which are far from shit, but I understand a lot of people put credence in Hemingway so I won\u2019t dismiss his opinions here.
\nThe need to rewrite is important. Few first drafts reach the giddy heights of what we wanted to do with our work and revision helps us to achieve our goals by producing a more accessible text. However, rather than look at Hemingway\u2019s reductive (and scatological) observations, I find more value in considering George Orwell\u2019s guidance from his essay \u2018Politics and the English Language\u2019.<\/p>\n
The essay itself is available on the internet and remains relevant and readable, even though it was written more than 70 years ago. It includes many valuable nuggets of wisdom and concludes with six rules that, for writers, are well worth living by. I\u2019ve reiterated them here and I\u2019m going to go through them in a little more detail below.<\/p>\n
1.Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.<\/p>\n
2.Never use a long word where a short one will do.<\/p>\n
3.If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.<\/p>\n
4.Never use the passive where you can use the active.<\/p>\n
5.Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.<\/p>\n
6.Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
1.Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.<\/p>\n
This makes perfect sense as an editing rule. Readers don\u2019t want to be revisiting tired phrases such as \u2018she was as pretty as a picture\u2019 or \u2018he was working like a dog\u2019. These are phrases with which we are so familiar that we don\u2019t bother considering their content and simply come away from them think \u2018she\u2019s pretty\u2019 and \u2018he\u2019s hard working\u2019. Victor Shklovsky, in his essay \u2018Art as Technique\u2019, discussed the notion of defamiliarisation, suggesting that our readers can see things more clearly when they\u2019re given an original description. Consequently, if we use alternative phrases such as \u2018she\u2019s as attractive as a tax refund\u2019 or \u2018he\u2019s concentrating harder than a bomb disposal technician with shaky hands\u2019, then our readers are seeing the world from a fresh perspective.<\/p>\n
2.Never use a long word where a short one will do.<\/p>\n
In an episode of Friends, Joey Tribbiani uses a thesaurus to help him write a recommendation letter for Chandler and Monica. His original phrase, that the couple are \u201cwarm, nice, people with big hearts\u201d, has been translated into \u201cthey are humid prepossessing Homo Sapiens with full sized aortic pumps.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a perfect example of why our personal vocabulary is usually sufficient for the task of writing, and a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of using a thesaurus to simply make our phrasing look cleverer. As the old joke says: if you use long words without being absolutely sure of what they mean, there\u2019s a danger you might look photosynthesis.<\/p>\n
3.If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.<\/p>\n
Words like really and very are useless modifiers. You should be able to find stronger verbs or adjectives for whatever you\u2019re trying to enhance.<\/p>\n
Similarly, words like totally, completely, absolutely and literally are words that don\u2019t add information to a sentence. For example, \u201cThe shelf was completely full of books.\u201d reads the same as, \u201cThe shelf was full of books.\u201d or better yet, \u201cThe shelf was crammed with books.\u201d<\/p>\n
4.Never use the passive where you can use the active.<\/p>\n
Passive sentences aren’t incorrect; it\u2019s just that they often aren’t the best way to phrase your thoughts. Sometimes passive voice is awkward and other times it\u2019s vague. Also, passive voice is usually wordy, so you can tighten your writing if you replace passive sentences with active sentence.<\/p>\n
5.Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.<\/p>\n
This is not Orwell saying that foreign phrases, scientific words or jargon are verboten or non licet. It\u2019s simply his observation that the complexity of these words can sometimes be a barrier to clarity. I\u2019d argue that some foreign phrases, scientific words and jargon need to be used: but this is only in cases where there isn\u2019t an English equivalent that has the specificity of meaning I require. Other than that, I try to place a moratorium on vocabulary that might drag readers from the narrative I\u2019m sharing.<\/p>\n
6.Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.<\/p>\n
As I said at the start of this blog, we don\u2019t write: we rewrite. Personally I find Orwell\u2019s rules are a useful tool to help me when I\u2019m rewriting. I sincerely hope they might be of use to you if you\u2019ve read this far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Ashley Lister It\u2019s a common mantra within the writing community that we don\u2019t write: we rewrite. This investment in revision is supported by Hemingway who is meant to have said, \u201cThe first draft of everything is shit.\u201d Of course, Hemingway died in 1961 so he never got a chance to read any of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2855],"tags":[1288,3015,1616],"coauthors":[2486],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12642"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12645,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12642\/revisions\/12645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12642"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}