George Orwell

We would like to thank Tony Riches for this reference to his post today on his Writing Desk web site.

 http://tonyriches.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/george-orwells-writing-habits.html

Extract

As well as his novels, Orwell’s famous six rules for writing, taken from “Politics and the English Language” have inspired writers ever since:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

 In our own current editing phase which we are finding hard ... some food for thought.  

On Tony's list of writer's tools he lists Auto crit. we have tried a trial test of 500 words and the results have cheered us up no end  ... with praise like - "awesome, good job, great work" as well as advice to remove many overused words. We am going to investigate use of this facility further.

Tony's most recent book is Warwick - The man behind the wars of the roses. We found the book a good introductory read not knowing much about the period, apart from the bloody battle of Towton on 29 March 1461. We understand more people were killed on the first day of the battle than on the Somme.

Allrighters