George Orwell's 6 rules for writing (2018; originally published in 1946)
infusion.media
infusion.media
You can break all of these rules for specific stylistic reasons. Eg, deliberately using a familiar metaphor or simile to evoke the attitude of those who say it. Or to convey that a character is unoriginal via dialogue.
Or maybe you use a long or extraneous word because it fits the rhythm better, which matters a lot for highly stylized works. Don Delilo changed his words for the sake of syllable rhythm a lot, his prose is incredible. Netflix just made a movie based on his book, White Noise actually which was a fun watch
The passive voice can be useful to convey things about a speaker or narrator, or even a place, or to evoke a classical feeling because the style you are using is an old one
6 is a fully trustworthy rule however.
This is just off the top of my head. I wrote articles about these things sometimes [1]
For me the hardest part of effective writing is revision. There are the few lucky writers who get things right in the first draft. Then there are the rest of us, who need to spend 10x the time or longer on rewriting and fussing. Unfortunately many people in the latter group think they fall into the first.
In tech essays in particular, you can get far by trying to sound as little like Paul Graham as possible. Let his style be your anti-lodestar.
I’d agree with you that his writing doesn’t have much personality; it’s designed not to have any. But you’re saying that you can get “quite far” by going in the other direction. By what metric? You can go quite far by jumping off a cliff, at least till you hit the ground.
I completely disagree. It's possible to be so used to it that you don't notice it. To me his style has very clear voice, one that speaks in a very calm, self-assured manner, always mixing fact and opinion. Yes, it's not quirky like mango.pdf.zone or dry like a research paper, but it still has a very recognizable personality.
I’m not personally a fan of smooth jazz, but at least Kenny G is well-known. That’s a pretty good metric to aim for when writing, isn’t it?
Smooth jazz and related genres like adult contemporary are easy targets here (maybe we can pick on Phil Collins next). People love to talk about how much they hate these genres. And then there’s all the people who say they listen to “everything but country and rap”, which is at this point a cliché.
It’s all just to show that you’re in the right social group, and less about whether you (personally) took a chance and listened to smooth jazz, then decided what your personal feelings are about it. We’re social creatures and it takes a ton of effort to give music, culture, or people a chance without trying to evaluate our choices through the lens of what is acceptable for our social in-group or the social in-group we aspire to.
Most people who “listen to everything” are just saying that because it’s the kind of sentiment that their social in-group values, and if you dig into the actual listening habits “listens to everything” you won’t find anything surprising or unusual.
Such a good point. There are genres that I tend to dislike (although I can point to specific works in them than I love). But my response is really just to not listen to them rather than advocate against them. These are issues of preference, not right and wrong.
> We’re social creatures and it takes a ton of effort to give music, culture, or people a chance
This is true. With music, I noticed a long time ago that much of the music that I love the most is music that I didn't care for at first listen. It was only after listening (really listening, not just playing in the background) multiple times that I learned they were great.
Could you give us a hint? I honestly have no idea what you’re getting at.
I’d also like to clarify that this is not a discussion about whether Kenny G is underrated, but whether people hate Kenny G simply because it’s fashionable to do so. The whole problem I have here is that it was irrelevant in the first place whether Kenny G is good or not, because “whether Kenny G is actually good” is not a question some people are willing to investigate.
I'm sure some people hate Kenny G because it's fashionable, but a lot of people hate Kenny G because they hate him, and either way: people fucking hate him.
I'm only in this leg of the thread because I think it's super funny that somebody compared Graham to Kenny G and it had the predictable result of a bloom of rhetorical hyphae about how actually Kenny G is probably good.
Late edit
I am obligated, against my own rhetorical interests, to acknowledge that Kenny G is beloved by many in the country of Israel for introducing to them to concept of unlimited free soda refills, which he did through his unsuccessful attempt to open a fried chicken franchise there.
Pardon the allegory, but that’s a shadow on the cave wall.
> …predictable result of a bloom of rhetorical hyphae about how actually Kenny G is probably good…
That isn’t present in the conversation; I think you may have misread one of the comments.
If you’re going to say that it’s good or bad to imitate Paul Graham’s style, then by all means, do so, but it would serve you well to provide some kind of reasoning or rationale for the advice. (To be clear, general “you” here, not you, specifically.) You can equally advise saxophonists to try sounding like Kenny G or avoid sounding like Kenny G, again, without any reasoning or rationale for it, but I think we can do better.
There’s something kind of banal about this taste-making in the first place. It’s much easier to find reasons to say that something is bad. It gives you a much more defensible position, which is why people find it easy to hate Kenny G. Saying you like something would expose you too much to criticism.
For whatever reason, some people decided that it’s cool to hate Kenny G, and nowadays you see people dropping Kenny G’s name into the conversation as an example of something you want to hate, by people who have no particular reason to hate Kenny G. Whether Kenny G is actually good or bad was never relevant, because the only relevant fact is that it’s cool to think that Kenny G is bad.
So one point to make here is: it doesn't matter why people hate Kenny G. They hate Kenny G. That's indisputable. So: unless the reason you're playing music is to make a statement about smooth jazz, it's best to avoid sounding like Kenny G.
If you want to write as effectively as Paul Graham, it helps a lot to have started one of the industry's most important investment firms, based on no previous experience in finance, and then to write a long string of posts about startups, startup financing, and startup engineering. People accept a lot of "it turns out that" from Graham because he's a credible authority on some of the topics he writes about. If that's not you, people are more likely to laugh at your "it turns outs". I'm sure there's an analogy we can draw to Kenny G there somewhere, too.
Most people who dislike Kenny G have opinions which aren't informed by the way that Kenny G plays the saxophone in the first place, that's the whole problem.
"This place rocks!"
Writers should do the same.
(I liked Style: Towards Clarity & Grace a lot; it's like "Effective C Programming" but for writing, and is a Richard Gabriel recommendation. But, uh, you can see what it did for my writing.)
> 5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Feynman often complained of jargon. Part of what made him such an excellent communicator/educator was his conscious avoidance of specialized terminology.
Too many abuse it as a secret handshake or low-effort superiority signaling at the expense of inclusion. As if those who don't know a few exotic words have nothing to contribute. The easiest way to prevent someone from engaging in a discussion (and thus unable to debate or challenge your ideas) is to use an unfamiliar language.
Be wary of overusers of jargon, there's a good chance they don't even know the meaning of the words.
Writing for communication is an underrated skill and probably ranks up there with programming language/framework competence, career-wise. It’s crazy how many people fail to make their points concisely and comprehensively.
Is it? You said yourself you took a course. Is it crazy how many people can't file annual tax returns for a company or build an intricate cabinet or mend an engine?
Building an intricate cabinet is more a matter of physical skill and ability.
Mending an engine is trivially easy and anyone functionally literate enough to read the workshop manual could do it.
"One can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field."
Honestly, I usually don't even care about the sentence level. Figure out overall structure, braindump and get things done, optimize. It's sort of similar to (my) programming now that I think about it. Build MVP, worry about details later. The better you are, the less details you have to worry about because you do things right intuitively.
In talking to other people who write, I have learned that there are very different approaches. I'm a high level first kind of person and will obsess over structure and plot out everything before writing a single word. Others will just write and go with the flow, some are very pendantic and cannot continue until sentences or paragraphs are perfect, I mostly muddle along to fill the structure skeleton with some meat and then finetune after the first pass.
Shouldn't that just be:
> If it is possible to cut a word out, cut it out.
Which is better phrased "Omit!"
After all, are you going to omit essential words? No!
And are you going to omit something other than words, like kumquats, maybe? No!
Omit? Omit!
That rendering sounds like he's saying, "Hey, cut it out!" In other words, stop: don't do it! ;)
If it is possible to cut a word out, cut it.
Or perhaps:
Is it possible to cut out a word? Cut.
> If possible, cut words out
It has a pleasant interface and making all the errors go away usually results in clear writing.
2 uses of passive voice, meeting the goal of 2 or fewer.
0 phrases have simpler alternatives.
3 of 11 sentences are hard to read.
2 of 11 sentences are very hard to read.
Related:
Politics and the English Language (1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34277254 - Jan 2023 (41 comments)
Politics and the English Language (1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067007 - May 2021 (20 comments)
Politics and the English Language (George Orwell, 1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24828499 - Oct 2020 (1 comment)
George Orwell on Writing and the 4 Questions Great Writers Must Ask Themselves - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712057 - Dec 2019 (1 comment)
George Orwell – Politics and the English Language (1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13538496 - Feb 2017 (21 comments)
George Orwell: Politics and the English Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12327324 - Aug 2016 (1 comment)
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12271030 - Aug 2016 (150 comments)
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10452900 - Oct 2015 (2 comments)
George Orwell: Politics and the English Language (1946) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6643231 - Oct 2013 (62 comments)
“Politics and the English Language,” By George Orwell - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6277405 - Aug 2013 (2 comments)
Politics and the English Language [1945] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3752825 - March 2012 (13 comments)
George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" 1946 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2079477 - Jan 2011 (1 comment)
George Orwell - Politics and the English Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=997940 - Dec 2009 (14 comments)
Orwell: Politics and the English Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=636287 - June 2009 (14 comments)
Orwell Essay: Politics And The English Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=272211 - Aug 2008 (11 comments)
Politics and the English Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=115519 - Feb 2008 (5 comments)
Apparently those are called “eggcorns.” I learned that from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33756402 (thanks to HN user InGoodFaith).
My personal contribution:
You know what they say - the cookie doesn't crumble far from the apple tree! *laughs*
Why is 1984 so acclaimed? Its style is boring and unimaginative. The characters' psychology is exaggerated and totally unbelievable (I remember the scene in the cinema at the beginning at the book, and, at the end of the book, the absurd post-torture behaviour). A large part of the story was ripped off Zamyatin. Some parts of the story are okay, but other parts are ridiculous... When I read that the nice old librarian was in fact the young chief of the counter-intelligence service, disguised in order to catch dissidents, I burst out laughing: imagine Beria tailing dissidents in the street, or Edgar Hoover disguised as a plumber to install illegal wire-tapes!
Orwell's crude style and stories are perfectly fine for a grotesque parody like Animal Farm. But I can't think of 1984 as a good book, not even close. I suppose it was successful because propaganda likes crude style and stupid stories, and 1984 was largely seen as a propaganda tool.
I will also recommend https://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~pam/papers/goodwriting.... (Samuelson 1984); her six rules are
Have a Point
Get to the Point
Adopt a Structure For Your Analysis That Will Allow You to Integrate [relevant items]
Adopt a Measured Tone
Be Concrete and Simplify Whenever Possible
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
I wish all this was true. All it shows is what worked for Orwell. We will never know about the countless authors who imitated this style and failed. My experience has shown there are no canonical writing tips or advice. What works for one author or instance will fail when applied differently. There are too many variables for writing success or failure to be distilled to some rules.
orwell: knocks on hemingways door
hemingway: opens door - "who the hell are you?"
orwell: eric blair (real name)
hemingway: so f*cking what?
orwell: oh, i'm also george orwell
hemingway: why the f*ck didn't you say so! come in, and have some whiskey!
seems to have shown old ernest in a better light than i have often seen him.
anyway, it is from "galactic pot healer" where people put words through something like google translate and then back again as a game. this was of course way, way back before the web or pcs. the book is both very funny and very sad.
He says he first realized that writing could be learned and taught when he was young. His first boss, a newspaper editor, made annotations on King's draft of an article with red ink. Mind blown. Why doesn't everyone teach writing this way?
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7737518-look--here-s-a-tabl...
Christopher Hitchens wrote a book on Orwell and spoke at length about his rules for writing on many occasions. You can also see the rules being applied in his written and verbal work.
He gave me various simple rules, of which I remember only two: “Put a comma every four words,” and “never use ‘and’ except at the beginning of a sentence.”
Although, in contemporary scientific writing, passive is used and in some areas preferred.
It boils down to who's the subject/agent of the story, what you are trying to convey, and what you are trying to "stress" or emphasize. You, as the writer, get to control 1) who's story it is and 2) what should be emphasized.
For example:
- I wrote this software program - This software program was written by me
It would be silly to say that sentence one is better because its written in the active voice. What we need is context. If we want to tell a story through the lens of the software program itself and emphasize it being written by me (i.e. "I"), then I would argue the second sentence does a better job. Passive wins. In contrast, if we want to write a story about the perspective from me (i.e. "I") and emphasize the software program (which is in the "stress" position), then then the first sentence takes the cake. Active wins.
[0]: https://georgegopen.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Why-the-P...
Entomologists write "bees carry pollen". Botanists write "pollen is carried by bees".
"Linear regression models were fit by first checking the normality of residuals" for some old-timers sounds better than "we fit linear regression by first checking the normality of residuals." But what is the difference between the two sentences? In the first case, it may sound like you, me and someone else's cousin would have gotten the same results; in the second, that we did those analyses and got those results. If others were to perform the analyses, who knows what would happen. But it is just an impression, isn't it?
I prefer the active voice to the passive voice, although, especially in solo papers, repeatedly writing "I did," "I carried out," "I tested," sounds a bit vain after a while.
As author and teacher of good writing Giuseppe Pontiggia said, to be a good writer you need to develop a good ear for words and sentences.
Or should I say contemporary scientific writing is made hellish to read by this…
I will say that advice is dangerous to some degree because using things like contrasting adjectives/adverbs can be an effective way to surprise the reader. But anytime you can just use a better verb/noun you probably should.
If you're a beginning writer, following them is a great idea. In part because you can't go too wrong with them, even if there are situations where breaking them is better. They are really expressions of deeper truths about the art. Even the greatest rule-breakers of great authors follow them more often than not.
An inexperienced writer should follow them until they understand the deeper truth behind them. Once you know why the rule was worth stating, you know when the rule should not be applied.
Crashed means you don't need to specify it was quick?
I would regularly say: "I ran home as fast as possible", while a native speaker would just use: "I rushed home".
On the second reading, my first sentence may read: "That's one of the examples that give out non-native speakers".
It's definitely helpful to practice these rules, unless you don't have access to these tools.
analogies drive me mad. i don't mind metaphor so much.