George Orwell’s 6 Questions And 6 Rules For Writing

Discover George Orwell’s six questions and six rules for writing. Learn timeless advice from one of England’s most influential authors.

George Orwell was born on 25 June 1903 and died on 21 January 1950. The acclaimed English writer is the author of the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and the allegorical novella Animal Farm, which examine the dangers of totalitarian rule. Together, these books have sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author.

Here are George Orwell’s six questions and six rules for writing.

George Orwell’s 6 Questions And 6 Rules For Writing

Six Questions For Writers

“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”

Six Rules For Writing

“One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

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.”

Taken from George Orwell’s essay ‘Politics and the English Language’.

by Amanda Patterson

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