Rules for Writers

Courtesy of those who know a thing or two on the subject . . .


Don't write about Man, write about a man

-- E.B. White


Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words as we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.

-- Theodor Seuss Geisel


Never use the passive when 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.

-- George Orwell


Get black on white.

-- Guy de Maupassant


A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

-- Thomas Mann


The first discipline is the realization that there is a discipline – that all art begins and ends with discipline – that any art is first and foremost a craft.

-- Archibald MacLeish


The adjective is the enemy of the noun.

-- Voltaire


There is but one art . . . to omit. O' if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knew how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson


If you keep working, inspiration comes.

-- Alexander Calder


The more particular, the more specific you are, the more universal you are.

-- Nancy Hale


Follow the accident, fear the fixed plan – that is the rule.

-- John Fowles


Don't say the old lady screamed – bring her on and let her scream.

-- Mark Twain