Excerpts from Masterpieces

Dissections and Specimens from literature

Questions Writers Should Ask Themselves

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In Pol­i­tics and the Eng­lish Lan­guage, George Orwell writes: 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?

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