Why These Rules Still Work
George Orwell published 'Politics and the English Language' in 1946, in a Britain exhausted by war and propaganda. The essay is mostly a complaint about the prose of pamphlets, leaders, and academics — language that hid more than it revealed. Near the end, he listed six rules for writers who wanted to think more clearly.
The essay outlived its political moment because the rules were not really about politics. They were about the basic relationship between thought and language. A vague sentence usually points to a vague thought. A precise sentence forces precise thinking.
Fiction writers tend to assume the rules apply only to journalism. They do not. A novel built on stock metaphors and passive constructions has the same fog as a memo. The rules cut through the same way.
Rule One — Avoid Stock Metaphors
'Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.'
The danger of a familiar metaphor is that the writer stops thinking about it. 'She wore her heart on her sleeve' no longer means anything — it has been reduced to a sound the reader skims past. The image is dead, but the writer left it on the page anyway.
The fix is not to avoid metaphor. Metaphor is one of the most powerful tools in fiction. The fix is to make a new one — or to choose the plain literal sentence over a tired figure.
A useful test while editing: read each metaphor aloud. If the image still surprises you — if you can see it — keep it. If you read it and feel nothing, replace it or cut it.
Rule Two — Short Words
'Never use a long word where a short one will do.'
'Utilize' instead of 'use.' 'Commence' instead of 'begin.' 'Endeavor' instead of 'try.' Latin-rooted long words sound more formal, but formality is not authority. They make the sentence harder to read for no payoff.
The exception, which Orwell understood: sometimes the longer word is the more precise one. 'Begin' and 'commence' are mostly synonyms, but 'ruminate' is not 'think.' Reach for the long word when it carries a meaning the short word cannot. Reach for the short word every other time.
Rule Three — Cut Every Word You Can
'If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.'
This is the editing rule. The first draft adds; the second draft subtracts. Words like 'really,' 'very,' 'just,' 'actually,' 'quite,' and 'somewhat' weaken almost every sentence they appear in. Filler phrases — 'at the end of the day,' 'in terms of,' 'the fact that' — should be cut on sight.
A working test: read a paragraph, then read the same paragraph with twenty percent of its words deleted. If it still says the same thing, the deletion was correct. (For the broader revision process, see how to revise a first draft without losing momentum.)
Rule Four — Active Voice
'Never use the passive where you can use the active.'
The active voice is where the actor performs the verb: 'Anna closed the door.' The passive moves the actor to the end or drops it entirely: 'The door was closed by Anna,' or just 'The door was closed.'
Passive constructions are not always wrong. They are right when the actor is unknown ('she had been followed'), when the actor is irrelevant ('the book was published in 1946'), or when the writer wants to emphasize the object over the actor. They are wrong when the writer reaches for them out of habit, drains the energy of the scene, and leaves the reader unsure of who did what.
For a practical field guide to spotting and fixing passive voice in fiction, see Fix Passive Voice in Fiction Without Sounding Mechanical.
Rule Five — Plain English Over Jargon
'Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.'
Jargon hides in fiction more than writers expect. 'Liminal space' instead of 'doorway.' 'Affect' instead of 'feeling.' 'Modality' instead of 'way.' The Latinate or technical word feels intellectual, but it pulls the reader out of the story and into the writer's vocabulary.
The exception, again: when the precise word is the foreign or technical one and the everyday equivalent would lose meaning. 'Saudade' cannot really be translated. 'Photosynthesis' cannot be replaced with a plain English word that means the same thing. Use the precise word in those cases, and trust the reader.
Rule Six — Break Any Rule Before Being Barbarous
'Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.'
This rule rescues the other five from becoming a cage. Orwell knew that rigid adherence to any prose rule produces sentences that are technically clean but spiritually dead. If following the rule would make the sentence ugly, awkward, or false, break the rule.
This is the rule that separates good editors from rule-followers. Anyone can apply rules one through five mechanically. The skill is knowing when a sentence wants the long word, the stock phrase, or the passive — because the rhythm or the meaning demands it.
How to Use the Rules in Fiction
Apply the rules in revision, not in drafting. Drafting is a generative act; the rules will paralyze a first draft. Save them for the second pass.
Read each scene twice. The first pass: are the metaphors alive? Are the long words earning their length? Are there filler words to cut? The second pass: is the energy in the scene where the action is, or has the passive voice drained it?
Then a final pass for rule six: have I followed the rules into a sentence that sounds inhuman? If so, put back what the rules cut.
The rules are not a style. They are a way of checking that the prose is doing what the writer thought it was doing. Once that test is passed, the writer can write in any voice. (Character voice exercises for fiction writers is the companion essay on voice itself.)