KISS

Short sentences. Simple words. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly and be interesting when you do: avoid clichés like the plague, and remember that mixed metaphors are the black kettle in the glass house. Structure your paragraphs so that they flow. If you can't say a sentence aloud in a single breath, as slowly as you would if delivering it to an audience, then it's too long. The sentence I just wrote is about the outer limit, for example. If you have to think about how the emphasis would work within the sentence when delivering aloud, restructure. Good architecture requires no signage: classically constructed buildings direct function through form. Good writing is the same.

Unbelievably, I have been published a few times, so this is not from a perspective of *total* ignorance.

Posted By: thesmallchap, Mar 1, 09:48:00