Avoid fancy words. Avoid the elaborate and pretentious. Do not be tempted to use a twenty-dollar word when a dollar word is handy, ready, and able. If you admire fancy words, if every sky is beauteous, every girl curvaceous, every smart kid a prodigy, then you will have a problem with this rule.
What is wrong, you ask, with beauteous? There’s nothing wrong, really with any word—all are good, but some are better than others. Your ear will be sharpened by reading the work of good authors. Until your ear can guide you, here is a helpful guide. If you want to use a really elegant, twenty-dollar word, be sure it is standing alone and lovely, in just the right place.
-adapted from Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (2000)
What is wrong, you ask, with beauteous? There’s nothing wrong, really with any word—all are good, but some are better than others. Your ear will be sharpened by reading the work of good authors. Until your ear can guide you, here is a helpful guide. If you want to use a really elegant, twenty-dollar word, be sure it is standing alone and lovely, in just the right place.
-adapted from Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (2000)
TED talks about Creativity and Creative Writing
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