Five Rules

I often refer to Ernest Hemingway masculine declarative sentences. I’m almost finished reading The Sun Also Rises one of his masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. Rather than embracing the flowery prose of the literati, he chose to write simply and clearly. With that in mind I’ve come up with five ways to emulate his style.  Let’s see what he can teach us about effective writing.

1. Use short sentences.
Hemingway was famous for a terse minimalist style of writing that dispensed with flowery adjectives and got straight to the point. In short, Hemingway wrote with simple genius.  Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence prowess was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words: For Sale: baby shoes, never used.

2. Use short first paragraphs.
See my opening.

3. Use vigorous English.
Vigorous English comes from passion, focus and intention. It’s muscular and forceful. It’s the difference between putting in a good effort and trying to move a boulder…while sweating, grunting and straining your muscles to the point of exhaustion!

4. Be positive, not negative.
Since Hemingway wasn’t the cheeriest guy in the world, what do I mean by positive? Basically, you should say what something is rather than what it isn’t. Stating what something isn’t is counterproductive since it directs the mind in an opposite way. Even a word like inexpensive, can have a more positive tone; instead use economical. Another example; the word error-free can be stated as either consistent or stable.

5. Never have only 4 rules.
Although Hemingway only had 4 rules for writing, they were those he was given as a reporter at the Kansas City Star in 1917. But, as any writer knows, having only 4 rules isn’t really possible. So, in order to have 5, I had to dig a little deeper to get the most important writing tip and this quote says it all: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”