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‘Beware the octopus that has sung its swan song.’

 “Get one’s meanings as clear as one can through pictures or sensations. Afterwards one can choose– not simply accept – the phrases that will best cover the situation.”

In other words, get the movie in your head right and your thinking clear. Visualise every detail as you write. Or, fall foul of the octopus that has sung its swan song, a howler of a mixed metaphorical creature Orwell ridicules for our instruction. 

Orwell’s six rules for writing to cut out “humbug and vagueness.”

• Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive voice when you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

More in George Orwell, Politics and the English Language