Seven tips for writing from Nobel Literature and Booker Prize Winner V.S. Naipaul
V.S. Naipaul, author of A Bend in the River and A House for Mr Biswas, and a Booker Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature winner, on how to write:
- Write sentences of no more than ten to 12 words
- Make each sentence a clear statement (a series of clear linked statements makes a paragraph)
- Use short words—average no more than five letters
- Never use a word you don’t know the meaning of
- Avoid adjectives except for ones of colour, size and number
- Use concrete words, avoid abstract ones
- Practise these rules every day for six months.
Taken from Intelligent Life‘s series on how authors create their distinctive styles.
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