Pink's tongue-in-cheek guide for writists...

Shamelessly pinched off the interweb cos it made me giggle Happy writings...

Caveat emptor.
Carpe diem.
O si villi, si ergo, fortibus es in ero.
Et tu, brute.

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They are old hat)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc...
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalise.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson one said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know!"
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words that necessary; it is highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice it to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high-noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

Hmmm. Yes, I'm sure it's true - I've violated all 23 of these a billion times & "then some!" I guess I'm up a creek without a parachute. (Now ain't that a possum in the hog waller?)

This list reminds one of an old fashioned schoolmaster, complete with gown, with cane in hand. Was this intended?

Lincoln
The clue to the intent is in the title... 'tongue in cheek', ie in fun...

PinkAngel
Quite So! As was mine!

Lincoln
Ahhh and here was me thinking you had missed the irony

Having said that, the cane isn't such a bad idea

24. Never use imperatives, especially those that contradict themselves.
25. Avoid lists.

Love it, Pink! A wonderful satire of pedagogical hypocrisy. Thank you.

A favourite cartoon of mine showed Julius Caesar lying against a marble pillar, blood seeping from multiple stab wounds. Looking at him with a puzzled expression was a very cute, harmless little sausage dog.
"Et tu, Brute?"

Hehe absolutely!!

I did think you might see the funny side of this too TEM

When you read it carefully it is very witty.
However the use of the word 'sucks' suggests U.S. origin; and they don't get irony, do they?

No! Why is that I wonder? On the whole its best to stick to sincerity with most Americans! Of course there are exceptions. Rick understands irony as he is used to it!!