Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Guidance in Writing Prose

Suggestions for Writing Good English [1]

I wonder what to do in order to bring my essay up to the mark. Could you please make some suggestions?

I am afraid I can’t make suggestions. Just now I am too busy with other and more strenuous things to be very fit for literary suggestions. I can only say generally avoid over-writing; let all your sentences be the vehicle of something worth saying and say it with a vivid precision neither defective nor excessive. Don’t let either thought or speech trail or drag or circumvolute. Don’t let the language be more abundant than the sense. Don’t indulge in mere clever ingenuities without a living truth behind them. I think that is all.

14 June 1935