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A boy once wrote into a magazine to say that he had just read a book by a famous explorer, and that it was the most boring book he had ever read! “Yet some writers can make things seem interesting and exciting even when nothing is happening,” he went on. “Why is this?”  The editor explained that it was probably because the famous explorer had used clichés, that is words or phrases that have been used so often, they have become stale, and no longer stimulate the imagination.  A writer depends on arousing the reader’s interest from the first few words, and if he starts by using long words where short words would have done, very few readers will stay with him to the end of the first paragraph.  A situation, action, or the appearance of a character can be described in many different ways, and, nearly always, the shorter, plainer or subtler descriptions are the best. It is no help to the reader if a particular word has no meaning for him, or, worse still, if he has to go to the dictionary to find out!  Using clichés is the lazy way of writing, taking expressions that someone else has already invented and arranging them in an order that suits your own particular article or story. It might almost be called Collage Writing, or, from the effort involved, Writing By Numbers!  Be original always. Describe a thing as it appears to you, not as fashion says it should be, or as tradition says it was. There may be nothing new under the sun (I think this is almost a proverb by now, not a cliché!), but as long there are different people, there will always be different ways of saying it.  If you think the setting sun looks like a blood orange, or the rising sun looks like a sliced lemon, then say so. If you think there’s no point in mentioning the sun at all, then don’t mention it!  Helping the reader to see old, familiar things in a newer, different way, is sometimes no more that an offbeat, fresher way of examining them.  As Holmes said to Watson, “You see, but you do not observe.” and it is by this observing that we begin to see things newly, as if we were seeing them for the first time, and discover the unnoticed magic that is in the world.  Writing has many rules, but the three most important are these:  1. Tell is as you see it.  2. Use your own words.  3. Break all the rules if you think it will benefit what you are writing!