How To Write More Clearly: Advice From George Orwell

Most clichés aren't worth using; most writers use clichés because they either think that they sound more intelligent using them or they're simply being lazy, using what George Orwell called "ready-made phrases."

Some bad clichés:

par for the course
light at the end of the tunnel
stay within ourselves
time will tell
at the end of the day

Rather than succumbing to the temptation to just toss in yet another empty and often vague cliché, try to follow the following advice on writing more clearly, freshly, and originally, courtesy of Orwell:

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connexion between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear." [Emphasis mine]