Make Your Novel Readable by Laurence R D'Orsay

Make your novel readable. Make it easy to read, pleasant to read. This doesn't mean flowery passages, ambitious flights of pyrotechnic verbiage; it means strong, simple, natural sentences.

- Laurence D'Orsay

---

About the Author

Laurence R. D'Orsay (8 November 1887–November 21, 1947) was an US author of several instruction books for writers, a critic and literary agent in Los Angeles, California.

Laurence Rex D'Orsay was born Leopold Alexander Thalmayer in Vienna, Austria in 1887, the son of an Austrian father and an English mother. He arrived in the US in 1916, where he changed his name to Laurence Thalmore. Since the mid-1920s he published his fiction and non-fiction in diverse magazines under the pen name Laurence R. D'Orsay, e.g. in Weird Tales, The Writer's Monthly, Writer's Digest.

Laurence D'Orsay was married to Nordica Abbott (1902–1969); they had a son, Kenneth Edward D'Orsay (1923–1972). He died in Los Angeles in 1947.

The author Henry Kuttner worked for D'Orsay's literary agency in the mid-1930s, before selling his first stories. Another well-known author, Leigh Brackett, began her writing career by attending a writing course with Laurence D'Orsay.

---